Rabbi Lamm
Jewish Center
April 5th 1975
In our Sidra we read the strange story of Nadav and Avihu, the sons of the High Priest
Aaron, who met a tragic end. It was the very day on which they and their father Aaron were
consecrated to the service of the Tabernacle. It was the greatest day in the life of Aaron, as he
formally began his ministry. On this day, Nadav and Avihu made some basic error in the service.
They offered an אש זרה,” a strange fire,” to the Lord. As a result, they were struck dead at the
altar.
It is not clear exactly what sin it is that they committed. There are many, many opinions
and interpretations offered in the Rabbinic literature. As usual, this indicates that none of them
has a claim on certainty.
Thus, some Rabbis were of the opinion that their sin consisted in undertaking the service
while in a state of intoxication. Others maintain that they boldly entered the inner part of the
Sanctuary, where entrance to them was forbidden. In one interpretation, some Rabbis maintained that Nadav and Avihu were arrogant, and their arrogance
expressed itself in the fact that they were bachelors by preference! They said to many of the
available young ladies, “We are important people: our uncle is Moses, our maternal uncle is
Prince of the Tribe; and we are assistants to the High Priest. No one is good enough for us!” Yet
another interpretation has it that their arrogance expressed itself in a grab for power. They said “,מתי ימותו שני הזקנים האלה ואנחנו נוהגים שררה על הציבור , when will Moshe And Aharon die so that we can take over the leadership of Israel? They were guilty of
over-ambitiousness. Or, another expression of arrogance was that הורו הלכה לפפני רבו, they
presumptuously decided the Law in the presence of their teacher Moses, a violation of the most
fundamental ethics of Jewish discipleship.
Yet as we ponder these various descriptions of the wrongdoing of these two men, it
occurs to us that none of them is really that bad that it should require such a sudden and severe
response by God. Capital punishment – for show-offiness? For not wanting to marry? For
drinking too much? Is this not an over-reaction?
Moreover, the question is intensified by the fact that the Torah, which mentions their sin
and their punishment, does not at all excoriate them or condemn their characters. On the
contrary, after their death God says through Moses to Aaron, בקרובי אקדש,” through those who
are close to Me, will I be sanctified.” They are called people who are “close” or “near” to God.
Furthermore, in the Oral Tradition this is called מכובדי, those who are “respected” or “honored”
by Me. In an interesting exchange, Moses says to Aaron, after the death of the latter’s children,
“Aaron my brother; I knew all along that this House of God would somehow be sanctified by
having a tragic event happen to someone beloved of God. I thought it would be either you or me.
Now that it happened to Nadav and Avihu, I see "that they are greater than
you or I!”
But if so, if the sin does not seem to be so terribly dreadful, and if these two men were
called close to God, honored of God, beloved of Him, greater than Moses and Aaron – then why
this severe and harsh decree of death as their punishment? The question is especially pointed
according to an interpretation that the “strange fire” meant an excess of religious zeal as a result
of which they violated the technicalities of the service. Should one expect the punishment to be
so very harsh for a mere technical oversight?
The answer is that there is a double standard at work here. There is one standard that
Judaism and the Torah hold up for ordinary people, and quite another one, far more demanding
and exacting, for superior people. It is based upon the premise that great achievement implies
greater responsibility. Great talent leads to great obligation. A great reputation means a duty to
fulfill greater expectations.
Thus, for instance, the Halakhah reflects this double standard. Certain types of behavior,
although not recommended, are permitted to ordinary people. However, the scholar is denied
such luxury. Thus, Maimonides (Hil. Deiot 5:11) tells us that a man who is great in scholarship
of Torah and well known for piety, is in violation of the principle of “desecration of the Name of
the God” , if he does not pay his bills on time; if his speech with his fellow man is not cultured and respectable; if he does not greet people warmly.
So, Nadav and Avihu, precisely because they were so eminent and spiritually superior,
had a greater obligation to conform to the divine command and do exactly as instructed, and not
even allow their religious passion to lead them to a minor deviation from the law. What in any
other case would seem to be a mere technicality, was for Nadav and Avihu, because of the higher
status they had to accept upon themselves, a crime of major proportions.
This double standard is applied to Jews as such by no one less than the prophet Amos
known I have you Only “,רק אתכם ידעתי מכל משפחות האדמה על כן פקדתי עליכם את כל עוונותיכם – (3:2)
(chosen) from all the families of the earth, therefore I have held against you all your sins.” It is
precisely because of our covenantal relationship with God, that we are kept to a higher standard
and a higher code of behavior than other people. It is because of our chosenness that we are
required to keep the Sabbath, observe the dietary laws, and live up to the 613 commandments,
which other people are not required to do. This obligates us as well to a far stricter moral and
ethical code. That is why Jews, with a background of millennia of such indoctrination in this
kind of double standard, have become sensitized to any wrongdoing by Jews, and leave us
shocked when we are aware of moral backsliding especially by religious Jews. Even the most
assimilated Jew knows that “there are certain things a Jew just doesn’t do...”
This is the Jewish double standard. What makes this a noble rule, rather than an act of
injustice? Because of noblesse oblige, a voluntary assumption of a higher and tougher code. It is
because spiritual eminence imposes additional moral restrictions. Thus, it is a double standard
that one accepts upon himself rather than upon others.
In other words, fundamentally there is a single standard of justice: חוקה אחת, one rule that
applies to all, men and women, Jew and non-Jew. In deviation from this rule, there are two types
of double standard. One is the noble kind, in which I accept upon myself a different standard
from the general one, one that is more demanding and more difficult.
But unfortunately, there is also the other kind of double standard. The one that is most
popularly used currently, is one that reeks of hypocrisy and injustice and corruption and venality.
It is the idea that there are two codes: an easier one for me, a more difficult one for you...
Take, for example, the territories that Israel conquered in 1967, when it was faced by war
threats from Nasser and the Arabs. It is these territories that were at the heart of the 1973 war,
and that are the focus of all the enmity and hostility today. The decision of the U.N. was that
Israel may not keep them because no nation may keep “the fruits of war.” But how interesting!
There is not one country of those pressing this demand on Israel, not a single nation in the entire
U.N., that can say that it did not acquire territory in war! The U.S.S.R. is certainly no Zaddik – it
gobbled up all the Baltic Republics during the last war. France and England became colonial
powers by benefiting from “the fruits of war.” The U.S. during the last century engaged in quite a
number of such wars and now keeps these territories as part of the 48 continental states. So,
today the double standard is in effect: an easier one for me, a harsher one for the State of Israel.
Or take the matter of refugees. There are at maximum some 700,000 Arab refugees today.
Every other refugee group, now and through history, was expected to be absorbed by its host
countries. This held true for Jewish refugees from the Arab countries – which the State of Israel
has forgotten to remind the world about. But since the Arab refugees can be kept as a gun leveled
at Israel’s head, an exception is made. A double standard is applied. So the whole world
cooperates in keeping them in refugee camps, and in not assimilating them in the host Arab
countries, which are so compatible with them culturally and religiously. The victim must be – Israel.
But what about the Kurds? Why does no one care about those refugees? Why does no one
care about the fact that the Kurd’s desire for independence, which is no less than that of the
Palestinians, and much older, are being crushed mercilessly. No one cares. Why not? There is a
callous sentence that is current in international circles: “The Kurds have no friends.” For me this
is a nightmare. I think each and every one of us knows, in the very marrow of his bones, that in
the crunch, in the real crunch, neither do Jews have any friends...
Iraq, which never ceases to proclaim the right of Arab refugees to return to their homes in
Israel, and in the course of so doing dissolve the Jewish State, announces a deadline for the
Kurds, after which it will not allow the Kurdish refugees to return to Iraq!
The U.N., so vocal about Palestinians and their rights, is so very reticent about South
Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees.
Mr. Waldheim,1 who is not known for his bias in favor of Israel and Jews, will not even
officially raise the issue of millions of refugees at the U.N.! Apparently, those dreadful pictures
of mangled bodies of children – are not worthy enough to be mentioned at the United Nations.
The double standard!
And the American doves, who were so vociferous – and properly so – when the North
Vietnamese were subject to American bombs – why, oh why are they so silent when the South
Vietnamese civilian populations are decimated by artillery shells made in Russia? Are Russian
bombs more compassionate than American bombs?
And where are all the voices of the Left throughout the world, those voices that were so
stridently and righteously indignant on so many issues – why, oh why are they so silent about the
suffering of millions of men, women, and children who are willing to risk unspeakable harships
as refugees rather than live under the Viet Cong, the same Viet Cong whose flag our college
radicals raised on campuses throughout the country? The double standard! But, a double standard
in reverse of the one that the Torah recommends. It is a despicable and reprehensible double
standard.
Perhaps that is why the Torah demands that noble double standard of us Jews – so that, in
some small way, we may compensate for the other and more troubling one produced so callously
by so many.
R. Israel Salanter, the Mussar, once made a comment, which is the essence not only of the
Musar movement but of all Judaism; “Too many people worry about their own material
well-being and the other man’s soul. But it should be the other way around: We should worry
about our own soul and the other fellow’s material welfare.”
That indeed is what Judaism is all about: the peculiarly Jewish double standard – be strict
and demanding when scrutinizing your own soul and moral behavior; be generous and
understanding when subjecting others to criticism. And be concerned more about the economic
condition of your neighbor – helping him and sustaining him – than about your own wealth,
getting and grabbing and grasping all you can.
That is what the story of Nadav and Avihu teaches us: our sacred double standard. It is
something that Jews ought to be thankful for, difficult as that double standard is for us.
How did we put it during the Passover Seder – על אחת כמה וכמה טובה כפולה ומכופלת למקום עלינו – the double blessing, that God has given us.
The double standard is something for which we are eternally grateful.
