The Paradox of Nadav and Avihu

The Paradox

Parashat Shemini (Leviticus 9:1–11:47), read on April 26, 2025 (28 Nisan 5785), explores the consecration of the Mishkan (Tabernacle), the tragic deaths of Nadav and Avihu for offering “strange fire,” and the laws of kosher animals and ritual purity. Leviticus presents the Tabernacle and its rituals as a radical affirmation of life over death. Yet, it is there that Nadav and Avihu are struck dead by God, and their father, the high priest Aaron, remains silent.

Leviticus is Dedicated to Affirming Life

Jacob Milgrom, a renowned Leviticus scholar, authored three magnificently profound and detailed commentaries and the book Leviticus: A Book of Ritual and Ethics. He viewed the Tabernacle as a mirror of God’s ordered creation, progressing from the cosmos to animal life and culminating in human stewardship. Far from a death cult, Leviticus regards all life as sacred. Only cud-chewing, cloven-hoofed herd animals like cows and sheep are kosher, symbolizing completeness and human care, while wild animals, lacking such investment, are non-kosher (Leviticus 11) and distinct. They are not evil, but part of God’s created order, separate from the Tabernacle’s sacred purpose.

The Tabernacle is a contained world where Israelites connect with God’s presence and learn God’s vision for a world full of life. Here, matter and the divine spark combine to resist forces of decay and death. Sacrifices in Shemini atone for disruptions to this sacred order, restoring balance and educating Israel about God’s design. The rituals enabled Israelite communion with the Creator, fostering peace with each other and their neighbors. They also inspired humanity and guided Israel to act as good stewards of the living order.

Mary Douglas: A Three-Tiered Structure of Sanctity
 

Mary Douglas, in a way compatible with Milgrom’s understanding, identified a deep structure to the orderly world of the Tabernacle. She describes the Tabernacle as a three-tiered structure: the outer court, open to all Israelites; the Holy Place, for priests; and the Holy of Holies, accessible only to the high priest on Yom Kippur. The Holy of Holies, an empty space, underscores God’s transcendence. Communion with God involves transcending materiality to connect with the divine spark within each person. Douglas extends this structure to Israel as a nation of priests (outer court), Aaronic priests (Holy Place), and the high priest (Holy of Holies). In sacrifices, flesh is less sacred, organs are ritual, and blood is holiest, sprinkled for atonement. I propose a fourth tier of sanctity: the gentile nations, created by God and all children of Adam and Eve. They are inspired by Israel as a “light to the nations” (Isaiah 42:6).

The Nadav and Avihu Episode: A Crisis of Sanctity
 

This ordered sanctity sets the stage for the crisis of Nadav and Avihu’s actions. The episode of Nadav and Avihu (Leviticus 10:1–3) highlights the Tabernacle’s sanctity. Sanctity requires separation—day from night, humans from animals, Israel from nations. Nadav and Avihu’s “strange fire” (אֵשׁ זָרָה, esh zarah), possibly an unauthorized ritual, risked desecrating the altar’s divine flame, kindled by God (Leviticus 9:24).

God’s lethal response clarifies Mary Douglas’s three orders of holiness: all Israel, the Aaronic priesthood, and the high priest. These are not about superior power or rank but harmonious roles. The flame of the altar was lit once by God and sustained by adding wood, not by introducing outside fire. Fire is a prominent symbol in the Tanakh; God’s first act of creation separates light from dark;  from the flame that burns but does not consume, God first spoke to Moses. Nadav and Avihu’s act disrupted the Tabernacle’s holy order. The fire that consumed them was a shocking divine response.

This response was akin to the slaying of Egypt’s firstborn (Exodus 12:29), by His own action. Leviticus does not present a broad human mandate to kill other people for ritual errors. Instead, it generally prescribes atonement through animal sacrifices, rejecting human sacrifice or capital punishment for ritual errors. Priests bear elevated duties, not superiority, at great risk. Aaron, the high priest, is commanded not to mourn publicly (Leviticus 10:6–7), prioritizing the life-affirming Tabernacle. His silence (Leviticus 10:3) is profound: “וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֶל-אַהֲרֹן, הוּא אֲשֶׁר-דִּבֶּר יְהוָה לֵאמֹר, בִּקְרֹבַי אֶקָּדֵשׁ, וְעַל-פְּנֵי כָל-הָעָם, אֶכָּבֵד; וַיִּדֹּם אַהֲרֹן” (“Moses said to Aaron, ‘This is what the Lord meant: Through those near to Me I show Myself holy, and gain glory before all the people.’ And Aaron was silent,” JPS, 1985). Aaron’s restraint models submission to God’s will, in his commission as a High Priest to help connect srael to the divine. Leviticus restricts high priests, among all priests, from approaching the dead or engaging in mourning. A high priest is not part of a death cult; rather, he has supreme duties to symbolize the value of life over death. He carries out rituals in a microcosm of God’s vision for a world where life, structure, and organization resist entropy, disintegration, decay, and death.

A Compassionate Reinterpretation: The Kabbalistic View
 

The severity of Nadav and Avihu’s punishment prompts Jewish reflection. A Sanhedrin was deemed severe if issuing a death sentence once in seventy years (Mishnah Makkot 1:10). When the Egyptians drowned in the Sea of Reeds, God rebuked angels for rejoicing, affirming all creatures’ sanctity (Megillah 10b).

One strain of Kabbalistic tradition reimagines Nadav and Avihu’s fate with compassion. They were not defiant. Instead, their fervent desire to cleave to God, known as devekut, consumed them. Their souls burned with divine yearning. In a moment of ecstatic union, they transcended their bodies to join the divine. The Zohar (Acharei Mot, circa 57a) portrays their deaths as a mystical ascent: “בגין דהוו חמימו בלבא דילהון לאתדבקא ביה, אזלו רוחייהו מעלמא” (“Because their hearts burned to cleave to Him, their spirits departed the world”). Their error was not arrogance or defiance. Later mystics, like Rabbi Isaac Luria, suggest their souls achieved divine unity, as “they sang with their souls in God” (paraphrased, per Lurianic tradition).

Conclusion: Holiness In the Service of Life
 

Leviticus is a radical affirmation of life over death. The Jewish tradition has embraced the value of life from the outset. That is why, thousands of years after the Nadav and Avihu episode, we Jews read the story with shock and empathy for Nadav, Avihu, and their silently grieving father. Living Judaism is a creative force that seeks the best way to understand its story and make the most of it as we endure and move forward. The fact that we Jews are still disturbed by the fate of Nadav and Avihu, still empathize with their devastated but silent father, is a tribute to the ultimately life-affirming nature of our Tradition—from its beginnings – including the book of Leviticus.