Once we get into the third book of the Torah, we don’t hear much about the personal lives of the Israeliltes.
And yet, at the opening of Parshat Aharei Mot, we are presented with the death of Aaron’s eldest two sons. It’s a frustratingly bland description,
God spoke to Moses after the death of Aaron’s two sons who died when they drew too close to the presence of Adonai.
Leviticus 16:1
Hey Moses …Oh by the way, your two nephews were just consumed by fire … Now go remind their father, Aaron, how to handle the sacrifices more carefully.
The commentators have come up with all sorts of theories about what the sons did to warrant this punishment. Usurping their father’s power, being drunk, sexual inappropriateness … but the simplest answer is that they just didn’t follow the protocols for the sacrifices correctly.
But whatever the sons’ crime, the punishment is particularly harsh. Perhaps they were young and inexperienced. Perhaps they were exuberant about their new duties. Perhaps they just missed a step and made an innocent error.
The Torah doesn’t specify so we’re left to make sense of a punishment that doesn’t really seem to fit the crime.
Rabbi Jonathan Sack z”l whose book, I Believe, has been guiding me through this year’s Torah portions, once again brings a novel explanation.
The priests have a unique role. They are the guardians of the rituals that transcend time and location. Unlike the kings of Israel who have political power and are linked to specific times and places in history, the priests are meant to faithfully preserve the rituals from one generation to the next.
A king can act spontaneously in the moment. But the priests cannot.
Rabbi Sacks teaches. “The priest was a guardian of order.”
In our modern world, we don’t like limits. We want to believe that “the sky is the limit” that there are “no limits” on what we can achieve and accomplish, that we can “defy gravity”. We may fear that limits, well … limit our potential.
But Judaism teaches that there is a healthy place for limits. Limits are not to be feared but to help us appreciate our abundance. The truth is our days are limited, our resources are limited, even our energy and our intelligence have limits. For better and for worse, limits are part of the human experience.
The trick will be to know when limits apply. When is the time for preserving tradition and when is the time for pushing boundaries?
I appreciate that Rabbi Sacks z”l doesn’t teach that everything in Jewish life must be preserved exactly as it was. He praises both Moses and King David for acting spontaneously and bringing innovation.
Jewish history is one of change and evolution. We wouldn’t be here as a Jewish community in the United States if not for some exceptional adaptations in Jewish tradition. But just because many elements have changed doesn’t mean that all things are open to change. Aaron’s sons learned the hard way, sadly.
We too can take care in our own Jewish practice. We can find rituals that are meaningful partly because they remain unchanged, and we can find other rituals that have become even more meaningful because of a new interpretation or an updated application.
Like so much of Jewish life, rituals are meant to be personalized for our own spiritual needs. How we personally connect to and find meaning in ritual makes all the difference.