Nadav and Avihu: An Attainable Level of Purity, Unattainable Level of Holiness

Parshat Acharei Mot

by Rabbi Avi Billet

While our parsha this week is not at all about the sons of Aharon (Nadav and Avihu), the opening verse of the parsha speaks in the aftermath of their deaths of lessons to be learned about the service of God and how it is to be performed. 

 That opening verse says that God spoke to Moshe “after the deaths of the two sons of Aharon, when they were bringing an offering before God - they died.” 

It seems to be suggesting that they died twice! 

Some will argue that the first mention is a general comment and the second mention is explaining the when and the how. In fact, Haktav V’hakabbalah suggests that the latter part of the verse is even explaining the why. It was their effort to get close to God (another translation of בקרבתם לפני ה') that brought them to the absolute closest to God. This view in essence rejects any notion of sin which is sometimes associated with their deaths – there was no sin per se, as much as their effort to get close to God yielded results which may have been unintended on their part. 

 That result, however, speaks volumes of them and their preparedness to go a certain distance in order to serve God at the highest level. That “certain distance” includes being ready to be מוסר נפש (to give up one’s soul/life) for the sake of the Almighty. 

Hopefully no one is being asked or being challenged to give up their lives for the sake of the Almighty. But the notion does give us pause, especially in the wake of Wednesday night’s and Thursday’s Yom HaShoah observance. On Yom HaShoah we tend to honor survivors of the Shoah that are still with us. We remember those we knew who have passed away. And of course we remember the 6 million, known to many of us as “the Kedoshim” – the holy ones who gave their lives to sanctify God’s name. And we all know that it doesn’t matter how they died – it is simply that they died because they were Jews, or even that they died because the Nazis believed they were Jews (look up the term “Mischling”). 

While we know that some people were given no chance to survive – they were either shot immediately, burned alive in a building, or gassed upon arrival at a death camp (in addition to other horrors) – many who did not survive lived incredible existences in the camps, as attested to by survivors who wrote of them in their memoirs. In many cases, the way these people lived and died is a testimony to their readiness to die, as the “R’vid HaZahav” writes of Nadav and Avihu, with their soul in the ready. Whether those who died in the camps were ultimately executed by the Nazis or succumbed to the almost unsurvivable conditions to which they were subjected, when their time came, they were prepared for the next world. [Of course these are generalities and not meant to be viewed as judgment or irreverent. These are personal reflections based on excerpts from survivor accounts that, upon reflection, speak most admirably of certain memorable individuals who did not survive the camps.] Ironically, Viktor Frankl notes how the end of 1944 brought an uptick in natural deaths, which he credited to people dying of heartbreak – they had told themselves they’d be home by Christmas and New Years Eve, and when that didn’t happen, he felt that contributed to the lowering of their morale which turned them into “muselmen” (there are many spellings of this term), who had essentially checked out of life. 

Getting back to Nadav and Avihu, “R’vid HaZahav” suggests that their decision to “get close to God” was the first “death” they experienced, because they were ready to get even further closer to Him, and when they physically died, that’s where the word וימותו at the end of the verse comes in.

 The Chasam Sofer would extrapolate an idea based on their experience, attaching it to a teaching from the Talmud in Tamid 32, “One who wants to live should kill himself” which refers to killing off one’s physical desires, while “one who wants to die should enliven himself” which refers to pursuing one’s physical desires. 

 As he puts it, “Aharon’s sons were most holy, they had ‘killed off’ (eliminated) their physical desires, they nevertheless died through coming too close to God.” Going back to the opening verse of the parsha “God spoke to Moshe after the deaths of the two sons of Aharon” – after they had eliminated their physical desires – “as they aimed to get closer to God, they died” – even though they had gotten rid of their physical desires, because they got TOO close to God, they died. 

 The message is really a question more than anything else. In what manner do we view our existence? We all want to live! But are we ready to die when our time comes? What are we living for that can be improved upon in a way that can be inspiring to ourselves, our families, others? What of our lives and the way we live our lives has not yet been written? If Nadav and Avihu can essentially kill their yetzer hara, and thus be declared by Moshe to be the holiest people in God’s eyes, isn’t there merit to achieving such a goal? And even if we like our yetzer hara (after all, he is an old friend!), that doesn’t mean we have to listen to him as often as he gives us bad advice! 

Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman Z’L was once asked by his grandson “You moved around and studied in different yeshivos. Who is considered your primary Rebbe?” His answer was “My primary Rebbe is my yetzer hara, and I’m still trying to get rid of him!” 

What we can learn from the two depictions of their deaths is that there is a level of purity that can be achieved in this world, and there is a level of holiness that is too much for this world. Had Nadav and Avihu simply become non-sinners, who knows what may have happened? Their service in the Mishkan might have become the most inspiring scene for all who came to have these upstanding Kohanim represent them in their service. Their deaths came because God “realized” they wanted a closeness that couldn’t be achieved by a human being. They were ready to move to the next world – which is why their deaths happened in an instant, their souls leaving their bodies, their bodies untouched and unscathed. 

 Most of us likely don’t need to put too many checks on the levels of holiness we can achieve – our yetzer hara is our rebbe for that! – but we can all certainly aim for a higher level of purity, one that is certainly appropo for this world. What would we have to give up to achieve any level higher than where we are? If it’s something that we want for ourselves, there is no time like the present to begin pursuing loftier goals in our spiritual pursuits.

The Most Difficult Week is the Most Transformative

Parshat Metzora

by Rabbi Avi Billet

A man who was afflicted with tzara’as was given clearance by the Kohen, but even after washing his clothes, shaving his hair and dunking in a mikveh, and returning to the camp, וְיָשַׁ֛ב מִח֥וּץ לְאָהֳל֖וֹ שִׁבְעַ֥ת יָמִֽים. He still needs to camp outside his own tent for a week. 

 He’s almost there! He’s gone through the transformation! He’s examined his deeds, he’s merited to have the tzara’as disappear. He can go home! His job is done! 

 But he has to wait outside his tent for another week! How could this be? 

 Alshikh explains that it’s true he went through an important process. But the most important process begins when he is on the threshold of his house when he is barred from entry. It’s onlyאחר רבוי ימים יתחיל לתקן העבירות - after the days are extended that he can begin to fix his sins. A process is one thing to begin, but if a real transformation in a person’s approach hasn’t occurred there is no home to which one can return. In other words: Externals are wonderful. I’m not demonstrably speaking lashon hara. I am not exhibiting signs of stinginess. But has my heart changed as well? 

 Alshikh further explains: when a person merits to return to the camp – this is the Holy Camp. However, he is not ready to reenter his own domain. It’s one thing to settle one’s score with others. In a way it is much easier. But how does one settle the score with oneself? The soul needs its own personal tikkun. 

 Back in Parshat Vayetze Yaakov worked 7 years to marry Rachel, and the Torah describes those years as if they were days. Alshikh employs a reverse equation here. That ימי שנותיו שבעים שנה are alluded to in this seven day period. When the seven day period is over, it becomes, in a sense, a rebirth for the person. 70 years – a lifetime! – has passed. You’re outside your home. You see day to day life going on, and you can’t be a part of it. It’s almost like the final scene in Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” You’re watching life go on, but you can’t be a part of it. 

Seven days feels like an eternity. But in truth, that seven day period – which is a time of further introspection, of furthering our full commitment to changing beyond the externals and changing the heart – is very liberating. When we finally understand why we’re waiting outside, we know who we are, and we see what real change needs to take place in order to return home. What must I do? And what can I expect of others in order to achieve that coveted return to the home?

Some of the commentaries utilize the gemaras in Moed Katan 15 and Krisus 8 that say his being forbidden from “returning home” is a metaphor to “returning to his wife.” In other words, his inability to return home means that marital relations are forbidden for another week. 

 The Vilna Gaon [as seen in Haktav V’hakabbalah] points to the Mishnah in the last chapter of Negaim that says he is both מנודה מביתו שבעת ימים ואסור בתשמיש המטה. He may not enter his house, and marital relations are also forbidden as his wife can’t visit him outside either. 

Some point out the disparity. If it were a woman who had tzara’as, the prohibition against marital relations would not apply – it says מחוץ לאהלו (he sits outside of his tent) and not מחוץ לאהלה (no reference to sitting outside her tent). It’s only the man who had been a metzora who had this prohibition. The Torah Temimah suggests that perhaps the 7-days that the man waits outside is reminiscent of the 7 days the woman waits in her taharah reality before she actually goes to the mikveh. It is a precautionary preventative to avoid a prohibition. It is to be sure that in case a relapse occurs – in the metzora’s case through the return of tzara’as – they will not have been living in sin. He was tameh for a while, now he is having 7 pure days to prepare for their reunion. 

Why is the additional week-long prohibition only on the man when he had tzara’as, and not on the woman if she had tzara’as? Torah Temimah explains: because we don’t want her to become further denigrated in the eyes of her husband. 

 Why should there be a difference? Don’t the marital relations involve both parties anyway? Perhaps the Torah is suggesting a sociological reality. All of the laws of tzara’as are addressed in the masculine, except for two times when a woman is mentioned (13:29, 38). Both could get tzara’as, but it’s not as pervasive in women. 

Perhaps we can suggest that the attainment of tzara’as was more common in men than in women. It’s almost expected that a man will go through this process. But a woman? Could a woman be as guilty as a man? 

 Speaking in generalities – the sins which the Gemara claim caused tzara’as are lashon hora (slander and gossip), murder, swearing in vain, immorality, haughtiness, theft, and stinginess. Surely women can do these too, but it’s not farfetched to suggest that (again, in general) men have cornered the majority of most of these markets. 

 A man will deal with the embarrassment, the stigma, and may even roll his eyes when it comes around again. He looks good bald and he doesn’t mind having no eyebrows. For her, however, the ordeal itself, plus the removal of the eyebrows is devastating enough! Don’t further bring her down through keeping her separated from her husband, whom she, of all people, may really need after her ordeal, to help her cope with her new reality. This is a wonderful example of the Torah showing sensitivity to a woman’s needs. 

 Most men, on the other hand, don’t put as much stock in their looks as their female counterparts. And if they need to go rugged another week, they accept it as the price to pay, understanding that the transformation is not complete without this week. And so this week becomes a time of thought, introspection, commitment, and real change. 

 The final 7 day period, of being so close and yet so far, is meant to drive home the idea that just because a negative ordeal seems over, it is not over yet until the person has gone through the complete process that was the purpose of the project to begin with.

For a former metzora, it is understanding the real nature of the act that put the tzara’as ordeal in motion and making a real move to change. 

For a husband, it’s a different kind of appreciation of his wife. 

For a wife, her emotional needs become increasingly clear to her husband. 

 And perhaps, to stretch the thought to the coming holiday, the 7 day period when we are out of our comfort zone – with no chametz – maybe it is to help us appreciate what we have throughout the year just a little more.

Infertility Awareness and the Power of Prayer

Parshat Tazria 

 by Rabbi Avi Billet 

 A little less than a year ago, the headline read: “Five Fertility Patients awarded $15 million after failure of freezing tank” 

 This was the follow up to a tragic story from 2018 when an infertility clinic in San Francisco had their freezer (containing thousands of frozen eggs and fertilized embryos) fail, making all of those potential babies no longer viable. 

 From the article from June 2021: 

“Five patients of a California fertility center have been awarded a total of $15m after a freezing tank failed, rendering some of more than 3,500 frozen human embryos and eggs unviable. 

While the extent of the damage from the accidental thaw is unclear, jurors awarded the sum to clients of the Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco after finding that the storage tank maker, Chart Industries, had known about a defect that prevented accurate temperature monitoring and had not warned the center about the problem. 

The case could have significant consequences for a fertility industry estimated to be worth $37 billion by 2030 and comes amid declining fertility rates and a drop in childbirth, recently described as a Covid baby-bust.” [Regarding that “baby bust,” see here: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/05/05/the-coming-covid-19-baby-bust-is-here/]

Others settled outside of court. I don’t need to tell you that for people who go this route, there is always a story, whether of rounds and rounds of infertility treatments, of many miscarriages, of taking out healthy eggs before chemo and radiation treatments. 

The 5 patients include women who will likely never have their own child now. This is sad for them – and while I am sure the judgment pays them back for much money they laid out in their treatments and their plans, the money will never replace the chance they had, the dream they hoped for. 

 Our shul is once again participating in the Yesh Tikva Infertility Awareness Shabbos [see more at https://yeshtikva.org/]. We do this because we all know people – for some of us it may be our children or grandchildren – who struggle with infertility. And we also do this to be aware of a sensitivity needed towards those who do not have children – either due to their own struggles with infertility or simply marrying later in life. Yesh Tikva’s goal is to provide resources for those who need help, and also to educate our greater community on how relate to the people who fit either description just mentioned. 

 Some simple examples:

 • Never asking younger people when they are going to start having children, whether they are your children or grandchildren, and especially if they are not your family.

 • Never complain about your children to people who only wish for such a reason to complain

 • Be sensitive to the reality some people live with – even if they seem OK with it. Don’t say things like “You don’t have children so you don’t really know what I’m talking about.”

What CAN we say or do? 

 We can be thoughtful and careful in the things we say, and remember to treat all our children the same, and all of our friends the same, when it comes to relating to them – irrespective of their being-parents or not-being-parents status. 

We can be sensitive. If they are still in the “parsha” of possibly having children, we can reach out and say “I pray for you all the time.” We can wish people that ה' ימלא כל משאלות לבכם – “that God should fulfill your wishes.” 

 What does it mean to pray for others? One of the Torah narratives in which prayer for others plays a role is the story of the pre-destruction of Sodom. Rav Moshe Feinstein asked why God found the need to tell Avraham about Sodom? Even if He knew Avraham would pray, He also knew that Avraham's prayer would have no effect. Sodom was doomed, and not even Avraham could save it! 

Rav Moshe answers that God wanted Avraham's prayers anyway. Avraham's prayers were powerful and needed to be brought to the earth for a purpose – a purpose and design other than to save the doomed city 

Similarly, the Talmud (Sanhedrin 44b) tells us that when Avraham prayed near the city of Ai (Bereshit 12:8), his prayers did nothing at the time, but prevented Yehoshua's army from being routed in the Battle of Ai (Yehoshua 7:5) around 465 years later.

 This is one element of prayer that is beyond all of us. We simply do not know what our prayers do, what merit they serve to advocate for in our world. 

 This is also why we say Tehillim beyond what is in our davening for those who are ill in a state of urgency – whether pre or during surgery, or in an unexplained coma, or whatever the reasons. There is a distinction in Halakha between issuing a זעקה – which is not recommended on Shabbos – and a תפילה – which is absolutely permitted on Shabbos. Praying for others, at any time, is absolutely appropriate. 

 When it comes to having a child, this lesson of praying for someone is even more profound.

The Talmud tells us in Niddah and Kiddushin that there are three partners in creation: Mother, Father, and God. If the contributing factor of one of these partners doesn’t work right, it seems the Talmud is saying, there will not be a baby. And while with modern medical science we can suggest there is sometimes a 4th partner, medical science doesn’t note when God is not contributing His part. That is where the devout Jew needs to pay careful attention to the Talmud’s 3rd partner. 

 Towards the opening of our Parsha, Rabbi Yitzchak Caro (in his Toldot Yitzchak) utilizes a Talmudic teaching to explain how an expectant parent must pray for fertilization to take root in the first three days from the act meant to lead to conception, from day 3 to day 40 pray for a male child, (surely that prayer could be for a female child too!) from day 40 to the end of the first trimester pray that it shouldn’t be a miscarriage, from 3 months to 6 months pray that it should not be a stillborn, from 6 months pray that it should be born in peace. 

If so, he concludes, it seems that the health of the child and success of the pregnancy is dependent on prayer much more than on nature. 

The sex of the child, he claims, is dependent on ואם כן נראה שזה הדבר תלוי בתפילה ולא בטבע - prayer more than a natural outcome. And then while he explains that naturally בטבע - anything might happen, if potential parents specifically want a male or a female, לזה צריך תפילה (prayer is needed). Halevai everyone who wants a child should get to the stage where such an option (prayer) is all they need to worry themselves with.

 In our world of science and rationalism, we tend to aim to find explanations for why things go right, and even moreso for when things go wrong. It’s the man, it’s the woman, the doctor’s approach and system of treatment, etc. 

 But maybe, just maybe, we don’t have all the answers because some causes and cases go beyond the realm of the natural world. An unhealthy woman sometimes gives birth to a completely healthy and normal baby. A healthy woman can’t carry a baby to term. What’s wrong with this picture? 

It’s impossible to answer this question. But Toldot Yitzchak’s suggestion is the solution to the role we can all play. There is a need for prayer that goes far beyond our understanding, and enters the realm of the cosmos in terms of where it sits, lies and waits, and then returns to influence the world. 

Years ago a colleague shared an essay from a project his shul had in which people wrote of what tefillah means to them. One thought, from a mother of a child-diagnosed-with-cancer, impacted me deeply. She wrote, "You don't know what prayer is until you find out your child will not outlive you." Most helpful, she wrote, was when a person who had gone through a similar trial confided in her saying, "There are times when you will be angry at God. You will not be able to pray. Don't worry. The rest of us will be praying for you."

 These are powerful thoughts. It's not just that every individual has the ability to move mountains. It's that we are all in this together, looking out for one another, making a prayer-contribution because somewhere, somehow, it helps all of us, perhaps in ways we could not even consider or imagine. That thought was shared by a mother whose child was not going to live much longer. Perhaps such a sentiment can apply as well to the man and woman who are not yet parents, who are looking at a bleak future, because they have no idea what the future hold for their not-yet-conceived child. Or for their pregnancies that miscarry time after time. 

 The financial settlements noted at the beginning won’t bring back any lost eggs or embryos. But for those who haven’t given up hope (“Yesh Tikva”) the future is a wide open book of possibility, of realities that haven’t been written yet. 

As a mohel I’ve worked with people who have incredible stories: Cancer survivors who had babies, others who through the help of science and medicine had babies after years of tears and infertility, others who after thinking they could only have babies with help were shocked to find a beating heart in a womb they were told couldn’t make it happen alone, surrogates from the most unexpected places, secondary infertility which yielded successful pregnancies, people who were told by physicians they would never have children who defied all the odds and textbooks and built beautiful families. 

When we pray for others we indicate that in whatever ether, whatever cosmos that are beyond our understanding, we are trying to have an influence. We are doing what we can, connecting with the Borei Olam, to show HIM that we believe our prayers are what He wants, and that He uses them how He wants to move the mountains that we care about. Sometimes people need a physical healing. Sometimes people need a spiritual healing. Sometimes people need an emotional healing. Sometimes people need to find methods of coping because the challenges life throws their way can be so so so overwhelming. We think of them and pray for them because we care that they can find a way to enjoy life even with the difficulties life may throw their way – and when healing is possible, that it should be achieved with God speed. 

 We shine our best and most when we do what we can for people – rejoicing with them in good times and being as supportive as we can in rough times. Including the painful struggle of infertility. 

The life we live is not one in which we go it alone and don’t care about others. On the contrary, if we don’t care about others, our lives are hardly worth living.