Is Death Always a Punishment?

Parshat Shmini

by Rabbi Avi Billet

One of the more fascinating, albeit tragic, tales in the Torah surrounds the deaths of Aharon’s two oldest sons, Nadav and Avihu. The Torah records the incidence of their death four times (Vayikra 10:1, 16:1, Bamidbar 3:4, 26:61) and it is also mentioned in Divrei Hayamim I 24:2. In all of the Torah’s mentions of the incident it ties their deaths to their coming close or bringing close to God (בקרבתם לפני ה') while some of these also mention the “strange fire” that they used. The Divrei HaYamim verse and the first Bamidbar verse also connects the depiction of their being dead to their not having children. 

 What the Torah does not do is elaborate much more on the episode, leaving much unsaid, focusing more on the reality (that they are deceased) and the narrative which follows their deaths, which includes the need to continue to get the Mishkan running in this Eighth Day, the day of the Inauguration of the Tent of Meeting. 

 Did they sin? 

On a very simple level, the Torah says they did something they were not commanded to do. Moshe’s immediate response to their deaths is “this is what God said would happen – ‘With those closes t to Me I will be sanctified’” – which is a way of suggesting that this was God’s way of bringing a special sanctification to this moment. In fact, the Torah Shleimah records a passage suggesting that a reason Nadav and Avihu brought the strange fire was because they saw all the Korbanot bringing brought and they didn’t see God’s fire coming down as promised. This would suggest that they were already putting their scheme in place to “help” at the time the last verse in Chapter 9 took place, and they may have missed the fire coming down to consume the offering. 

Further, Rav Kasher writes, “Nadav turned to Avihu and said, ‘Does a person ever cook without a fire?’ and so they brought fire into the innermost area. God said to them, ‘I will honor you more than you honored Me. You brought in an impure fire. I will consume you with a pure fire.” 

This “honoring” Nadav and Avihu is a unique perspective (though shared by Moshe Rabbenu!) because it is anathema to the way we are trained to think. Of course we are sad when someone we know or someone we love passes away. We will miss the person terribly! 

But can we ever presume to know the ways of God? 

 The Rabbis scoured the text of the Torah and suggested a number of reasons Nadav and Avihu died – including that they died because they saw God in chapter 24, as punishment to Aharon for his role in the Golden Calf, for their disrespect towards Moshe and Aharon, wondering aloud when the two old men would die so they could take over (as if!), and that they were either drunk, wearing the wrong clothes, deciding laws for themselves, not seeking advice from Moshe and Aharon, because they did not have children, or because they entered the Holy of Holies. 

To the last one – did they? Seforno and other are of the belief that לפני ה' does not mean specifically entering the Holy of Holies, and that while they were inside the Mishkan, they did not enter the forbidden inner sanctum. 

 Most of those suggestions are based in other Pesukim that give warnings to the Kohanim as to what their Mishkan-conduct is supposed to look like. However, never does it say in the text that they did any of these things, nor is the word Sin (חטא) ever associated with them in the Torah. So while the suggestions may be compelling, in the end all we really have is that God took them as they brought the strange fire. Which leads to a follow up question. 

 Is that a terrible crime that is deserving of death in the realm of punishment? 

 There is no way to answer that question as that is in the realm of what God may decide and is beyond our comprehension. However, we may wonder if they had been warned yet that doing any of these behaviors would bring about a negative repercussion. It is unfair to punish someone for a crime that had never been declared a crime. 

While there is much to focus on if indeed they were guilty of all or some of those errors, the fact that the Torah doesn’t make the connection speaks volumes about what they DID versus what they did NOT. 

 Which brings us back to where we started. Did they sin? Was their death a punishment? To whom? To them? To their father and mother? To their siblings? 

Death isn’t always a punishment. Look at the end of the mortal life of Hanokh in Parshat Bereshit, and Eliyahu as he ascends to the heavens in a chariot of fire. Look at Lemech’s and Methselach’s deaths before the Flood. Look at Avraham’s death 5 years “early” as a mercy so he shouldn’t see Eisav go off on a bad path. [See the comments for a comment of Seforno on B'haaloskha]

 Imagine people we know who were suffering and their suffering ended with their deaths. Imagine an innocent soul being taken by God through illness or accident. Or a baby who dies around the time it is born or shortly afterwards. 

We don’t have answers – we just have a life we aim to make sense of, and to do our best to find meaning in it. 

 We never want to think a person died as a punishment for their deeds, so why should we ascribe such a thought to Nadav and Avihu. 

If Moshe Rabbenu said they died because God was sanctifying the Mishkan it means God viewed them as the purest people, and God desired their souls for Himself because their lives had achieved their purpose in life and it was time for their souls to go on to the next stage of its journey.