הוא אשר דבר ה' לאמור, “of this did G’d speak, saying:” Rashi claims that G’d referred to Exodus 29,43 ונועדתי שמה לבני ישראל ונקדש בכבודי, “I shall set My meeting there with the Children of Israel, and I will be sanctified with My glory.” Some commentators hold that G’d referred to Exodus 19,22 וגם הכהנים הנגשים אל ה' יתקדשו, “even the priests who approach Hashem shall sanctify themselves lest He burst forth against them.” Nachmanides writes there is no need to search for relevant verses, for G’d can issue decrees at any time in any place, such as when the angel speaking through the mouth of Bethuel announced (Genesis 24,51) “let her become the wife of your master’s son.” [This is strange as Nachmanides does not offer this comment in his commentary on that verse. Presumably, the fact that a man such as Bethuel quoted G’d as having said this, showed that he was being manipulated by G’d. Ed,. The expression כאשר דבר ה' in the mouth of Bethuel means “as G’d has decreed.” Here too Moses means to tell Aaron that what happened was nothing else but a decree of Hashem. He softens the blow by saying that G’d, by killing the sons of Aaron at this stage, had tried to prevent them who are so near to Him by dint of being priests, i.e. בקרובי, from becoming guilty of an unforgivable trespass, i.e. their ruining His sanctity.

ועל פני כל העם אכבד, “so that I will be honoured in full view of all the people.” In order that the people will treat My Residence with the proper reverence in future.

וידום אהרן, “Aaron remained silent.” Nachmaides writes that Aaron wept aloud, after which he remained silent. We find the same meaning of the word וידום in Lamentations 2,18 אל תדום בת עיניך, “give your eyes no rest (from weeping)!”

ויקרא משה אל מישאל ואל אלצפן, “Moses called upon Mishael and Eltzafan, etc.“ Torat Kohanim derives from here that priests are forbidden to defile themselves ritually on dead bodies, seeing that neither Ittamar nor Eleazar, the brothers of the deceased, were allowed to perform burial rites on them. This statement raises questions seeing that the Torah specifically permitted priests who are brothers of the deceased to defile themselves, compare Leviticus In view of this, why were Eleazar and Ittamar not permitted to defile themselves here? We need to answer this by saying that even an ordinary priest, on the day when he has been consecrated, is treated as if he were a High Priest who is not allowed to defile himself for the sake of next of kin, except if a deceased has no one else who can attend to his interment, and this tragic death occurred on the very day that Eleazar and Ittamar had been anointed as priests. In light of this, we can now also understand why the Torah (verse 6) here commands both Aaron, Elezar, and Ittamar must not leave the hair of their head unshorn nor rend their garments as a sign of mourning even though elsewhere we do not know of such a restriction applying to ordinary priests. Nachmanides writes that what took place on that occasion was dictated by extraordinary circumstances. There is no question that the High Priest is enjoined not to leave the hair of his head unshorn and not to rend his clothing as a sign of mourning, as he is not allowed to leave the precincts of the Temple during a period when he is supposed to perform his duties in the Temple, in order to attend the funeral of his next of kin. By doing so, he would desecrate the sanctity of the Temple. The reason is that his appointment, i.e. appointment to his position as High Priest, is a round the clock position seven days a week, and this is demonstrated by the Torah demanding that even when in a state of aninut, the period between the death of a near relative and the burial of that relative, a period when performance of the מצוות, commandments is temporarily suspended, he must not abandon his post in the Temple. Ordinary priests, by contrast, are not allowed to perform their duties in the Temple when in such a state of pre-burial mourning for their relatives, the state we call aninut. Seeing that their duties in the Temple are temporarily suspended, they are obligated to attend to the needs of the relative about to be buried. This, obviously, requires that they defile themselves ritually in the process of attending to the needs of the deceased. In this special situation the Torah instructed more distant relatives, uncles, to perform these rites for Nadav and Avihu, This is the meaning of verse 6:ואחיכם כל בית ישראל יבכו את השרפה, “your brethren the whole house of Israel are to weep for the conflagration which Hashem has ignited.” Moses warned Eleazar and Ittamar concerning their ritual status on this exceptional occasion. The dominating consideration on this day was to maximise the joy over G’d’s Shechinah finally having become manifest again among the camp, for the first time since the sin of the golden calf. The sons of Aaron therefore were forbidden to take a leave of absence from their duties in the Tabernacle on pain of death. It is possible that Moses received a direct command from G’d for this special occasion, and did not improvise, even though the Torah did not see fit to record this in our text, which, after all, contains only material the relevance of which transcends time and space. He may also have learned what to do from the more general statement in Leviticus 8,35: ושמרתם את משמרת ה' ולא תמותו, “you shall observe the ordinances of the Lord so that you will not die.” It was clear to Moses that what are referred to there as משמרת ה' also applied to this eighth day of the inaugural offerings. Clearly, it had not been a secret for G’d that the day would come during these eight days when two sons of Aaron would be in the state of aninut, for their two older brothers. In spite of having anticipated this, G’d had formulated at this time already a statute according to which these sons of Aaron were not to leave the holy precincts, even temporarily, were not to observe the rites appropriate for brothers who are in such a state of aninut. They were not to observe any rite that reflected to the outside that they were in a state of mourning. At this particular time, on this special date, they were subject to the same rules as was the High Priest himself. It is even possible that during all the years when Eleazar and Ittamar performed their duties as priests, before they became physically too weak to do so, they conducted themselves exactly as if they had both been Hugh Priests, a good reason being the fact that they had both been anointed with the special oil, just as had their father, but not like their sons who were priests from birth and did not need anointing.

קרבו, “approach!” Torat Kohanim quotes two contradictory opinions, one of which holds that the sons of Aaron died without the boundaries of the holy precincts, whereas the other opinion claims that they died within those boundaries and their bodies had to be dragged out by rope or something similar, in order not to violate the stern prohibition for a non priest to cross that boundary. The first opinion is based on the word קרבו in our verse that suggests that there was no ritual impediment to Eltzafan and Mishael taking hold of these bodies. The other opinion bases itself on the Torah describing the death of these two sons of Aaron as having occurred לפני ה', “in the presence of the Shechinah,” an expression referring to holy precincts. According to this latter opinion, the bodies were either dragged by rope, or by a long wooden lance, at any rate both expressions in the Torah are not irreconcilable. When it comes to the need to avoid ritual contamination through a dead body, there are no different rules for Levites, such as Eltzafan and Mishael, and for ordinary Israelites. Both are charged with removing ritual impurity from the holy precincts especially when no priest is available inside. According to the view that these two brothers died within the holy precincts, their bodies conferred ritual impurity on the entire Tabernacle and its contents, and in the absence of priests, anyone could have removed these bodies. However, seeing that it could be done without more ritual impurity being incurred by anyone, this is the preferable method. If anyone had had to incur ritual impurity on that account, he would have required seven days of purification rites with sprinkling of water containing the ash of the red heifer both on the third and on the seventh day during these seven days. The Tabernacle would have had to undergo a similar purification rite involving immersion in a ritual bath, mikveh, seeing that linen shrouds, sheets etc., are all subject to ritual contamination with the dead. Seeing that we do not hear about service in the Tabernacle having been interrupted at that time, nor that the Tabernacle was taken apart as a result of the death of the two sons of Aaron, we may assume that the deaths did not occur within the holy precincts. On the other hand, seeing that the rule for the Tabernacle was על פי ה' יחנו ועל פי ה' יסעו, that the people were to both encamp and start moving only at the express command of G’d, this implies that no other occurrence would demand the folding and dismantling of the Tabernacle, i.e. that it was immune to the laws of ritual purity and impurity.

ועל כל העדה יקצוף, “and He would display His anger against the entire community.” This was because the priests acted as delegates of the community, and when such delegates do not discharge their duties properly the anger against them is also transferred at least partially against the ones who delegated them. Some commentators understand the reference to the “entire community,” as a reference to the offerings that were brought on behalf of the whole community. The Torah would be saying that “if you the priests make any changes from the directives you have received and you eat from these sacrifices this will provoke the Lord’s anger. The sacrifices will prove unwelcome in the eyes of Hashem, and you as the originators of these offerings will be suffering the consequences.”

ואחיכם כל בית ישראל, “and your brethren the entire house of Israel, will weep.” This verse teaches that the death of a Torah scholar is to be treated by the entire people as if they had been bereaved of a relative.

יין ושכר, ”wine and strong alcoholic drink,” according to Rashi the Torah speaks of wine when drunk in a manner which will induce intoxication. [The word שכר referring to the effect of the wine. Ed.] Maimonides feels that the prohibition recorded here applies as such only to wine, and we know this from the Nazirite whom the Torah only forbade wine and grape and derivatives. According to Maimonides, other alcoholic drink is forbidden to the priest who enters the holy precincts. Being drunk on wine is punishable by premature death at the hand of heaven, whereas drunkenness incurred through other intoxicant carries the 39 lashes penalty. (Maimonides Sefer Hamitzvot, negative commandment #73

בבאכם אל אהל מועד, “when you enter the Tent of Meeting.” Torat Kohanim writes that the death penalty applies only if the drunkenness occurs while the priest in question is performing his duties at the time. The meaning of the word שכר is perceived as its face value, i.e. “alcoholic, potentially intoxicating drink.”

שוק התרומה וחזה התנופה, “the thigh of the heaving, and the breast of the weaving.” Rashi already questions why the Torah describes the “raising” of the thigh with the verb רום, whereas for the raising of the breast the verb הניף is chosen. Whereas the first refers to an up and down motion, and the second refers to a sideways motion, the reason for these different motions for different parts of the animal is not clear. Nachmanides writes that it seems to him that during the inaugural offerings the thigh represented a תרומה, “heaving” to Hashem, which was burned up together with the loaves and the fat parts. The parts of the peace-offerings which qualified for this treatment were known as תרומה, “heaving,” as we know from 7,14 והקריב ממנו אחד מכל קרבן תרומה לה', “from it he shall offer one from each as an offering (heave offering) for Hashem.” If that was so in the case of the peace-offerings, of which only a small part is given to the priest, (as a symbolic gift to Hashem) the bulk of the meat being consumed by the owner of the animal, how much more so would the thigh of this inaugural offering qualify, -seeing that all of which (except the parts mentioned which were consumed by the priest) was intended for Hashem directly, i.e. it was consumed by the altar,- for such a procedure, and it would qualify for such a description. Although the breast and thigh were also subjected to this heaving in a vertical motion, the Torah did not mention this specifically (in addition) and preferred the description שוק התרומה, and חזה התנופה, as this was the first occasion on which this procedure with this offering occurred. The occasion was notable because on that day the priests were inducted.

על אישי החלבים יביאו להניף תנופה לפני ה', “they shall present on the fat parts as a wave offering before Hashem.” Nachmanides explains that this verse is not the verse in which this command has been issued, but in this verse the above statement is recorded only as the reason why it was possible for the donor-Israelite to consume the remainder of the meat of these peace offerings. The reason was that prior to this the priest, as the representative of Hashem, had received his designated share. The words (verse 13) כי חקך וחק בניך הוא מאישי ה', “for it is your portion and the portion of your sons from the fire-offerings of Hashem,” set the tone for the entire subject of the peace offerings, שלמים. Once the portions to be eaten by the priests had been sanctified by this symbolic procedure of heaving and waving, the way was clear for the donors to eat the share allocated to them by the Torah.

ואותה נתן לכם לשאת את עון העדה לכפר עליכם, “seeing that He gave it to you to bear the guilt of the community, and to obtain atonement for them!” The wording here proves that the sacrificial animal of which Moses spoke was the male goat offered as sin offering on the day of the New Moon. (Compare Numbers 28,15) The function of that offering was to obtain atonement for trespasses committed involving entering or being in the holy precincts while in a state of ritual impurity, or trespasses involving consumption of parts of such offerings which had become ritually impure for some reason after their being slaughtered. Although the expression לכפר, which means “to initiate an atonement process,” is mentioned here in conjunction with the daily communal sin offering,” it occurs also with the sin offering on that occasion (Leviticus 9,7), (וכפר בעדך ובעד העם) and it also occurs in connection with the he-goat offered in order to mark this day, seeing that the atonement spoken of in the he-goat offering of the New Moon is something that repeats itself month after month throughout the ages, our sages preferred to draw upon that verse for their interpretation. Alternately, the additional words לכפר לפני ה', “to initiate atonement before the Lord,” suggest that the subject must be sins committed in connection with the holy precincts. [After all, any atonement is automatically one in which our ability to stand and face of Hashem again is involved. Ed.]

הן היום הקריבו את חטאתם, “was it they that offered their sin offering on this day?” Both the Talmud’s references to this verse, as well as those of Rashi, allow us to read this as a question, i.e. Moses expressing amazement to his brother Aaron that his sons, while in a state of aninut, had seen fit to perform their priestly duties in the Tabernacle. Nachmanides claims that no aninut was involved, as all the duties that Eleazar and Ittamar had performed had been completed before they became bereaved of their elder brothers. In other words, the question of performing priestly duties while in a state of aninut did not even arise. He derives this from the verse in which Aaron is described as descending from the altar after having performed all his duties for that forenoon. (Compare 9,22) Aaron and his sons then entered the Tabernacle, and offered a prayer, and only subsequently did heavenly fire descend on the offerings presented and consumed them. After that had occurred Nadav and Avihu offered incense, using man made fire. Only then did heavenly fire descend and killed the two older sons of Aaron, Nachmanides answers the problem by saying that possibly Moses had not seen what the sons of Aaron had done, and he assumed that they might have found some blood from the he-goat which had not yet been sprinkled, and they had proceeded to sprinkle that blood. My sainted father of blessed memory the R’osh, said that what Nachmanides poses as a problem is no problem at all. The verse (9,22) describing Aaron descending and subsequently blessing the people referred only to his having completed the specific offerings of that particular day of the inaugural offerings; it did not say that Aaron had already offered the male goat as a sin-offering on account of the day being the New Moon. This offering, being a mussaph offering, was not yet due to have been offered, and was therefore not included in the report of Aaron having concluded his duties, in other words, the reason it had not been mentioned at all was that it had not been offered as yet.