When to Break Boundaries - Acharei Mot - Mythic Torah

Welcome back to Mythic Torah, my regular article investigating monsters, heroes and gods in the weekly Torah reading. This week's reading is Acharei Mot, the 6th reading of the book of Leviticus, that deals with the ritual of the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, as well as laws of forbidden sexual relationships.

The Death of Nadav and Avihu

When I started this Mythic Torah project back in January, I knew that some weeks would be easier to deal with than others. I knew that Genesis would be plain-sailing, and could finish off my year of Mythic Torah with a bang. Exodus felt pretty comfortable, and I was pretty sure I had a lot to say about most of Numbers and quite a few parashiot of Deuteronomy.

It was Leviticus that really scared me.

How was I going to find something mythological to write about every week when the theme, over and over again, is sacrifices, purity and the priesthood?

While I've managed to find something to say so far, there was always a beacon of hope, one story that I knew I'd be able to write about - the death of Nadav and Avihu, two of Aaron's sons.

But when Shemini rolled around 3 weeks ago, that relates how they died, I found I had another idea altogether, and so held off the discussion of their deaths until this week's parasha of Acharei Mot, which literally means after the death and tells about the first Yom Kippur ritual designed to cleanse the sanctuary.

What I find fascinating is that this week's parasha seems to disagree with Shemini about the cause of their death.

In Lev 10, we read that Nadav and Avihu came into the Tabernacle to offer 'strange fire', fire that was unauthorised somehow (though exactly what the problem was is a little unclear). In this week's reading of Acharei Mot we get a rather different take (Lev 16):

א וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָֹה אֶל-משֶׁה אַחֲרֵי מוֹת שְׁנֵי בְּנֵי אַהֲרֹן בְּקָרְבָתָם לִפְנֵי-יְהוָֹה וַיָּמֻתוּ:
ב וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹוָה אֶל-משֶׁה דַּבֵּר אֶל-אַהֲרֹן אָחִיךָ וְאַל-יָבֹא בְכָל-עֵת אֶל-הַקֹּדֶשׁ מִבֵּית לַפָּרֹכֶת אֶל-פְּנֵי הַכַּפֹּרֶת אֲשֶׁר עַל-הָאָרֹן וְלֹא יָמוּת כִּי בֶּעָנָן אֵרָאֶה עַל-הַכַּפֹּרֶת: 

1] The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they came close to the Lord and died. 2] The Lord said to Moses: ‘Tell your brother Aaron that he is not to come whenever he chooses into the Holy behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die. For I will appear in the cloud over the ark cover.

Thus the problem was not that Nadav and Avihu did something ritually wrong, but that they came too close to God, and in doing so they were consumed by God's fire.

Throughout the Bible we see that coming too close to the divine can lead to death (e.g. Uzzah in 2 Samuel 6 who touched the Ark of the Covenant accidentally and was killed by God, or the repeated statement that you cannot see God's face and live, as in Exodus 33:20).

This boundary line between human and divine is stressed to be extremely important and is in fact often policed by what we might call monsters.

Both the Garden of Eden and the Ark of the Covenant are guarded by Cherubs (that I wrote about here), four-faced composite creatures that are part human and part animal, that are about as far from a cute fat baby with wings as you can be. The Cherub at the gates of Eden is imagined literally, while the ark's cherubs are sculpted in the manner of a footstool for God, but the placing of these creatures, standing at the border between the human and the divine, sends a message. This is a border which must be protected and kept firm - as Nadav and Avihu discover, crossing that line has severe consequences.

But who is being protected? Is God being protected from our presence? or are we being protected from divine fire?

Genesis 3 suggests that the Garden of Eden has to be protected from us, to stop human beings becoming too much like God through eating of the tree of life. But Acharei Mot suggests that the protection is for us as well, that stepping into God's realm is too much for human beings to survive.


The Monster Polices the Borders of the Possible
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen wrote a defining article on monster theory (which I have referred to here), and his 5th thesis is that monsters police the borders of society, and have the function of showing the problem with curiousity, encouraging people to stay within the bounds of normal culture and normative behaviour. Monsters as diverse as Frankenstein's and the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park reveal this trend in our literature and culture - don't be too curious, don't push the boundaries too much, don't try to 'play God'.

So is the Torah trying to say the same thing? Is Nadav and Avihu meant to be a cautionary tale about innovating in Jewish rituals?

Intuitively, I think we understand what it might mean to get too close to the divine and be consumed by God's fire. We've met people who seem to have been totally consumed by religious fervour, who maybe grew up secular but have discovered religion and thrown themselves completely into it. There is a danger there to be avoided, a fire of the divine that can destroy us.

But the second verse of Acharei Mot shows that this is not just a cautionary tale, warning us to never touch the holy, but rather an introduction to how we can touch the divine safely. Aaron can't enter the Holy of Holies whenever he wants - God's presence makes it too dangerous - but Aaron can do so when the time is right, on Yom Kippur.

A safe time and place is given for the divine and the human to meet.

Nadav and Avihu died because they crossed boundaries that should not have been crossed, but Acharei Mot doesn't want us to fear crossing borders altogether. In fact, we are mandated to reach out to the holy, to connect with God, but not to do so without preparations, without proper thought and intention.

I think Jewish law, halacha, is the same way.

We could permit everything, declare that there is no such thing as non-kosher food, or that prayer is no longer required, but this seems to me to be crossing boundaries between the sacred and the secular, blending distinctions that are important, useful and perhaps even necessary.

But we shouldn't let this fear of breaking boundaries prevent innovation where innovation is necessary, just that we should approach this crossing of borders with respect, with the right preparations, and nevertheless with a certain trepidation.

When Judaism innovates to include women in ritual practice, for example, or to allow for same-sex wedding ceremonies, I believe we are following the mandate to push boundaries, and in doing so we can bring the human and the divine together without getting burned.