Strange Fire?

Sermon, Shabbat Shemini 5784

Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha

We have now officially begun our Passover preparations, which include finding the Haggadahs we so carefully put away last year, cleaning out the old stuff from our refrigerators and freezers, and gasping at the extremely high prices the local markets charge for Passover supplies.  And of course, dusting off Pesach jokes from recent years.

For example, there’s the question of just what you call someone who derives pleasure from the bread of affliction?  That’s right, a matzah-chist.

Now, just in time for Passover this year, and most unexpectedly, the number one streaming series on Netflix this week is not a reality TV show on finding love, nor a cooking show, nor a detective or murder show, nor even a teen drama with supernatural overtones.  No, the number one show on Netflix this week—actually, for a few weeks now—is called Testament: the Story of Moses.  Sophie and I tried to watch it one night last week, and found it to be pretty weak: it’s not exactly a drama, since it has “experts”, that is, talking heads opining about Moses and the Exodus story. But it’s also not quite a documentary, since it has dramatizations of the events of the truly greatest story ever told that are odd and stiffly staged, with mediocre CGI recreations of the high points of the story, then back to the expert commentary.  I’m not sure exactly what they were trying to convey here, but I do know that we didn’t make it through two full episodes before falling asleep, and we tried on two consecutive nights. 

Look, I’m glad it’s popular, especially this time of year.  We have had to depend on the rather hokey and profoundly outdated Cecil B. DeMille Biblical epic The Ten Commandments film with Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner for almost 70 years—three score and ten, if you are keeping track in Biblical terms in your scorecard—or the animated Prince of Egypt movie that was made in 1998 by Dreamworks; that one is over 25 years old now.  There was a wretched version of the story called Exodus: Gods and Kings with Christian Bale that filmmaker Ridley Scott made 10 years ago which was, to be kind, unwatchably bad; and besides, it starred a guy as Moses who was named Christian.  With that limited repertoire of Pesach films to recommend, when this mini-series popped up on our Netflix menu as the number one show in the country I had to view it.

And this one?  Not great, nor even good.  We found it pretty hard to stay awake. Which is a shame, and, frankly, somewhat startling. 

I mean, it’s astonishing how many terrible films and TV shows are made from fantastic Biblical stories.  I find it puzzling that producers and directors, given great plots, terrific characters and memorable dialogue in the original sources somehow can’t make a decent movie or TV series out of these extraordinary stories that shaped all later literature, not to mention fostering three major religions and most of western civilization. 

Look, the Exodus story is terrific.  It has everything you could want in a dramatic epic, including even a bit of sex appeal in the Moses-Tzipporah romance.  It’s got the struggle for freedom from enslavement and oppression, the rise of an extremely reluctant and unexpected hero, a powerful, evil and deceitful king defeated by a resistance movement, a series of supernatural plagues, miraculous redemption, and finally a national covenant proclaimed and Jewish identity affirmed.  Everything you could want in a feature film or streaming series, if only they could manage to capture it. 

The Exodus story can be seen as the struggle between the ancient pantheon of corrupt gods and a new, unified moral God, and there are twists and turns in the plot enough to satisfy any great dramatist.  It’s a magnificent story… and the movies and tv shows they make from it are, generally speaking, pale imitations of the original.  This Netflix series is not an exception.  Testament: the Story of Moses’ popularity is rather shocking, in view of the fact that everyone seems to think that religion is fading away in America these days.  Yet many people are glued to their streaming devices watching a less-than-compelling telling of this extremely ancient tale in a not-very interesting way.  Somehow, viewers seem to still appreciate a rip-roaring Biblical classic even when it’s poorly made.  I guess you can’t always watch Vanderpump Rules or Kardashian re-runs.

Of course, the Exodus story doesn’t end with leaving Egypt and achieving freedom, nor does it finish at Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments.  It continues on the Israelites’ journey to commitment and holiness, with the creation of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, our people’s first temple.  And in order for God to be present in that Tabernacle priests must be ordained to fulfill the rites and rituals that connected our ancestors with God.

Which brings us to this week’s portion of Shemini, including as it does the beginning of the rituals of sacrifice that connect the Israelites to the divine Presence.  It all starts well, with the final ordination rituals, the anointing of Aaron and his sons as Kohanim, high priests, and Shechinah filling the Tabernacle immediately.  Adonai is in God’s temple; all is right with the world.

But then things take a terrible turn.  The story in this week’s Torah portion is challenging indeed.  Just after the ordination of the priests who are to serve in the Tabernacle in the Wilderness and the beginning of the rituals that are designed to bring God’s presence, the Shechinah, into the midst of the people of Israel, Aaron the High Priest’s eldest sons, Nadav and Avihu, make a ritual offering of something identified as eish zarah to God, something we are told that is “not commanded.”  And God is very much not pleased.  The two sons are immediately slain, apparently in such a way that they are instantly killed while their clothing remains intact.

This shocking incident impacts Aaron, the High Priest, brother of the leader Moses and central figure in the rituals of the Tabernacle.  Here he has just celebrated the eighth day of their inauguration into the Priesthood, and seemingly out of nowhere they are suddenly killed by God.

In our portion, Aaron is notified of the death of his children.  The Torah continues, "Then Moses said to Aaron, ‘This is what the Lord spoke saying, ‘Bikrovai ekadesh v’al pnai ha’am ekaveid,’ vayidom Aharon: Through those that are near to Me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified;’ and Aaron was silent."  (Leviticus 10:3)  It is a profoundly tragic and heartrending scene.  No one should have to experience the death of a child, let alone at a moment of great pride and celebration.  The comfort that Moses, and God, offer is small indeed.  Aaron’s only response is silence… perhaps the most profound way to experience loss.

Now this portion has long been explored to try to determine just what Nadav and Avihu did, how these two priestly sons erred and why they were destroyed for doing so. What constitutes “strange fire”, eish zarah?  Explanations have ranged from the possibility that they were drunk—there is a prohibition given shortly thereafter on priests drinking before performing rituals—to the idea that they were offering a pagan incense sacrifice to some other god to the possibility that they just exceeded their authority and took it upon themselves to make an unauthorized offering.  We don’t know exactly what they did wrong, except that it was an unsolicited act.  And the Torah does go to great pains to delineate all the rituals in incredible detail. 

It is intriguing to speculate what the Torah might mean here; are we to learn that every mitzvah in the Torah must be fulfilled super scrupulously or we, too, might be turned to ashes?  Are we to understand that those called to serve a priestly role must be held to much higher standards than mere ordinary Israelites?  Are we to wonder if perhaps these priests were simply too young to appreciate the gravity of their task of bringing holiness to the people, of almost literally bringing God to the earth? 

Or maybe we might look instead at just what constitutes eish zarah, strange fire, today.

There is a midrash from Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer on the relationship between “man,” which in Hebrew is ish, and “woman” which is ishah. In Hebrew, these terms share the letters alef and shin, which together form the word “eish” meaning “fire.” The difference between these two words is that “man” contains a yod and “woman” contains a hei. Put those two letters together and you form the word “yah” meaning God.  The midrash teaches us that God is saying “if you go and observe My commandments, My name will be with you and will save you from trouble; but if My name is not between you, then you will be like fire — and fire eats fire,” (Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer, “Horev” Chapter 11) meaning we will destroy one another.  Or perhaps—we will offer strange fire, and be destroyed.

I’ve been thinking about the true purpose of ritual—or prayer, of services, of meditation, even of orderly festivals like Passover.  Why do we have them?  Why do we need them at all?  God is everywhere, and we are busy people, right? Why do we need to sing the same words, and often the same melodies, read the same passages, do the same rituals?  Why is it important to do any of that?

I think that perhaps the answer lies in this disturbing story of Nadav and Avihu.  If we fail to ground ourselves spiritually, we put ourselves in danger of pursuing eish zarah, the kind of strange fires of passion and belief and insanity that seem to be perpetuating themselves in our society, and in our politics.  If we don’t turn to God regularly and respectfully, we run the risk of losing our way completely, of becoming strange fire ourselves, of believing the crazy conspiracy theories afoot everywhere these days, of chasing dangerous chimerical combustion. 

It is when we choose to seek God, and God’s way, with sincerity and consistency that we find the Shechinah is always present, and available to us. 

May we remember to do so on this Shabbat of Shemini, and always.