Parshah Commentary

The first seven chapters of the Book of Vayikra catalog a meticulous inventory of sacrifices—which combination of animals to bring on which occasions and the specific actions the priests must take in each case. But these rituals don’t move from theory to practice until the events that culminate in our parshah, Shemini, which begins with the words: “And it was, on the eighth day.” The day in question follows a week-long process to turn Aaron and his four sons into the priestly caste known as the Kohanim. This extended coronation was mandated back in Parshat Tetzaveh in the Book of Shemot, when Moses detailed the design of Aaron’s clothing and the sacrificial ceremony that would grant him and his male progeny the priesthood for all time. But while in Shemot the purpose of the sacrifices is trumpeted repeatedly (“to make them priests for Me,” or a similar phrase, appears six times in two chapters), here the end goal goes conspicuously unmentioned. Over the course of the four chapters detailing the performance of the ritual, the word “priest” isn’t mentioned even once. Instead, the neutral rationale “as God commanded,” or other variants, is repeated a total of 11 times. Do as God commanded, and, as grimly noted, you will not die. Thus, ironically, during the very week when Aaron inaugurates the priesthood, he seems the furthest from it; no mention is made of who he is about to become.

Perhaps this shift reflects the fact that, in the time since these instructions were delivered, a cataclysm has unfolded on Aaron’s watch: The Israelites worshipped a Golden Calf fashioned for them by Aaron himself, his debut as ritual leader ending in grotesque parody. Though Aaron was spared from immediate punishment, treated more like an overwhelmed substitute teacher than an idolatrous mastermind, he must have been profoundly shaken by his misjudgment. In the fallout from the incident, how could he not have wondered: Is God angry with me? Will I get past this failure of leadership, or am I the intended target of God’s post-Calf pronouncement that “he who has sinned against Me, him only will I erase from My book”?

And so, with no reassurance that the ritual’s original purpose would be fulfilled, Aaron and his sons are left to carry out commandments given in a better time. On each of the seven days, they help Moses slaughter three animals: a bull as a cleansing offering, a ram as a gift offering, and a second ram as an installation offering. But despite this sacrificial rite, Aaron must have still felt considerable trepidation. As an early rabbinic midrash imagines it, when the seven days concluded and the divine fire still had not descended to consume the sacrifices, Aaron “was upset and said: ‘I know that the Holy Blessed One is angry with me and that it is because of me that the Shechinah has not descended for Israel.’”

Thus, when our parshah opens on the eighth day of seven, we are in a high-stakes overtime. This day was not part of the plan in Tetzaveh, but, Moses explains, God has commanded it, and, this time, God’s glory would appear. The order and scope of this day is very different from the previous week. The sacrificial protocol zooms out from Aaron and his sons and includes sacrifices on behalf of the broader community as well. At first, everything goes well: After offering the sacrifices, Moses and Aaron “blessed the people and the presence of God appeared to all the people”; when divine fire then descends to consume the offerings, the people are awed.

But it soon appears that the forgiveness the people thought had been attained when God accepted the sacrifices was fleeting. Soon after, tragedy strikes as two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, are abruptly killed and consumed by God’s fire. Terrified, we may imagine, that the people’s atonement has come to an end, Moses responds with rapid action, forbidding Aaron and his remaining two sons from mourning and insisting instead that they finish the atonement ritual. In this moment of tragic uncertainty, Moses cannot allow for the derailment of a sacrifice meant to bring about collective forgiveness. He soon discovers, though, that Aaron and his sons have disobeyed his instructions: Rather than burning part of the cleansing offering and eating the remainder themselves, the priests have thrown the entire animal into the fire, consuming none of it. Moses flies into a rage. “Why did you not eat the cleansing offering in the sacred area?” he asks them. “For it is most holy, and it is what was given to you to remove the guilt of the community and to make expiation for them before God.” In other words, without Aaron and his sons consuming the cleansing offering, Moses is worried there will be no way to obtain communal atonement for the sin of the Golden Calf. Aaron, however, knows that atonement is not within his reach at that moment: “Look, today they brought their cleansing offering and their gift offering before God, and these things have happened to me. Had I eaten a cleansing offering today, would it be good in the eyes of God?” Aaron asks. Moses knows the laws of the ritual order and he knows the stakes—more people could die if the sacrifice is messed up! But Aaron understands the ritual’s soul and knows that, stricken with grief and spurned by God, he and his remaining sons cannot cleanse the people of their sin by eating the sacred meal. In refusing to bear the sin of his people, Aaron, for the first time, obtains a level of ritual authority that his brother cannot challenge. He refuses to pretend he can make things better. By failing, and reckoning with his failure, Aaron becomes a true leader, assuming the moral and ritual stature of the High Priest.

Today, as we confront the profound failures of our institutions, it’s clear we will need new leaders to guide us through the wilderness of this moment of grief and guilt, of doubt about the future and fear of what we have become. Our new leaders must be people who can acknowledge the spiritual precarity of our situation while also honestly recognizing the limits that constrain us in our search for expiation or transformation. The crimes committed in our name have consequences, and whatever ways we might find to reckon with and atone for them, there is nothing we can do to erase them.

Avi Garelick is a researcher and organizer based in Washington Heights, New York.