Courage
A Message for Parashat Shemini 2018
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The festive atmosphere in the Mishkan
on its initial day of operation was unexpectedly marred by the deaths of Nadav
and Avihu. Aharon’s sons “brought forward alien fire before God” (Vayikra
10:1), and were swiftly met with their demise:
And a fire came out from before God and consumed them, and
they died before God. (10:2)
Moshe then turned to Aharon and said:
This is what God spoke saying, “Through those close to Me I
shall be sanctified, and in all the people’s presence shall I be honored.” (10:2)
The Hakhamim were sensitive to Moshe’s
rationale and imagined a more detailed conversation:
Aharon
was standing in astonishment…Moshe entered and appeased him, saying to him:
Aharon my brother, God told me at Sinai: “I will sanctify this house (the Mishkan)
in the future, and with a great person I will sanctify it…It now appears that
your sons are greater than you and me, as the house (the Mishkan) was
sanctified through them.[1]
God had in fact said of the Mishkan,
“And I shall meet there with Bnei Yisrael and it shall be
consecrated through My glory” (Shemot 29:43), and according to the Hakhamim,
His sanctity was finally manifested in the Mishkan through the
deaths of Nadav and Avihu.
The fact that God’s “sanctity” and “honor”
emerged from the deaths of Nadav and Avihu is clear from the text of the Torah
and the Hakhamim’s elaboration. Its logic, however, is absent. How did death,
of all phenomena, demonstrate God’s unique essence at that time?
The well-known psychotherapist Viktor Frankl
distinguished between two types of people: pacemakers and peacemakers.
He explained that whereas pacemakers confront us with meanings and
values, peacemakers merely alleviate the burden of confrontation. He
suggested, for example, that Moshe acted as a “pacemaker” when he confidently
presented the Torah to Am Yisrael. He confronted them directly with
God’s ideals and values at Har Sinai and spared nothing by means of
appeasement.
Frankl further explained that God’s
leadership in the midbar, in the form of the amud anan (pillar of
cloud), may serve as another prime example of a pacemaker’s actions. God
led the people through the wilderness from the front, as He trailblazed
a clear path for them to journey upon. If His presence had instead dwelled in
the middle of the people it would have “clouded everything” and led them
astray. The cloud would have ceased to be a leader and become a fog. God’s
leadership of Am Yisrael, then, was driven by the clear mission of a
pacemaker.[2]
God’s fiery consumption of Nadav and Avihu
was perhaps another demonstration of His presence as a pacemaker. A
peacemaker would have pardoned them for entering an “alien fire” into the Mishkan.
He would retract in order to avoid conflict and maintain the equilibrium. A
pacemaker, however, understands his true role as a leader, and courageously
steps forward to maintain an ideal – as painful as it may seem. God
demonstrated His “honor” and “sanctity” at the Mishkan by dealing with
Nadav and Avihu in a characteristically “pacemaker fashion,” as the painful
deaths of Aharon’s sons afforded the nation a brief glimpse of His true
essence.
Our lives present us with the constant
decision to act either as a “peacemaker” or a “pacemaker.” Joseph Fabry
characterized the difference:
Today’s
peacemakers think not in terms of ideals but of normalcy; they trust not in
hopes and dreams but in statistics and opinion polls. They talk about the
“average” person instead of the unique individual…In an effort to “adjust to
the facts of life” they accept the standards of the enemy they are fighting.
He noted that man’s search for meaning in
life forces him to operate as a pacemaker. The envisioned life of the
peacemaker –the “average” person – will never yield meaning because “average
meaning” does not exist.[3]
Searching for meaning in our own lives
requires a careful analysis of God’s many ways. His actions at the Mishkan
regarding Nadav and Avihu guide us to the difficult decisions of a pacemaker.
Standing up for an ideal is often fraught with conflict and ill-will. Fearing the
potentials of tension and pressure, the peacemaker retracts. Understanding his
role as a leader, however, the pacemaker acts.
[1] Sifra 17:21.
[2] Viktor Frankl, Psychotherapy
and Existentialism (New York, NY, 1967), pg. 11-12.