Finally a passage we can ponder on.
English: Aaron’s Sons, Nadab and Abihu, Destroyed by Fire; Leviticus 10:2; 1625-30 engraving by Matthäus Merian (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There are two main issues here.
Nadab and Abihu, Aaron’s Sons
The secular way on this is to think that the two may have put something into the fire offering that made the pan explode. Supposedly it was only incense when they were not supposed to.
Also perhaps they fooled around with what may have been a staged ceremony. Smoke and fire were the tools by which those who worked in the inner tabernacle claimed God came down to the Israelites. By mocking or fooling around with this, the two brothers put the cult’s credibility under threat, which was based on the fear of people from metaphysical forces. Given such immense threat and the investment of Moses into building the cult, mocking it and fooling around with the basis of its source of authority (god in the smoke and fire pillars), are very serious issues, especially if others had noticed it. Sacrificing people as close to Moses, as Aarons sons would continue the fear of this God or the people in charge of this cult. It was a gamble, because it could have likewise easily split the cult. Perhaps it was after all an accident. In this case Aaron would be more likely to not rebel. Still an answer for this accident would have been needed, because these two brothers were deemed righous priests, hence they are said to have done something wrong for which God punished them (perhaps as noted in deed they put a dangerous ingredient in the pan).
English: The Dead Bodies Carried Away, c. 1896-1902, by James Jacques Joseph Tissot (French, 1836-1902), gouache on board, 8 1/8 x 10 5/8 in. (20.7 x 27 cm), at the Jewish Museum, New York (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Aarons response is interesting. He says nothing. This shows great restraint of his pain and anger here versus his brother Moses, who set up the whole sacrifice and fire cult. Many would say “It is your fault, you set this whole thing up, we played along with you and now this, my sons get killed.” He also knows perhaps that his sons may have been silly at times, this not fully being able to blame Moses. And he knows that if he speaks, the cult could split, end and perhaps he himself and Moses may end up dead if the tabernacle itself becomes questioned. If he says nothing Nadab and Abihu become the ultimate final sacrifice. The temple is so holy it can even consume the princes of the cult, thus showing that Moses and Aaron have supposedly no power over it, as it would be against their interests to kill their own family off-spring.
The Dietary Laws
Just in time for Pesach we have the passage that includes the majority of the dietary laws to the Israelites in the desert.
Philo of Alexandria and Maimonides both have indicated centuries ago that the reason behind these is for two reasons, self-restraint and health. The first is to teach in a physical way that there should be limits to one’s desire, and to accept both that certain animals are off limits in terns of purity and secondly that one is to eat special foods during certain times. In both Judaism is not asking for a self castigating and self punishing experience. No one except on days of significant mourning and on Yom Kippur ought to be hungry. Judaism only asks for some choices, and these are principally based mostly on health reasons:
- washing of hands is a self evident requirement these days
- pigs are carriers of cestodes (tapeworms) and trichinella (roundworms)
- rats were thought to be instrumental to the spread of the plague
- we know that migrating birds like pelicans, storks, and seagulls (some say swans are also included) are in particular carriers of bird flu
- rabbits spread rabbit flu also known as tularaemia
- selfish can frequently carry bacterial infestations
- snakes, hawks, tigers, cats, frogs, in fact all carnivores are forbidden
- we are given the choice of goats, cows, chicken, and sheep mainly, interestingly also some locusts, while no other insect.
- Not to mix the life giving milk with meat (symbolic)
- Laws of inspection of the animal to be consumed.
- Laws on water.
Some restrictions are not so easy to explain why camels, donkeys and horses are not to be eaten. Perhaps these animals who carried loads and helped humans deserved a better faith than for example cows, though oxen are known to be a labour animal as well.
No vegetable or fruit is forbidden. Whilst Jewish people are not told not to eat any animals, like Jain, who do not eat anything that could become a tree or flower (esp. seeds) and only eat the fallen products of a tree for example, the easiest way to observe the Jewish dietary code is to become vegetarian. Those who wish not to confuse the timings between milchig and fleischig, and who have not access to kosher animals can simply eat anything vegetarian. Personally I have met many vegetarians amongst Jewish people. Many name the laws on Kashrut as part of them becoming vegetarian, if not because it is easier, not the least because it made them think about animal consumption.
Jewish people have been attacked for their kashrut choices, and frequently in history the forbidden animals were are used to humiliate and ridicule Jewish people.
There are some issues regarding containers and kitchen utensils. Most kitchens prefer a full and permanent segregation. But yet again, it may be easier for some to simply have a vegetarian kitchen, as in deed many Jewish public places with limited space do these days.
Haftarah
Samuel II 6:1-7:17
Another innocent, Uzzah is killed, for no big apparent reason. But I would argue the same as in Aarons sons case, that the sanctity of the ark must be maintained cost it what it may. If it becomes possible for an ordinary to touch the ark unblemished, even for good reasons, that is to safe t from falling because the oxen pulling the cart on it run wild, then the ark is nothing else but some furniture on a cart. But the cart is supposed to be a divine object. Thus in order to maintain the status, especially if the reaching was witnessed by others, Uzaah, like Nadab and Abihu, must die.
Later in the passage, we experience god as demanding a temple (7:4-7). The way God comes across here is very human. “The words of the Eternal came to Nathan: Go tell my servant David: Is it you who shall build me a temple to dwell in. I have not had a temple from the time I brought the people of Israel out of Egypt to this day. I moved about in a tent and a tabernacle. In all my wanderings with the people of Israel I have not complaint to any of the leaders. .. that they did not build me a cedar temple.”
Why would God need any house? Why would it be only be one place? Here we experience both a justification for the building of a temple, but also an instruction from a very self-centred universe. In my opinion for the world and universe as we know it today to be ruled by a God that only dwelled in the desert in the tabernacle and in a tent, and who begs for a temple of cedar in Jerusalem appears rather small . God ought to be all-mighty, all powerful and omni present, as they say, so why these specific places. Here this force is very much tied to certain location, as in deed it was, as the cult tied to sacrifices and the play of fire and smoke in which he supposedly appeared.
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