ספר ויקרא

Let us now explore what caused the scholars who claimed ‎that these two sons of Aaron were drunk on the occasion ‎mentioned in Leviticus 10,1-3, to arrive at that conclusion.. At ‎first glance one shudders how these scholars could accuse these ‎אצילי בני ישראל‎, “these noble souls” amongst the Israelites of ‎having been guilty of such conduct when the Torah had not ‎spelled it out! ? Had not the Torah in Leviticus 10,8-11 spelled ‎out that entry into the Tabernacle in a state of inebriety is a ‎capital sin? How could these sons of Aaron have ignored this?‎I believe we can find the answer to this question by ‎examining the text in Leviticus 10 more closely.‎The words: ‎זה הדבר אשר צוה ה' לעשות וירא אליכם כבוד ה'‏‎, “this is ‎the thing that you must do in order that the glory of ‎‎Hashem will appear to you,” in that paragraph appear to be ‎superfluous, or at least not connected to the subject under ‎discussion. (Leviticus 9,6)‎‎Rashi, in commenting on Leviticus 9,23 near the end of ‎this paragraph where the Torah writes: ‎ויצאו ויברכו את העם‎, “they ‎came out (Moses and Aaron from the Tabernacle) and blessed the ‎people,” writes that during the seven preceding days of the ‎consecration rites for the Tabernacle the Shechinah had not ‎manifested itself so that the people had complained why they had ‎gone to such lengths to build the Tabernacle if after all this G’d ‎had not seen fit to take up residence among them. Moses told ‎them what they must do in order to merit that the ‎‎Shechinah would manifest itself amongst them again as ‎proof that the sin of the golden calf had been forgiven. He ‎explained that seeing that his brother Aaron, who was the High ‎Priest was more worthy than he, until Aaron had presented ‎sacrifices in the Tabernacle, G’d’s glory would not become ‎manifest. This is why in verse 24 we are told that Aaron ‎performed his duties as a result of which the Shechinah ‎manifested itself in that heavenly fire consumed the portions of ‎the sacrifices on the altar. There does not appear to be an allusion ‎to all this in the text of the Torah, so where did Rashi take ‎his exegesis from?‎When man serves his Creator he experiences a feeling of great ‎pleasure as he is aware that he thereby provides pleasure for his ‎Creator. This is the allegorical meaning of Proverbs 10,1 ‎בן חכם ‏ישמח אב‎, “that an intelligent son provides pleasure for his father.” ‎This pleasure or joy is not limited to one domain in the universe ‎but spreads throughout the universe. A call goes out in all parts ‎of the universe to honour the person who, through his devoted ‎service to his Creator, has provided so much pleasure in the ‎whole universe. There is no greater pleasure than this.‎However, seeing that we are aware of this, this reduces our ‎service to the Lord to one that is tied to the expectation of ‎reward. Maimonides in his hilchot teshuvah chapter 10 goes ‎so far as calling such service of G’d as being ‎שלא לשמה‎, “keeping ‎Torah commandments for ulterior motives.” The principal ‎purpose of pure service of the Lord is that it is performed in ‎recognition of the greatness of the Creator Who provides all ‎forms of life in this universe and Who has endowed us with souls ‎that contain Divine qualities.‎We may well ask why no mention is made in the Torah of any ‎reward for performance of the Torah’s commandments that ‎accrues to the doer in the world beyond death of the body. ‎Reward in the ‎עולם הבא‎, the world to come, while discussed at ‎length by our sages, is not dealt with in the written Torah at all. ‎‎[The conclusion of the author’s paragraph is ‎missing.]‎