Torah Portion Shemini
Leviticus 9:1-11:47
The text of each week’s Torah portion is very full and very long. With such a wealth of material, it is natural to focus on the biggest and most obvious subject. This week, that focus would be on the section of dietary laws found at Leviticus Chapter 11. Or so you might think.
This portion does include the laws of kashrut, which Jewish people have followed and wrestled with ever since. Of the various complex rules and reasoning, Frank H. Gorman, Jr. of Bethany College points out: “No single theory will account for all the rulings found in this chapter.” (HarperCollins Bible Commentary)
One small point: Beyond setting out the rules, the Torah specifically prohibits four animals by name: camel, rock badger, hare and pig. These are specified because a clever advocate might figure out a way to argue these animals to the dinner table. (Note for those who do not keep kosher: While there’s no problem finding recipes for the other three, including camel, I was unable to find a single rock badger recipe anywhere.)
But, all that being said, the dietary laws are not the focus today.
Instead, there is this passage in the middle of the portion:
Now Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu each took his fire pan, put fire in it, and laid incense on it: and they offered before the LORD alien fire, which He had not enjoined upon them. And fire came forth from the LORD and consumed them; thus they died at the instance of the LORD. (Leviticus 10:1-2, JPS Translation)
“Alien fire” is elsewhere translated as “strange fire” or “unholy fire,” that is, fire not from the divine flame from the altar. The point is the same: this was not the exact kind of fire and not the exact kind of offering that God had authorized. Zero tolerance. The punishment for breaking the rules was swift and fitting: Nadab and Abihu were instantly killed, and having broken the rules by fire would die by fire.
One commentary draws this conclusion: “Crimes of trespass upon the sacred are automatically fatal.” (Jewish Study Bible). Gunther Plautt comments: “The priestly ideal is one of conformity, not of innovation.” (The Torah: A Modern Commentary)
The dietary laws are important and challenging, but the issue of conformity versus innovation is universal, in matters sacred and secular. Do you follow the letter, do you follow the spirit, or do you break away and try something new? And if you choose to go your own way, what is the price to pay?
There is not a single movement—religious, political, social, cultural—that has not faced that moment. For that matter, there isn’t a family that hasn’t known a member who broke away. Even in this portion, it is not some strangers who challenge God; it is Israel’s first family, the son’s of Aaron, the nephews of Moses.
This portion contains a dire warning to those who might consider messing around with orthodoxy: Conform or die. And it is true that there are innovations that are no more than novelties and gimmicks, motivated mostly by ego and arrogance. Yet over the centuries, Jewish thinkers and leaders have dared to innovate, have dared to offer a strange fire, even as they paid a price. For many of us, some of those innovations have made all the difference.
Bob Schwartz
