26.2 Par’shah Sh’mini

[alon]

This week’s readings:
Date of reading: 14 April 2018/29 Nisan 5778
Name of Par’shah: Sh’mini (Eighth)
Par’shah: Leviticus 9:1-11:47
Haftara: 2 Samuel 6:1-7:17
Brit Chadashah: Mark 7:1-23; Acts 5:1-11, 10:1-35; 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1; Galatians 2:11-16; 1 Peter 1:14-16
D’rash: There is a common thread in our par’shah and haftara. In the par’shah we read:

Leviticus 9:22-24 (ESV) Then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them, and he came down from offering the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings. And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

So the offerings presented by Aharon for himself and for the people were accepted by God in a very dramatic way. But soon after, Nadab and Abihu get into trouble:

Leviticus 10:1-3 (ESV) Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them.  And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.  Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron held his peace.

It is entirely possible, even probable that they were trying to give to the Lord an extra honor. This was common practice to honor pagan gods of the time. Some extra incense to honor their God. The phrase “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified” tends to lend itself to this interpretation. Our God is to be sanctified, set apart from all other gods and their ways. So this act at the time His ways were being established for His people to worship and themselves be sanctified, set apart from the world was an egregious sin. We are to do as He says, when He says, and how He says.

We also see in our haftara where the Ark is returning to Yerushalayim. Uzzah reaches up to steady the Ark, again with good intentions. But God had said not to touch it, and so he died. And later we see Melech Dovid celebrating, and God through Nathan tells him of the covenant He will make with His faithful servant, David.

And then the “New Testament,” and fast forward to today. Many today celebrate their freedom to eat whatever they want. Of all things, bacon is one of the biggest objections Christians have to doing what God told them to do. And frankly, it is one of the things I miss the least now that I took the plunge (tevilah) into Messianic Judaism. But people are determined to eat their bacon, because Jesus came and told them they could. Right:

Mark 7:1-4a (ESV) Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem,  they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.  (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders,  and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. [see note below]

Strongs:
wash- βαπτίζω baptizō- bap-tid’-zo- from a derivative of G911; to immerse, submerge; to make whelmed (i.e. fully wet); used only (in the New Testament) of ceremonial ablution, especially (technically) of the ordinance of Christian baptism:—Baptist, baptize, wash.

This hand washing was due to a perceived need before eating tahara (ritually clean, kosher) food, a person must perform Netilat Yadayim in order not to defile it and thus himself. This was a well established “tradition of the elders,” practiced with respect by most Judeans. And there is nothing wrong with following traditions which do not contradict scripture as long as we are aware of their origins and reasoning behind them.

Yeshua does say that those particular Pharisees neglect to validate their tradition:

Mark 7:8 (ESV) You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

Yeshua then states what the church misinterprets to their own ends:

Mark 7:15 (ESV) There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”

The church gets this confrontation all wrong. The early church fathers did not want to understand Jewish customs, rather preferring to interpret this for their own ends. And they had the same problem we do with other pagans- they liked their bacon! As probably did the church fathers themselves. So ignoring context they interpreted this as Yeshua declaring all foods clean. He did no such thing.

What Yeshua was saying is there is no commandment on to ritually wash your hands; and nowhere did it say eating kosher food with hands not ritually cleansed defiled us or made us tumah. So they were nitpicking, finding fault where there was none. Yeshua’s disciples probably did n’tilat yadayim anyhow; just not like they did.

We do Netilat Yadayim as a matter of halacha. Since we do not have a mikvah we see this as important- a sort of tevilah for the hands. It is also part of praying without ceasing. It will not however make treif foods ritually clean! Nor did Yeshua say they were clean in any regard.

The dietary laws for Israel are part of what marks us as set apart for our God. So whenever those who would call themselves by His name violate those laws, they tell the world there is no difference in them and us.

If your bacon is that important to you, buy beef bacon. It’s better anyhow. But pork, rabbit, shellfish … all the treif foods of are still treif today. So why doesn’t God strike us down for our transgression? I think the answer lies in a daily Jewish prayer:

“Master of the world, It is not on the basis of our righteousness that we lay our requests before Your presence, but because of Your great mercies.” In a word, “grace.”

[alon]

After discussing this with my rabbi, there is another, more disturbing possibility. To quote Rav S:

"Actually, they brought esh zera! Esh אֵשׁ means fire and zara זָרָה means foreign, but it carries a strong nuance with it. For example, if we say avodah zera it means idolatry. Literally "worship foreign.” So, this was a foreign fire. In ancient times the pagans also would light fires and bring them before their gods. They were polytheists, so they would light a fire for one of their gods but then use that same fire for the rest of their gods. Nadav and Avihu decided they would use the same fire for YHVH as was used for the pagan gods thus making God not holy. How do we do know this was the problem? Because the very next verse tells us! It says HaShem consumed them, then:

Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke of when he said:
“‘Among those who approach me, I will be proved holy!”"

To maintain such a fire would have been very difficult to do in a nomadic camp where families lived openly and very close together. It would have required co-conspirators. This raises the very distinct possibility that a cult had survived or formed- a cult that touched the very family of the Cohen Hagadol! So whether they used an "eternal flame" (think RC) or they just placed incense on the firepan as they did when worshiping pagan gods, their intentions were anything but pure or honorable in this scenario. They intended to make El Elohe Yisroel the same as the pagan gods of Mitzrayim. Common, dependent on politics amongst the gods to maintain His position of supreme authority. This would explain the extreme reaction God had to their act of disobedience. And frankly, I find this to be the more likely scenario that their actions were the result of being in a cult which worshiped the old ways.

As we see throughout the history of the Jewish people, these cults never seem to go away, and they even gain and hold sway at times. And the punishment of the nation at these times is severe. So it is likely that most, if not the entire camp knew of this cult. Aharon himself appears to know why his sons were devoured by flames. God could not allow such an egregious act to go unpunished before the people. If no one had known, it would have made more sense just to kill them off privately. But the openness of a nomadic lifestyle and  public nature of their execution makes it likely their perfidy was known. As well the passage makes it clear they had just fallen into the hands of a very angry God! A God Who is slow to anger, but whose anger is a terrible thing. So this had been building up to a climax. They had probably been warned, perhaps by Aharon himself. We are not told this, however it is in God's character to warn people before judgement falls on them. Regardless, the probability is that the actions of Nadav and Avihu were more likely done in direct rebellion, possibly as part of a cult worshiping the pagan gods of either Mitzrayim or of he lands they now camped on, or both. 

Dan C

[alon]

This short midrash is from Mark:

Nadav and Avihu, Uzzah, and the man collecting sticks on Shabbat could represent  three levels of "hiding" sin.

The man collecting sticks on Shabbat was, blatantly flaunting the law, his transgression right out in the open. This isn't really considered hiding. Today we can see this with the homosexual community who have churches and feel they can serve G-d in this manner. Some of today's mainline denominations have followed suit.

Uzzah can represent outward appearances of righteousness that hides impure motives or behaviors. One can see this with so-called "healing" ministries. I read something on that last week, and much of it is designed to increase donations. One of those articles said that as a "disciple" in training he was told it was okay to fudge a little on a healing to increase people's faith. Many may tell you that, "Yeah, there are some things that don't seem right but look at all the people G-d is healing through this man or woman!"  First, they don't grasp the fact that motives do matter a whole lot to G-d (Mattityahu 7:21-23) and second, you don't build up people's faith with deception. That's like building on their foundation (Yeshua) with wood, grass or straw (1 Corinthians 3:10-15).

Nadav and Avihu represent high leadership harboring serious sin. A “strange fire” used to worship other gods might have been kept burning secretly in some small container hidden from everyone, even Moshe and Aharon. It could have even been hidden within the L'vi'im community surrounding the Mishkan. Today, who knows what the catholic church is hiding. Most leadership in the major denominations have skeletons in their closet. At low levels, the Masons outwardly honor G-d and the Bible, but at the high levels they are satanic.

MRD