Leviticus 10: Carry Your Sisters

Leviticus 8

22  And the other ewe was presented, the ewe of consecration, and Aharonah and her daughters laid their hands upon the head of the ewe.

23 And when it was slain, Moshah took of the blood thereof, and put it upon the tip of Aharonah’s right ear, and upon the thumb of her right hand, and upon the great toe of her right foot.

24 And Aharonah’s daughters were brought, and Moshah put of the blood upon the tip of their right ear, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot; and Moshah dashed the blood against the altar roundabout.

[…]

30 And Moshah took of the anointing oil, and of the blood which was upon the altar, and sprinkled it upon Aharonah, and upon hers garments, and upon her daughters, and upon her daughters’ garments with her, and sanctified Aharonah, and her garments, and her daughters, and her daughters’ garments with her.

Leviticus 10

1 And Nadva and Imihi, the daughters of Aharona, took each of them her censer, and put fire therein, and laid incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Tehovah, which she had not commanded them.

2 And there came forth fire from before the Tehovah, and devoured them, and they died before the Tehovah.

3 Then Moshah said to Aharonah: ‘This is it that the Tehovah spoke, saying: Through them that are nigh to Me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’ And Aharona Kept silent.

4 And Moshah called Misha’ela and Elazaphana, the daughters of Uzzi’ela the aunt of Aharonah, and said to them: ‘Draw near, carry your sisters from before the sanctuary out of the camp.’

5 So they drew near, and carried them in their tunics out of the camp, as Moshah had said.

ותקרא פרק ח

כב וַתַּקְרֵב אֶת־הָאַיָּלָה הַשְּׁנִיָה אַיֶּלֶת הַמִּלֻּאִים וַתִּסְמֹכְנָה אַהֲרֹנָה וּבְנוֹתֶיהָ אֶת־יְדֵיהֶן עַל־רֹאשׁ הָאַיָּלָה׃

כג וַתִּשְׁחָט וַתִּקַּח מֹשָׁה מִדָּמָה וַתִּתֵּן עַל־תְּנוּךְ אֹזֶן־אַהֲרֹנָה הַיְמָנִית וְעַל־בֹּהֶן יָדָה הַיְמָנִית וְעַל־בֹּהֶן רַגְלָה הַיְמָנִית׃

כד וַתַּקְרֵב אֶת־בְּנוֹת אַהֲרֹנָה וַתִּתֵּן מֹשָׁה מִן־הַדָּם עַל־תְּנוּךְ אָזְנָן הַיְמָנִית וְעַל־בֹּהֶן יָדָן הַיְמָנִית וְעַל־בֹּהֶן רַגְלָן הַיְמָנִית וַתִּזְרֹק מֹשָׁה אֶת־הַדָּם עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּחַ סָבִיב׃

[...]

ל וַתִּקַּח מֹשָׁה מִשֶּׁמֶן הַמִּשְׁחָה וּמִן־הַדָּם אֲשֶׁר עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּחַ וַתַּז עַל־אַהֲרֹנָה עַל־בְּגָדֶיהָ וְעַל־בְּנוֹתֶיהָ וְעַל־בִּגְדֵי בְנוֹתֶיהָ אִתָּה וַתְקַדֵּשׁ אֶת־אַהֲרֹנָה אֶת־בְּגָדֶיהָ וְאֶת־בְּנוֹתֶיהָ וְאֶת־בִּגְדֵי בְנוֹתֶיהָ אִתָּה׃

פרק י

א וַתִּקַחְנָה בְנוֹת־אַהֲרֹנָה נָדְבָה וְאִמִיהִיא אִישָּׁה מַחְתָּתָהּ וַתִּתֵּנָּה בָהֵן אֵשׁ וַתָּשֵׂמְנָה עָלֶיהָ קְטֹרֶת וַתַּקְרֵבְנָה לִפְנֵי תְהוָה אֵשׁ זָרָה אֲשֶׁר לֹא צִוְּתָה אֹתָן׃

ב וַתֵּצֵא אֵשׁ מִלִּפְנֵי תְהוָה וַתֹּאכַל אוֹתָן וַתָּמֹתְנָה לִפְנֵי תְהוָה׃

ג וַתֹּאמֶר מֹשָׁה אֶל־אַהֲרֹנָה הוּא אֲשֶׁר־דִּבְּרָה תְהוָה לֵאמֹר בִּקְרֹבֹתָי אֶקָּדֵשׁ וְעַל־פְּנֵי כָל־הָעָם אֶכָּבֵד וַתִּדֹּם אַהֲרֹנָה׃

ד וַתִּקְרָא מֹשָׁה אֶל־מִישָׁאֵלָה וְאֶל אֶלָצָפְנָה בְּנוֹת עֻזִּיאֵלָה דֹּדָת אַהֲרֹנָה וַתֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶן קְרַבְנָה שַׂאנָּה אֶת־אַחְיוֹתֵיכֶן מֵאֵת פְּנֵי־הַקֹּדֶשׁ אֶל־מִחוּץ לַמַּחֲנֶה׃

ה וַתִּקְרַבְנָה וַתִּשָּׂאֻן בְּכֻתֳּנֹתָן אֶל־מִחוּץ לַמַּחֲנֶה כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבְּרָה מֹשָׁה׃

*

Yael and I are working on the chapters in Leviticus describing the dedication of the Tabernacle and its vessels and of the priestesses, Aharonah and her daughters, for service to the Sacred. The ceremony for the priestesses’ dedication that Moshah performs is jarring, as slaughtering animals isn’t part of my life. I deal with kosher meat and chicken appropriately wrapped in nylon without coming into any contact with their blood. After Moshah slaughters the Ewe of Consecration she takes some of its blood and places it on the earlobes of Aharonah and her daughters and on their right thumbs and big toes. Freaky.

“Ellie’s here! She’s here, Ima!” I hear my daughters calling out and I step away from the computer. After eight years in Boston, spending all of Succot with their Israeli cousin is our girls’ dream come true. My daughters are teenagers and Ellie is already twenty-two, a student, owner of an astounding collection of nail polishes, an enthusiastic baker with endless cool stories to tell. What could be better?

At our next meeting Yael and I progress through the coming chapter, telling the tragic deaths of Aharonah’s two older daughters, Nadvah and Imihi. In the course of that same dedication event. The two of them, their first time in the Sacred, offered to Tehovah incense that they hadn’t been commanded to bring. They use “strange fire” – embers brought not from the altar of the burnt offering, but from some other source. Tehovah, in response, send out a fire from before Her that roasts them. Aharonah their mother falls silent.

Because Aharonah and her daughters are forbidden at the moment to come into contact with corpses, and be defiled, Moshah calls the cousins, Mishaela and Elatzaphna, to bear the corpses away. And then, Moshah warns Aharonah and her surviving daughters, Elatiezra and Emtamar, not to mourn. But let your sistern, the whole house of Tisraelah, bewail the burning which the Tehovah has kindled.  (Genesis 10:6) - the people will mourn in their place. But they may not step out of the Tent of Meeting and leave the Sacred neither shall she go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of her Goddess; for the consecration of the anointing oil of her Goddess is upon her (Leviticus 21:12)

It’s hard for me to go any further, because Ellie, my niece, came to us after getting up from shiva for her brother, who died of cancer. Less than two years earlier, another brother of theirs died of cancer too. That Ellie is mourning there is no doubt. In her stories, the world is divided into before and after. She describes down to smallest details the last days, the last moments, learning to live in a new world, different and strange.

I remember the funeral, a surrealistic funeral in the midst of a pandemic. Again we stood around the body of a youngster dressed in shrouds and covered with a tallit, only this time my older daughter, is standing by my side, horrified. In the course of the eulogies the cousins from the other side of the family, four young women, stood by us, tottering in a bunch, holding onto one another, hopelessly sobbing.  These cousins, unlike us, who’d lived far away these past years, lived right next door to my sister and her family and grew up with her children as their siblings. 

Draw near, carry your sisters from before the sanctuary out of the camp (Leviticus 10:4) Now, sitting with Yael, I study the words in the new version. Who are these cousins, of Nadvah and Imihi, summoned to carry away their corpses? Do they also have childhood memories of endless hours of playing, together with Nadvah and Imihi? That they’d play again and again? Did they also bake challah together, do arts and crafts, and plait each other’s braids?

I contemplate the verses of Toratah, and just can’t understand: How does Tehovah, as a big mother, command the grieving mother and sisters not to mourn? I see in my mind’s eye my older sister, eulogizing her children in the cemetery and receiving condolences from the many people who come to the two shivas, hearing again in my head her telling me how she’s going through the clothes and the things in the boys’ rooms, and I recall the paintings of them she’d just done on canvas. 

So why does Tehovah forbid them to mourn? Why is the Sacred so threatened by death? Why, in the Torah, are life and death arranged in competition with one another, and not along the continuum of the same being? 

I wonder if Tehovah doesn’t trust Aharonah and her daughters to be able to live with the loss, and a new feeling towards Her arises in me. Does this prohibition on mourning burst forth because Tehovah Herself has had a hard time overcoming loss, for so long? Is it the people in the Bible that She has lost, I’m curious to know? And maybe someone from Her life, who we haven’t known of till now – who we haven’t yet dared to imagine? Would we be able to witness and hold Her pain?

And who is the father of Nadvah and Imihi, I wonder, whom the story doesn’t mention at all? Has somebody already notified him? What is he going through?

A little while later, I pass through the hallway to the kitchen and catch in the corner of my eye, Ellie and my girls, sitting on the floor, applying nail polish to each other’s toes. Red nail polish on the right big tow and the right thumb. I can’t breathe.