Parsha Shemini שְּׁמִינִי

Our parsha Shemini opens with a very dramatic scene—after seven days of celebrating, it is time to dedicate the mishkan.  Aaron, the high priest, is finally to have a starring role.  And what happens?  Moshe tells him, “Approach the altar, and prepare the sin offering.”  What might this mean?  On the one hand, it might seem like a simple instruction to begin the ritual.  But some commentators infer from the statement, “Approach the altar” that Moshe is trying to get his brother to overcome his reluctance to approach the altar.  In other words, Aharon hesitates.  He is fully aware of what his duties are, but he isn’t sure of himself. So why might that be? 

One possible explanation is that Aaron is truly awestruck—he is so overcome with the enormity of his role, with the prospect of being so close to the Divine Presence. The rabbis compare his feeling in that moment to the nervousness a bride feels when she is about to marry a king.

But — of course — there’s another interpretation of Aaron’s hesitation. According to some, as Aaron approached the altar, he saw the decorative horns at the edge of the mishkan.  Those forms reminded him of the sin of the Golden Calf, and he felt ashamed of his role in that terrible betrayal.  As a result, Aaron wasn’t sure that he deserved to go to the altar. Moshe’s saying “approach” would seem to be letting his brother know that God (and Moshe) have forgiven him.

But we know that the narrative doesn’t stop there. On what should be a day of great celebration, two of Aaron’s sons are struck down by God in the Temple.  No one knows for sure why God exacts such a harsh punishment, though there are many theories that try to explain it.  But what interests me here is the contrast between Aaron and his two sons Nadab and Abihu.  How unlike their father they are.  Where Aharon hesitates, Nadab and Abihu are almost too eager to offer a sacrifice.  And so, they light a “strange fire,” the Torah tells us. A strange fire that was not commanded by God.  And they pay the ultimate price for that.

There seems to be a lesson here for us:  perhaps that lesson is that good leaders (and wise people in general) need to learn to find a balance between the reticence of Aaron and the impetuousness of his two sons.  We all need to learn when it is appropriate to jump in, and when we might want to wait.  Think for a moment. Are you more like Aaron, or more like his two impetuous sons? Maybe you tend to err more on one side or the other, to jump into action too quickly or to doubt yourself and hesitate.  I don’t mean to suggest here that there is one right way to conduct yourself. It’s probably true that different situations call out for different types of responses. In an emergency, for example, I think we’d want Abihu and Nadab.  But even though we still have so many unanswered questions about parsha Shemini, we can nonetheless glean a life lesson that can benefit all of us.  Let’s learn to evaluate a situation so that we know whether we should take action or wait for others to invite us in. ​