- Don't try to get to close to God.
The word "close" is used after Nadav and Avihu are made dead by a fire from YHVH that he sent forth to consume them. It will also be used in a later parashah (acharei mot) which seems to be positioned right after that story, which reaffirms that getting too close could be deadly.
- Fear God
As soon as Nadav and Avihu are burned to death by God's fire, (God was in His tent at the time), Moses cries out a warning to the family members of the deceased, telling them not to move, nor mourn, lest God cast His fire upon them as well. This is because:
- God is inconsistent on how He rewards and punishes.
As we read in the Book of Exodus, practically every command that God gave to Moses, Moses would improvise and do it differently. "Raise your staff over the rock to bring water" and Moses smacks the rock with his staff to bring water. But later "Speak to the rock to bring water" and Moses again smacks the rock, and he gets punished (according to many interpretations) for not following orders exactly. This is also a view of why Nadav and Avihu were burned to death, because they improvised and brought a fire that God didn't ask for. "I didn't say 'Simon says!'".
- Don't show up before God inebriated.
Right after God burns the sons of Aaron alive, Moses warns Aaron not to show up before God after drinking intoxicating wine, lest God kill him. There is a Midrash that says that this was why Nadav and Avihu were burned to death, even though they got no warning, no instructions, and their father and uncle, who stood near them, didn't have a problem with it. In fact, most of this chapter is all about how God will kill you., as a priest, if you mess up in any way. Apparently, the priestly writers wanted to show how dangerous of a job that they had. This corresponds with the legend that the Talmud relates, that when the Sadducean High Priest would go into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, God would kill him, and this repeated year after year. While this is likely a polemic, it is also the context that was taught to the people about the priesthood - it was a very dangerous job that served a very unpredictable God.
- Human sacrifice is not always a forbidden thing.
As we read in Judges about Jephthah offering his daughter as an olah (burned offering), and God said nothing, here we have two sons of Aaron burned by the fire of God who were never called "sinners", or having erred. A Midrash tells us that Moses told his brother that he had a prophecy that the two righteous one of Israel would be sacrificed for the sanctification of God's Place, and he had thought that it would be himself and his brother, but after Nadav and Avihu died, he discovered that they were the two who merited such a fate. Again, this is a Midrash to explain why the good had been burned alive by God.
- Don't eat the wrong foods.
Right after all of the killing and burning and the threatening and the warnings of death, we get to the discussions about what animals one can eat, and what cannot be eaten by anyone in Israel. God is apparently deadly serious about this, although the Rabbis understood the inference as one would be whipped and pay a fine rather than be burned to death! But the odd thing is this: we don't know what many of those animals really are! While translations will sometimes use a known name, many of the names have no major consensus. And remember, God is deadly serious about your eating habits! To get around this problem, the Rabbi instituted a rule: if you don't have a family tradition to eat a certain animal (usually this has to do with birds), then you don't eat it. Sometimes for this reason, some Chassidim don't eat turkeys. This is one of the reasons that some people complain, "The Bible says that bats are birds!" Not only does it not say that, there are two animals with different names that are considered to be flying rodents, and only one of them we call a bat! In reality, we really don't know. Rabbi Slifkin has written several books on this topic, trying to use biology and exegesis to determine what animals are being mentioned (I recommend "The Camel, the Hare, and the Hyrax").
Imagine what could happen to you if you even unintentionally messed up?
[Shudder]
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