Fire Control
By Harav Shlomo Aschkenasy
We are coming out of Pesach after long weeks of meticulous preparation climaxed by the holiday of self-restraint. Even those who spent these holy days in a five star hotel in some exotic vacation spot, certainly were very careful not to eat gebroks and have only shmurah matzos. Some of us even wore a kittel at the Seder just as they do on Yom Kippur. It is a truly exhilarating experience from which we can walk away thinking, Now we are holy. Oh it’s true. The seeds of holiness have been implanted but we have a long way to go before we get the final product. The seeds of holiness need to be cultivated so that they blossom, grow and flourish.
I didn’t know five-star hotels were about restraint. Actually, Pesach’s holiness derives from destroying the Chametz, but no longer any need, because We The Enlightened now invented a loophole unknown to Chazal (e.g., Chulin 4) of “selling” everything to a Goy.
We count up! We make an effort to do acts which show that we want to really improve. We don’t merely “count the Sefirah.” Chassidim of yore had astonishing expectations and grandiose plans for the Sefirah. They said that if you let a day of Sefirah go by without doing something which is an expression of the middah of that day, it is as if you haven’t counted and the bracha made is tantamount to a bracha levatala.
Keeping halacha is “merely” and a “Bracha levatala” to boot?!
Every day has its avodah. The holy Arizal revealed that every day has special energy which we can tap into and use to improve our middos. Every day has its exercises which we can do to strengthen our spirituality so that we are fit to undertake the responsibilities of kabbolas haTorah. Sefarim say that the “forty-eight ways to attain Torah” which are enumerated in the sixth perek of Pirkei Avos correspond to the days of the omer. The 49th day is designed for summary and consolidation.
Arizal’s “energy exercises” and revelations are for all Hamodia’s readers?
We have our work cut out for us. But we also have a stockpile of siyatta diShmaya available for use. As Chazal say, Yagata umatzata, “If you struggle, you will find.” Finding means that you have come upon a metziah, much more than you expected and bargained for. You will attain unexpected heights and reveal the hidden spiritual treasures of these special days.
The rabbi falsifies the Torah. “Yagata umatzata etc.” refers to remembering one’s Torah study, and not the Arizal’s “Avoda”.
Parashas Shemini teaches us a similar lesson in an awesome way. But before we say anything about Nadav and Avihu we have to preface it with a principle I learned from my Rebbe Rav Chaim Shmulevitz, zt”l.
He taught us that whenever we learn a parashah in the Torah (including Torah shebaal peh – Oral Torah) we should not take it at face value, in simplicity. The Torah isn’t merely a report; it is as it is called – Torah, to teach a lesson. It isn’t just a picture or painting of a scene; it’s a vehicle to transmit a message. The most stark example of this is when Hashem says to Avraham that “I will go down” (Bereishis 18:21) to see what was happening in Sedom. Although for Hashem there is no such concept as “going down”, Rashi says that the Torah writes this to instruct us how judges should behave. Before passing judgment they should see things for themselves.
So, Hashem didn’t go down to Bavel; did Yaakov and his sons go down to Egypt, at least? I want to believe Rabbi Aschkenasy’s own personal, later choices make him misremember what he heard (I didn’t check Rabbi Shmuelevitz inside). Or maybe the parentheses above regarding “Torah sheba’al peh” are Rabbi Aschkenasy’s own addition. What does he do with all the “Giluy Milsa” from pesukim in Shas?
Moshe Rabbeinu testified that Nadav and Avihu were the greatest people in Klal Yisrael. What did they do wrong? Chazal give various explanations, none of which shed light in an understandable way as to how such great people could sin in such a way. One thing is clear: that it was their unprecedented height of sanctity that brought on their demise. It might be because they were so great that the smallest deviation was too much for them.
Wait, I thought it’s called Torah, to teach us lessons?! So, the only lesson is that holy sins at the holy hotel stem from our “unprecedented height of sanctity”, which we fix by imaginary “Avoda” we attribute to the Arizal during the Omer?
The sins Chazal ascribe to them aren’t to be taken at face value, as Chazal say about Reuven and David Hamelech. Yet there was a whisk of something asunder, which Chazal understood as a message for us. If such great people could be mistaken on their level, we certainly should double check ourselves even if we are on a “spiritual high”.
While the Torah is “explicit” regarding David and Reuven, Chazal explain it differently. But the Torah is vague regarding Nadav&Avihu, while Chazal elaborate. How can we then water down Chazal, as well?! Be a consistent Karaite. And if Chazal say something is halachically out, is that, too — how does he put it? — “a whisk of something asunder“?
How can ex-Litvaks fall so low as to imagine “spiritual highs”, a universal human experience everywhere and always, indicate anything Ultimate? Since Chazal’s words are too rarified for the Hamodia reader’s delicate ears, let’s censor them out altogether; being the same reader self-deluding himself (herself, more likely) with Arizal “Avodah”.
The clearest guidelines for that is to verify that whatever we do is within the framework of halachah. Because even for the holiest, the end does not justify the means.
The Chasidiot entertains the knuckle-headed notion that “because they were so great the smallest deviation was too much for them“. But, the Torah has no “Ends” and no “Means” (with an added framework of inexplicable, insipid restrictions). No, rather the holier a person, the more zealous about all of God’s word!
In light of this we can appreciate the fact that the Torah’s restrictions against inebriation prior to doing the avodah follow the tragedy. Intoxication with love of Hashem may not come from outside sources. The Torah itself should be our soul source of inspiration.
Does Rabbi Aschkenasy mean “sole”? Are mixed hotels with Yichud stumbling blocks (like Ginos on the mo’adim), too, “outside sources”? “Intoxication with love of Hashem” is all?
On the heels of this command, Aharon receives the code of kashrus for animals. Chazal say that one should not say, “I detest non-kosher animals.” On the contrary, we should say, “I’d love to eat them but what can I do, Hashem prohibited them.”
Rav Chaim Shmulevitz commented that Chazal aren’t merely referring to culinary tastes and preferences. They meant even in the spiritual dimensions. If someone abstains from non-kosher food because he comprehends its spiritual damage, he is not properly fulfilling the command. That is why Aharon was chosen as the conduit for these laws. In order to impress the message upon us not to make the same costly mistake his children made. Our decision to do or not to do should be based solely on the will of Hashem and His decree. May we always have the presence of mind to abide by it no matter how fired up we may be.
End.
No depth; he speaks out of both sides of his mouth.
Enough said.