The third book of the Torah, Leviticus, is titled Vayikra in Hebrew. This means “calling,” because God called (addressed) Moses. The first section of this book is also called Vayikra.
Within is told the story of the death of Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu. They brought “strange fire” into the most sacred section of the portable Tabernacle that accompanied the former slaves as they wandered in the desert.
Life left these two men as they sought the ultimate connection to God. They created a fire like that of God. They died when a fire from heaven struck them. Like the burning bush which beckoned Moses, the bodies of these very spiritual brothers were not consumed by this fire. These fires were of the same burning Celestial origin.
The fire from God is a physical manifestation of a bridging between the earthly and the heavenly realms. It is the closest thing to 100% spirituality that can appear in our material universe. Only God is 100% spiritual. God does not interact with our corporeal universe. Such an interaction would add temporal and spatial ingredients to God, thus limiting eternity and infinity. This cannot happen.
God inspires each of us to involve a God-like soul in life to complete the work of creation. This process brings the terrestrial and ethereal powers together. The purpose is that the two influences work together to repair an imperfect world. Our earthly nature provides structure and challenge to the heavenly; and the spiritual adds expansiveness to the limitations of the material.
Nadab and Abihu employed an otherworldly light to become their own souls. At that moment, they had transcended God’s creation. They were no longer a part of this world. They lost any need for their physical manifestations: their bodies. They may or may not have fully realized what becoming 100% spiritual entailed. Emulating and getting intimate with God can lead to an outcome whereby a mortal existence is superfluous.
Like a magnet whose pull gets stronger as it approaches an iron object, the soul flows into spiritual purity when corporeal limitations fail to hold it back. It is a natural consequence of intimate proximity to and absorption with the first light that encompasses eternity and infinity.
This may very well have been the brothers’ intention. In the previous Book of Exodus, God informs Moses that “No man can see My Face and live.” Seeing God’s face is leaving the material world.
Though we can and should be spiritual (just as God is spiritual), we cannot be 100% spiritual and still retain any physicality. To accomplish the purpose of wedding teh earthly and the heavenly, we must maintain both. God’s purpose for Creation and Humanity requires leaders like Moses to be themselves and teach others how to bring God-likeness into our individual and collective lives.
Trees branch to increase exposure to sunlight. Animals intuitively seek residence in the environment most conducive to survival. Gravity seamlessly causes masses to draw together. Water seeks its own level. So, too, will a soul endeavor to become part of the purely unadulterated spiritual world. Our physicality inhibits this conjoining by the adhering bond of the earthly the heavenly powers.
Aaron’s sons sought fusion with God. That is not a bad thing, and they were not punished. By reaching the highest possible spiritual heights, they left behind the need and ability to utilize all the potentials that humans are given.
Their actions in the Tabernacle opened their souls to the ultimate nature of being. The fiery light of perfect harmony transported them to the heavenly realm. Exposure to the pure light of God’s essence, the attachment to physical bodies dissolved. They leapt to God. The “strange fire” brought by Aaron’s sons stripped away the barriers, illusions, and limitations that hide the stark reality of God.
Had Moses seen the Face of God, the result would have been the same. His migration to Heaven would preclude him from living the purpose to which he had been born. His task was to teach people to distinguish between the sacred and the impure, the unclean and the clean, the good and the evil. To show us how to implement these teachings in our minds and in our emotions.
But human conflict throughout history reveals the uncertainty in achieving this goal. Humanity can be divided almost equally in the definitions of the terms, which are often polar opposites. This incapacitates the ability to move forward. Nonetheless, Moses had to make the effort.
Unlike Nadab and Abihu, Moses could not enter the spiritual world, leaving the physical behind.
The brothers knew of the metaphysical pinnacle. They acted to remove distracting desire, envy, lust, and all the negativity outlawed by the Ten Commandments. They liberated themselves from the barriers of life’s contradictions by choosing spiritual ascension.
In our material world, we instinctively rate the positivity and negativity of everything. We evaluate events along a subjective scale of goodness and badness. The definitions of these words change with time, societal makeup, and values. Aaron’s sons were driven to experience Truth, the exclusive reality of Divine perfection.
The Torah is a document about spirituality, trying to proclaim a message that transcends the senses. It is not about hard facts. Therefore, the content is necessarily ambiguous. We are helped in interpretation when we begin with the perspective that God wants us to be Holy, as God is Holy. “Holy” means “different.” God is different from us by virtue of purely spiritual content. (See my blog “YOU WILL BE HOLY FOR I AM HOLY” May 20, 2020)
Health and Spirit by Dr. Jack Zoldan 