A Taste of Shabbos – Parashat Shemini

There are two startling topics in this parasha: Two holy sons pass over, and the complex laws of kosher food! What do they have in common besides the idea of being ‘consumed’? The first topic: Aaron’s sons bring a ‘strange fire’ and their souls are separated from their bodies. Many different explanations of the episode but the reason given explicitly in the Torah is ‘they were not commanded.’ The primary Hassidic commentaries elaborate that they entered the ‘Holy of Holies’ and got too close to a realm where their souls expired in a state of ecstasy so intense that they couldn’t come back to their bodies. Their father Aaron, the high priest, could not openly express his grief at that time; The Torah states, ‘And Aaron was silent’!

Many people think of commandments as other worldly mandates that lift a person beyond the secular plain of existence. However the Jewish mystics explain that the mitzvot are really containers to ground the body when an ethereal flow is summoning us. For example, on Passover, there is an intense spiritual vibe coming into the world, which we can best access through avoiding leavening products and consuming carefully prepared Matzah – and of course trying to understand the Exodus.

This may give us a hint about the relationship with Aaron’s sons, as well as the laws of kosher food. If everything in creation has a divine spark, why are some foods forbidden? The mystics tell us, not because the prohibited food has no divine spark, but because their divine spark is too powerful to be safely consumed. The Hebrew term for permitted food is ‘mutar’ meaning loosened or accessible, whereas forbidden food is called ‘assur’ meaning bound up. The energy is there in spades, but when eaten, instead of the sparks being released and elevating the consumer, the sparks are trapped inside the person, and pull us down into more materiality. They are like ingredients that are too dense to be assimilated, and clog up our system.

The common denominator with Aaron’s sons is that the link between the soul and body becomes weakened. In the sons’ case, the pull of the spiritual was too strong; in the case of forbidden food, the pull of the physical is too strong to reinvigorate the body-soul connection.

Now, the sages tell us that in the Jewish calendar, Shabbos is the best weekly opportunity for a heavenly strengthening of the above connection. More leisurely meals with family and friends, especially in these hectic, multi-tasking times, give us a chance to integrate this heavenly joining. Unlike a Seder that comes once a year and is extremely programed, there is no formal order of the Shabbat meals. There are many ways to guide the conversations on Shabbat, from directed talk to free for all, but perhaps from Aaron’s example, you might set aside some time for meditation, or time to reflect on a particular issue or question, which could later be discussed.

There is a teaching about the relationship between eating and speaking that we can also think about when we are more relaxed and contemplative on Shabbos, from Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. The Torah states: ‘G-d spoke to Moshe and Aaron saying to them.’ What is the point of repeating, ‘saying to them’ after already writing that G-d spoke? The rebbe has a breathtaking explanation: ‘When the daughter of Pharaoh found baby Moshe, she tried to get him to nurse from the Egyptian maids, but he wouldn’t accept their milk. Since years later Moshe would speak directly to G-d, how could he ingest the milk of idolaters, even as a baby! So too, says the Rebbe, there is a prophecy from Yoel, that in the days of Mashiach, ‘your sons and daughters shall prophesy.’ Therefore, the Torah commands us to eat kosher food so that our mouths will be fitting containers for the future prophetic influx.  When we take slower and more reflective bites, and appreciate morsels of finer foods on Shabbos, that is an ideal time to ‘chew’ on this teaching about how some day, G-d willing, we will all become prophets who appreciate the holiness of each other and communicate with the divine, without any worldly barriers or distractions in the way.