What is holy and not holy? What is clean and not clean? Both are defined by God alone. Heaven sets up appointments for His people to meet with Him and how they are to prepare themselves and show up at the appointed times in the appointed ways.
A key lesson of the Torah reading שמיני Shemini (“eighth,” Leviticus 9–11) is the leaders of the people, such as the priests, kings and nobles are called to a higher standard, because of their higher education and proximity to God than the common people.
It is our duty as those who consider ourselves citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven to know our position and to know and follow the Torah instructions that apply to us.
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”
Luke 12:48 NASB
One important way that all the people of Israel prepare themselves to meet with God is to make sure that the foods entering their bodies are only those foods that God has defined as food and to refrain from eating those things that God does not define as food.
In the Torah reading שמיני Shemini (“eighth,” Leviticus 9–11), God gave these instructions because He made our bodies. He loves us and wants to be close to us, but He doesn’t want to bring us so close that we would die in His presence.
There are three general topics in Shemini:
- Completion of the dedication of Aaron and his sons.
- Death of Aaron’s two oldest sons.
- Instruction to the priests regarding clean and unclean animals.
Moses, Aaron, and Aaron’s sons worked tirelessly over the course of eight days to prepare themselves for their holy ministry. The point of the eighth day of the dedication was for the priests to be completely purified so they would be prepared to meet God, stand before Him and inaugurate His revelation to the rest of the people of Israel. It was to be the culmination for God to show His glory.
However, the deaths of Nadab and Abihu and the immediate aftermath all happened on the eighth day of Aaron’s dedication to the High Priesthood. What was supposed to be the happiest of days and a foretaste of the best to come, became the saddest of days for Aaron and his surviving sons.
Much like for the preparation for Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16), there were sacrifices first for the priests and then the offerings for the people.
There are precedents in scripture, including in the Gospels, that when a priest enters the holy place to perform his duty that there was an angel there to observe the priest to make sure he was in a state of purity before approaching God. If the priest was not holy, it was the duty of the angel to strike the priest down.
Because Nadab and Abihu acted out of turn and brought incense to Him without a divine appointment, they were struck dead. The only official explanation given is that those who are closest to God are required to separate. They are held to a higher standard of conduct than those who are not as close to God.
Friendship with God is not a cozy, “chummy” relationship but a relationship of high respect and honor, that respect is to be mutual. God gave Aaron and His sons respect by bestowing the priesthood on them, but the Kohanim are expected to reciprocate by giving Him honor by approaching Him in the exact manner that He expects and, on His schedule, not theirs.
Some opine that Nadab and Abihu were struck down because they were intoxicated, but there was no record of alcoholic beverages being brought to them during their eight days of purification. Also, drink offerings are not consumed in part or in whole by the priests. They are to be poured out completely before the altar.
In Torah, Israel’s leaders are held to higher standard than the common people. Those who aspire to leadership must be better than those they deign to lead. In Gentiles nations, elected leaders are held to a lower standard, and conduct themselves in immoral ways and are expected to do so by those they lead. In gentile nations, the leaders are allowed to do whatever they please without punishment, while common people who do the same things are prosecuted and punished.
The fact that Americans hold their leaders to higher standards comes from our country’s foundation on Judeo-Christian principles.
When leaders have low moral standards, then the people also have low moral standards, and the nation suffers shame and embarrassment as a result. When leaders have high moral standards, as judged by the objective standard of the Bible, the nation receives grace and favor from God as a result.
2Samuel 6: Don’t look, and don’t touch
We see this point reinforced in the haftarah (parallel portion) for Shemini: 2Samuel 6:1–19. We see another example of a leader of the people, acting outside the Torah and an innocent person died as a result. It’s a story we are all familiar with, as it’s a quite shocking story.
We are introduced to a man named Uzzah, who was struck dead after touching the Ark. His heart was in the right place. He was simply following King David’s instructions regarding the return the ark to Jerusalem, but when Uzzah placed the ark onto a cart and started to move towards Jerusalem, the ark started to teeter and was in danger of tipping over.
Uzzah instinctively stretched out his hand to steady the holy ark, and he was instantly struck dead because of it. For a split second, he forgot how holy this object was and died on the spot. Uzzah’s death was a lesson to every one of the holiness of the Ark of the Covenant.
This reinforces the lesson that the closer you are to God, the higher the standard you are held to walk.
We are more lenient to those who don’t know what is right than those who know more and should know better. Uzzah was simply following the command of his king, and the guilty party in the matter was King David, but others suffered for it.
David learned from this awful mistake and the next time, he sent the priests to retrieve the ark in the exact manner the Torah laid out and there were no further catastrophes.
King David stays in his lane as king, not priest
David also learned this lesson again later in in his life when he desired to build the Temple for God. David was embarrassed by the fact that he was living in a palace made of cedar while God was still living in a tent. Yet, God sent Nathan to speak with him immediately and nipped David’s plans to build God’s temple in the bud. God told David, through the prophet, that although David only did what God told him to do and was close to God’s heart, that it was not David’s place to build a temple for Him. David was brought close but not too close because of the blood David had to shed. God was doing David a favor. If David had tried to move forward with his plans, God might have had to strike him dead, just as he had Nadab and Abihu many years before.
Leviticus 11: You are what you eat
The instructions regarding what animals are clean and what animals are unclean were given to all the people of Israel, not just the priests or kings of the people. No one is allowed to mix clean and unclean, holy, and unholy. It is our duty as those who consider themselves citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven to know our position and to know and follow what rules apply to us. The rules concerning clean and unclean animals seems very straightforward for fish and animals but the rule regarding birds is much more complicated.
Jewish translations of this section purposefully don’t translate disputable Hebrew words into English, preferring to transliterate them instead. This is most obvious in the section regarding birds.
The English translation of the long list of unclean animals, particularly of the birds, are educated guesses at best. We don’t really know what these animals are for certain. We only know for certain which birds are clean. We don’t know if birds such as parakeets, parrots, etc. are clean or not. Because of that uncertainty, the rabbis have made their best educated guesses. So, for example, one of the unclean birds has been correlated to a species of eagle so they have declared all eagles unclean. Another unclean bird has been correlated to a species of owl, so they have declared all species of owl unclean.
In Jewish communities, there are some groups that consider ducks and geese are unclean other consider them clean. The same with chickens and turkeys. Some consider them clean; some consider them unclean. The rule is to follow the rule of the community in which you reside, regarding birds because there is so much ambiguity as to what the modern translation are for the biblical Hebrew names of the birds listed in this reading.
Here in the Torah, there are certain insects that are edible, specifically grasshoppers and locusts. Although they have six legs, they have four front legs and two legs that are used exclusively for jumping or hopping, so they weren’t considered six legged animals. The only Jewish communities that traditionally eats grasshopper and locusts were the Yemenite and Moroccan Jews. The rabbis say that if you can’t easily demonstrate which insects are clean or unclean, you shouldn’t be eating them at all.
There are even rules regarding kosher and unkosher water. Water that moves, such as lakes, streams, rivers, etc. is considered clean, regardless of whether something unclean lives in it, while water that doesn’t move, such as water in a vessel or bucket, can be rendered unclean if something unclean gets into it.
When Torah says not to touch the “dead carcass” of an unclean animal, this prohibition can include items such as leather, fur, etc.
Once an animal does, whether it was clean or unclean while alive, is not fit for human consumption if it died a natural death. An animal killed in a reckless or negligent manner, such as “roadkill” is also ritually unclean. We should never eat animals that die of natural causes. If an unclean animal kills a clean animal, the clean animal is not considered food for humans.
God calls all to holiness
God pulled out a nation of people to Himself and elevated them from common to holy, He does the same with the animals. He elevated certain animals to be separate from the other animals. Israel was elevated from the other nation and the clean animals were also elevated above the unclean animals.
The vision of Peter with the mix of clean and unclean animals was God teaching Peter that gentiles can become separate and holy, even though they are still ethnically Gentile. But the people of Israel can also choose to abandon their separate state and assimilate with the nations. The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 9:6, as translated in the New American Standard Bible, “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.”
Whether you are Jewish or Gentile, all can choose to come closer to God or to move further from God. God also can choose who will be closer to Him and those who will be far off, but He is at his core, a Father who loves His children and wants all His children to be safe in His presence.
Summary: Tammy