The Death of Nadav & Avihu

Obviously, we're still, very much in mourning over of Chaim Kanievsky's passing. Um I'm going to talk about it on Sunday, so I'm not going to talk about it now. And I've talked about it before, so I don't want to use up this year for that. Although, once again, one could talk about a great Godol BaTorah uh forever, really, because there's so much greatness, there's so much holiness that we really have to recognize the loss that we suffered. Let me just make one point, which is the point I've made before, but I'll make it again. And I will make it again, as well. And that is, when a person of great holiness leaves the world there is a vacuum and a void in the holiness of service of God. And when there is a void, the responsibility is on every one of us to try to fill the void in some way. So, if, for example just to make up a number, it makes no sense as a number. Let's assume there were 10 billion gallons of holiness that Rav Chaim brought to the world and that holiness is gone. So, we have to fill it. Now, none of us can fill up 10 billion gallons of holiness. But we do a little bit more. We strengthen ourselves a little bit more learning, chesed, ahavas Yisrael. Uh kavana in our davening making brachos uh with uh thinking about what we're saying. And in that way, each of us contributes, so to speak, a gallon to the mix. Enough people contribute a gallon, so eventually you do have 10 billion gallons. So, the death of a Godol uh creates a great challenge for us. The famous statement in the Gemara that the death of the righteous creates an atonement is not an automatic thing. A tzaddik dies and therefore there's an atonement. That's uh you know, Christianity, more or less. Rather, the concept is, if the death of the tzaddik stimulates a movement on our part to serve Hashem in a greater way, then automatically we do get an atonement, because that's part of uh our repentance process and the like. So, the death of a tzaddik is a challenge to us all. And uh hopefully, we will meet the challenge to some degree. And in that way, the death of the great tzaddik will be a a kapara, will be an atonement uh for us. So, that's just something that all of us have to uh keep in in mind. And uh be as Hashem we should uh move forward in our avodas Hashem, in our ahavas Yisrael. Again, I I want to emphasize again a point that uh I often talk about, and it's a very important point that the service of Hashem has to also be linked with the love and concern you have for other people. Uh sometimes we make a very big mistake. I mean, I uh that we we identify being a religious Jew. What does it mean to be a religious Jew? I daven three times a day, I wear tefillin, I keep Shabbos, I keep kosher. And that's true. That's what a religious Jew is supposed to do. But a religious Jew is also someone who cares about others, who has rachamim, who has compassion, who has respect. So, the same way a person could never say "Oh, I'm a religious Jew, but I just don't keep Shabbos." No, that that doesn't make sense. You can't be a religious Jew who doesn't keep Shabbos. And that's true. Of course, that that's not true. In other words, you can't be that way. But it's equally true, and I think it's less obvious that you can't be a religious Jew who doesn't have ahavas Yisrael. The same way you cannot be a religious Jew who doesn't keep Shabbos, you cannot be a religious Jew who doesn't have ahavas Yisrael. It's part of the same Torah. And I'm not going to discuss what's more important. It's not important for our purposes to say what is more important. They're both important. And if they're both important, we are not truly serving Hashem if we neglect one aspect over the other aspect. So uh I think sometimes we make a mistake by narrowly defining what is a religious Jew. For example, people ask in business sometimes. I sometimes get the question uh why are Orthodox Jews not honest in business? Now, first of all, uh the first thing to say is that's a slander, because uh yeah, there are Orthodox Jews who may not be honest in business, but there's non-Orthodox Jews who are not honest in business. And there are Catholics and and Protestants and Muslims and Hindus, as well. So, to make a slanderous accusation that bedavka it's Orthodox Jews who are not honest in business is simply a lie. But an alternative way of approaching it, and this is called the no true Scotsman argument. Okay, so some people will criticize it. And that is no, there is no such thing as an Orthodox Jew who is dishonest in business. Because if he's dishonest in business, he's not an Orthodox Jew. Okay? Because honesty in business is also part of what it means to observe the Torah. So, in a sense, therefore, I can't accept the question. Now, you might ask me the I mean, of course, that's only diverting it. You might ask me a question, how come Jews who keep Shabbos and kashrus aren't sometimes not honest in business? Okay, that's a good question. But once you start saying, why how can an Orthodox Jew not be honest in business? The real answer is, he's not an Orthodox Jew, no matter what he keeps otherwise, no matter how he's dressed, no matter what color hat uh the person wears. This is as fundamental as any other part of the of the Torah. Okay. So, these are things to to remember in terms of of our growth in in avodas in avodas Hashem. You know, it's been said that one of the differences between yeshiva and university is that one goes to university to learn how to make a living. Now, by the way, that was not the classic definition of even the university, but at least in modern in the modern age where people tend to be more vocationally focused. So, university is a trade school. Maybe it's a glorified trade school. So, there are trade schools where you learn auto mechanics. And there are trade schools like Harvard Law School where you learn law. Okay, trade school. One is a trade school and one another is a trade school. Uh just because one is a lawyer, one is a car mechanic, you know, no real difference there. So, universities today have become places where you learn how to make a living. A yeshiva is you learn how to make a life. Difference, you see? Uh we spend so much time thinking about how to make a living that we don't think about how to make a life, which is ultimately the more important job. The more important task uh that that that we have. So, uh in addition to all of the the specific things that we learn, we learn many specific things. We learn much knowledge. Uh we go through complicated discussions in the Gemara. And all of that is part of what builds us up in our relationship with God. Those those are the inputs that fortify and um give nutrition to the soul. That's very true. But we also have to think about the long-term goal here. And there's a certain long-term goal of wanting to try to make ourselves into a type of person that Hashem wants us to be. Not just make a living, but make a life. A person, for example I'm getting I'm digressing today, but whatever. A person, for example, who will know how to have a relationship with another person. How to how to be a husband. How to be a parent. Very, very important. We have too many cases, even in the yeshiva world, even in this yeshiva. People get married, and sometimes they get divorced within 6 months or less. What's going on? What's going on here? What what does the yeshiva And again, I don't I don't blame necessarily the the the the the the husband and the wife. I blame us. What's going on that we haven't given people the wherewithal and the ability to be able to have a human relationship. To be able to have a loving relationship. To be able to have a marriage. Okay? So So, I guess on one hand, it's our responsibility. On the other hand, it's also your responsibility. To kind of use these years as years that will help you in that direction as well. Because if a person leaves yeshiva, but is not yet capable of uh marriage and parenting then they have not really done they have not really accomplished what they're supposed to accomplish as part of this educational and spiritual process. Okay, so again, I'm not sure what this is apropos of. Maybe it's just amusing on on the loss of a Godol. It makes us think about all that we're missing in our lives and in our chinuch. And we have to think about this very, very carefully. Um Again, I can't once I get on the soapbox, unfortunately, it's hard for me to pull myself off the soapbox, but uh Sometimes, you know, uh part of the problems that we face in yeshiva is we're a little we're a little monochromatic. By that, I say we just talk about one thing which is extremely the most important thing, to be sure. But we don't talk about other things. What we talk about in yeshiva is we talk about the importance of learning Torah. For good reason. Torah is the lifeblood. Torah is what will give you that connection to Hashem. But everything is about Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah. And again, correctly so. But the problem is sometimes that life has other things, albeit derivative from Torah. Uh relationships, marriage, parenting. We don't talk about that stuff as much because we talk about learning Torah. And maybe we need to rethink that a little bit because uh I see even on a personal level, I see too many situations of broken marriages and and and uh estrangements between parents and children that really should not be the case. And therefore, one has to understand that Torah is about knowing how to live and not simply an exercise, an intellectual advancement, and the like. Okay. Um being as it may, end of uh soapbox, uh let me go into the parsha a little bit. Uh this parsha is called Shemini. And Shemini is the eighth day. The eighth day of what? Well, basically, when the Mishkan was finally completed, there were seven preliminary days. These are called the seven days of Miluim. And every one of those days, Mosha, single-handedly, truly a miracle, put up the Mishkan, took it down, and for those seven days, interestingly enough, Mosha was the Kohen. Mosha officiated. Mosha Rabbenu brought the special korbanos for the inauguration period. And we read that at the end of last week's parsha. Remember, and Mosha dressed Aaron and dressed Aaron's sons in their special garments, and Mosha anointed them. In other words, they were not yet Kohanim. Uh Mosha was functioning as a Kohen, and he was inaugurating them. Finally, we come to the eighth day. And now, Aaron and his sons, for the very first time, are inaugurated as the Kohanim who will officiate in the Mishkan. Uh and therefore, the eighth day means the eighth day of the consecration days. What calendar date was that? That was Rosh Chodesh Nissan. So, the Miluim began the 25th of Adar, and it lasted until Rosh Chodesh Nissan, which was the day of Hakamat, the final erection of the Mishkan. And this was a great day of joy, a great day of simcha. A day in which God's presence comes into the world because the Mishkan is a mechanism, like the Beit Hamikdash later, to bring the Shechinah into the world. In fact, even the the very word Shechinah, just in terms of etymology, Shechinah means the presence of God that resides in this world. There are different aspects of God, although God is an indivisible reality, but like a diamond that you can view from different different vantage points, there are different facets of God that we perceive at various times. The Shechinah is the facet of God that operates in the world. Shechinah dwells in the world. Based on the pasuk, "V'asu li mikdash, make for me a sanctuary," Hashem says, "V'shachanti b'tocham." So, I will dwell in their midst. Shachanti, Mishkan, right? Mishkan, Shachanti, Shechinah, are all connected in that way. Okay. So, this was a great great happy day. But then, something happens all of a sudden that takes away that happiness, that turns what had been the most joyous day into a day of tragedy. That is, Aaron has four sons, Nadav, Avihu, Elazar, and Issamar. Nadav and Avihu decided to do something. They took what the Torah describes as eish zarah, a foreign fire, and they brought it into the Mishkan uh to use to burn the incense. And we'll talk about exactly what that was. And what happened was a fire came from the Almighty and consumed them. It's interesting, their bodies were not marred. It's described as a fire that entered their nostrils, consumed their soul, or took the soul out of the body, but the bodies themselves were not disfigured. The bodies themselves were whole. And this was the death of Nadav and Avihu. What a tragedy that Aaron loses two of his sons that day. And the Torah records the amazing response of Aaron. Vayidom Aaron. Aaron was silent. Aaron accepted what Hashem did. Aaron did not complain. Aaron did not even express any grief. The total acceptance. And Mosha tells Aaron, "This is what God meant when he said, 'With my closest ones will I be sanctified.'" And he says, "Nadav and Avihu are even greater than us because God chose them to be a sacrifice, so to speak, for Am Yisrael." So, here is the big question. The big question is, what was exactly the sin of Nadav and Avihu? What did they do wrong? So, let's first look at what the Chumash says. The Chumash says they brought a foreign fire to God. What What does that mean? As it just in terms of reading the Chumash, what does it mean to bring a foreign fire to God? Because the halacha is that this the halacha is that when you take fire for the incense, you must take it from the outer altar. You take the fire from the altar, and you bring it into the Mishkan or the heichal to burn the ketoret. They decided that instead of taking fire from the mizbeach, they wanted to bring their own personal fire, like their own fire from the outside, their own coals. And that's called a foreign fire because it is not the fire that is taken from the mizbeach, and that is why they they died. Now, that's what the Chumash says, right? The Chumash calls it a foreign fire. And yet, if you look in Rashi and the Midrashim, you see a gazillion other reasons for the death of Nadav and Avihu. One reason that's given is that they entered the Mishkan in a state of intoxication. They drank wine, and they entered the Beit Hamikdash or the Mishkan, and for that, they were chayav misah. And the proof of that is because right after the death of Nadav and Avihu, the Jewish people are commanded to not drink wine and enter the Mishkan. The implication is that that was the reason for the death of Nadav and Avihu. Now, let me stop right there. Uh you know, in a way, that's very problematical. You know, the US Constitution has a rule that uh Congress cannot pass what is called an ex post facto law. What is an ex post facto law? Meaning a law that punishes you for something that you did before the law was enacted. I mean, let's imagine that um we pass a law that says uh the speed limit is now 45. And we then go back and give a ticket to every driver who is going 55 because they violated the law. Well, their response is, "When I was driving at 55, there was no law." So, yeah, okay, there was no law then, but we made a law now. So, we're punishing you for it. So, common sense says that's unfair and that's unjust, and that's not right. And indeed, the United States Constitution prohibits what is called an after-the-fact law, ex post facto law. So, I have a problem. Isn't that exactly what's going on here? You're telling me Nadav and Avihu died because they drank wine. Again, we're not we're not assuming they were totally intoxicated, but they were a little high, like Purim. Uh and they drank wine and entered the Mishkan. And we see that that's assur because after their death, God gave a law that says, "Thou shalt not drink wine and go into the Mishkan." Well, yeah, but that's after they died. How could they be punished for a law that was not yet given? Isn't that momash an ex post facto law? The answer has to be, I assume, that this is not like a chok. This is not like a law without reason. This is a a function of reverence and respect. So, people who were as great as Nadav and Avihu should have intuited that this was improper. Meaning, yeah, that there was no law yet. There was no law in the books, but some people are great enough that they should have figured it out. So, as a result, you see an interesting point, that Nadav and Avihu, according to that interpretation that they drank wine, they were not punished because they violated a halacha. They were punished because they violated a sense of awe and respect that they should have understood on their own. The notion of moral intuition as being binding. That's a very interesting idea. That sometimes Hashem holds us to account not only for the technical violations that we transgress, but for the things we should have figured out. And the greater you are, the more things you should have figured out. Okay, so that's shot number one, they were drunk. Or or at least they were they had drunk wine. Shot number two, they died because they decided not to get married. They made a decision that we wanted to devote our lives to God. They have you know, they were like Catholic priests, we decided to be celibate. And for that they died. Okay. Number three, they died because they were not wearing proper priestly garments. A coin can only do a voter in the specific uniform. They had deviated from the uniform. Okay. I'm giving a whole catalog. Uh number four, I'm losing I'm losing count. It said that they would pass in Halachic shailos in the presence of Moshe and Aaron. Which you're not supposed to do. You're not supposed to pass in the presence of your teachers. And they violated that. Uh the other one was kind of similar. That they themselves were waiting for Moshe and Aaron to die because they wanted to be leaders. They said, "When will these old folks die so we can take over?" And therefore Hashem took them before Moshe and Aaron. And the final explanation is that they did not die for their sin, but they died for Aaron's sin. Aaron participated or Aaron was the primary person who built the golden calf. Now granted, he did it because he thought he would be killed, etc. And when Hashem decreed that Aaron was guilty for building the golden calf, Hashem decreed he would lose all of his children. And Moshe Rabbeinu's prayer was mevatel half of the gezeirah. So instead of losing all four, he only lost two out of the four. This is called tefillah oseh machatzah. Prayer accomplishes 50%. Meaning sometimes Hashem will not annul the whole decree, but he'll annul 50% of the decree. And then there's a final reason. That Nadav and Avihu themselves were guilty of a sin, but it was before the Mishkan. It goes all the way back to Matan Torah. If you remember, at the end of Parshas Mishpatim, uh it describes that the elders of Israel were gazing at the sapphire throne of Hashem. And they were eating and they were drinking. According to Chazal, the so-called elders of Israel were none other than Nadav and Avihu. And they were chayav misah because they were gazing at the Shechinah disrespectfully and eating and drinking. And they should have died on the day of Shavuos, Matan Torah, but God did not want to mar the joy of Matan Torah. So he deferred their death to another joyous day, but not as great as Matan Torah, the day of Hakamas haMishkan. So again, I'm not sure if I can remember this let's look at all of the aveiros Chazal catalog. Number one, drinking wine. Number two, not getting married. Number three, not wearing the proper big day cohana. Number four, pass in Halacha in the presence of Moshe and Aaron. Number five, waiting for Moshe and Aaron to die. Number six, uh the gezeirah on Aaron that he would lose his sons, which was modified by Moshe's prayer for only 50%. And number seven, right? Seven reasons is they were chayav misah at Matan Torah for gazing at the Shechinah. And Hashem deferred their deaths to Hakamas haMishkan. So I've given you seven aveiros that they did. Problem is, none of these seven are what the Torah says they did. The Torah gives you an eighth reason. The Torah says they brought in a foreign fire. In other words, instead of taking fire from the mizbei'ach, they brought in their private fire. So you're giving me seven other reasons when the Torah itself tells you what the reason is? How do you reconcile this cataloging of seven other aveiros if the Torah says the aveirah was aish zarah? So the answer has to be, since Chazal cannot contradict what the Chumash says, it must be that the seven aveiros that Chazal catalog are actually interpretations of foreign fire. In other words, foreign fire has a literal meaning. They took the fire from their homes instead of the mizbei'ach. But in a more metaphorical way, all of these are aspects of foreign fire. Now let me let me explain how this is so. We know that fire is often associated with enthusiasm, with passion. In Shir haShirim, which is the great beautiful poem of haMelech, which describes our relationship with God and God's relationship with us as the passionate love of a man for a woman. In fact, I could have kept it, there were those who did not want to include Shir haShirim in Tanakh. They thought it was romantic love poetry and was not sacred. Shir haShirim almost got banned, censored. But the great advocate for Shir haShirim was none other than the great Rabbi Akiva, who introduced the idea that Shir haShirim is a metaphor. It is using human love as a metaphor for the love of God for us and us for God. And that love is described in chapter eight, Shir haShirim, as a fiery passion that burns within. In which then the pasuk says in Shir haShirim, mayim rabim lo yuchlu lechabot es ha'ahavah. The most powerful water cannot extinguish, meaning persecution and the like, the most powerful forces cannot extinguish the power of that love. In fact, even the physical nature of fire, fire moves upward, right? When fire burns, the flames are moving up. As opposed to let's say water, which is, you know, moving down because of gravity, right? Fire goes up. That is a reference to the neshamah wanting to connect to God. So fire refers to passion and connection and yearning, deveikus, cleaving to God, love of God. So that's fire. But fire is wonderful, but fire can also be destructive. And that is a problem that we we we've had many times in our history and we have we have very often today. And that is sometimes in one's fiery yearning to become close to God, one may be impatient with Halachic detail. Because sometimes Halachic details don't seem superficially to be connected to the spiritual yearning I have to be with Hashem. I yearn to be with Hashem. But you're telling me I got to finish Shema by 9:01 or whatever it is. Well, what if I'm in the middle of a wonderful Shema, let's say it's uh 9:00 and I have, you know, 1 minute to finish Shema. Isn't it better for me to have kavana and really think about what I'm doing instead of having to make the clock? Again, you understand the general idea. People say, you know, I love Shabbos, I celebrate my connection with Hashem, but then you tell me I can't turn on a light, can't rip toilet paper. How is that bringing me closer to God? To use the fancy term in this, the mystical spiritual temperament often has an antinomian tendency. Yeah, that's a nice fancy academic word. Antinomian simply means against law, against rules, against regulation. I want to connect to Hashem. I don't want all of these little rules and barriers to stop me from that relationship. You can understand that there is sometimes a tension between mysticism, which is really an extreme expression of love of God, and the details of Halakhic life which kind of hold me back a little bit. They restrict me. They limit my actions. They circumscribe me when the fire within me doesn't want to be contained. Without being my breath, this deserves another share. This was one of the Vilna Gaon's oppositions to Hasidus because in in early Hasidus that emphasized the spiritual subjectivity of passionate love. There was sometimes a denigration of Halakhic detail. And the Vilna Gaon saw that as ultimately destroying Judaism. And that's why he took a stand that you have to follow the Halakhas no matter what. That is why Rav Chaim of Volozhin wrote Nefesh HaChaim to kind of make that point. That Kavana and love is beautiful and important, but it has to be within the structure. And the reason for that is self-evident. Because if you want a relationship with God, you have to have it on God's terms, not your terms. Hashem tells you how you relate to him. Hashem tells you how you connect to him. Hashem tells you what ways of access are open to reach him. So, you say you don't like that? You prefer other ways of access? But Hakadosh Baruchu defines the rules. You see? So, this is what we might term metaphorically aish zara. A foreign fire. A foreign fire besides its literal connotation refers to the idea of a person who yearns with a fiery enthusiasm to be united with the Almighty. But it's foreign because it's not operating within the parameters of God's own structure. Right? We would call it today new age spirituality or whatever it would be. And all seven of Averos, I'll show you quickly, exemplify that that was the problem of Nadav and Avihu. They loved God. They yearned to be connected to God. But they were impatient with the rules and the regulations and the structures. And therefore God took them because you cannot be a leader of Am Yisrael if you are not subjecting yourself to the Halakhas of God. That's the idea of Aish Zara. Aish Zara we can call misplaced spirituality or spirituality that is not rooted in Halakhic directive. Or spirituality that is antinomian. Aish Zara. So, based on that metaphorical understanding of Aish Zara, you actually understand every one of the Averos. First, the notion of drinking. Now, they didn't drink to get drunk. Rather, they took alcohol, presumably, because they wanted to reach a heightened state of emotional joy thinking this would help them in their service of God. Now, in truth, we do that as well. Why do we have wine for Kiddush and for Pesach and weddings and a bris? Because we understand this spring Purim. This brings us to Simcha. And that's fine. The idea is a legitimate idea, but not in the Beit Hamikdash. Not in the Beit Hamikdash. You're breaking down God's boundaries. God basically said, "This is an alcohol-free zone." You think logically my Avodas Hashem is going to be better if I break God's rules? That's an oxymoron. In other words, to say, "I can serve God better if I don't follow God's rules than if I do follow God's rules." Huh? I can serve God better if I don't do what God says than if I do? Is that serving God or is that simply appealing to whatever spiritual impulses you have? Similarly, not getting married. They had a philosophy of asceticism, of renunciation, of celibacy. The same justifications that the Catholic Church might offer for celibacy, it allows you to focus on serving God without distractions. They had that Chashmon as well. But that's a mistake. Moshe was celibate. That's a one one person. But God's will is that we marry and we have families. So, once again, you're second-guessing God's Halakhic structure by looking at what is good for your spirituality instead of focusing on the rules that God gave you. Uh the third, I don't know if I hope I'll remember the order here. The third was they were not wearing the bigdei kehuna. Well, metaphorically, clothes is what separates us, right? I'm wearing clothes, you're wearing clothes, right? They didn't want a separation with God. They took off the clothes, so to speak, so they would have no barriers. Because the Aish in a person doesn't want any separation. But God says, "No matter how righteous you are, there will always be a separation. You can't be God." When they said they paskened Halakha in front of Moshe and Aaron or they wanted Moshe and Aaron to die, right? Those are connected. Moshe and Aaron represent what you might call the old order. Moshe and Aaron represent the rules. They represent the structure. They represent the idea that there are ways of doing things. Nadav and Avihu? Antinomian. You can You can use another term. You can call them spiritual anarchists. They believe that each person has his own way of connecting to God. We don't need to follow Halakhos and rules that take away from my passion. So, they issued rulings in the presence of Moshe and Aaron because they were they were advocating a different way of serving God. A way of serving God that is not so fixed on rules and regulations. They were waiting for Moshe and Aaron to die so their leadership could be manifest in that way. But once again, that's Aish, passion, Zara. Then we come to the idea that their death may have been connected to the cheit of the eigel that Aaron committed. The cheit of eigel also came from this desire. We want to serve God, but we need a tangible intermediary. The golden calf because Moshe is not here. Once again, that's understandable from an emotional standpoint. But that's not the way God wants to be served. God wants to be served directly, as difficult as it is to connect to him, rather than intermediaries. And the final idea was Nadav and Avihu gazed at the Shechinah. They wanted to approach God in an un- I'm sorry, in a in an unmediated way, in a direct, tangible, experiential way without following the rules. So, this is the meaning of Aish Zara. Aish is very important. The world cannot exist without fire. We need a sun or heat. We need a sun. We need fire to cook. We need fire to create. We need fire of some sort to do everything in the world. It is a staple of human existence. But fire that is not contained can be a force of immense destruction. And the same thing is true for spiritual fire. Spiritual fire is wonderful and holy and elevated. Light and heat. And it rises to be united with God. And that fire is so strong that the strongest torrential waters cannot extinguish it. But if the fire is not circumscribed, if it is not contained within God's pathways, it then actually becomes an an anarchic force of immense destruction resulting in the death of two great, righteous, holy people, Nadav and Avihu, because they brought the Aish Zara before God. There is a thought of Rav Tzadok that is really so controversial that it was actually censored from the early editions of his Sefarim. Later, they discovered the notebooks and people put it back in. Rav Tzadok actually posits, and this is a very dangerous idea, maybe I shouldn't even say it, that Nadav and Avihu may have been right. Meaning to say, there may be individuals who are so great, who are so elevated, who are so above the norm, that they can actually have a private relationship to God that's not based on the Halakha. It might be that they could strike their own private deal with God. But under no circumstances can they be the role models and leaders of Ami Israel. And therefore they were taken not so much because they were sinful. They were taken because their model of religiosity and spirituality was so dangerous that it could not be allowed to become the norm of how Jews lived in their connection to God. That's very intriguing. Meaning to say, what was right for them was not in fact that that actually explains what otherwise would be a non sequitur. Remember, Moshe says to Aaron, you see they're holier than us. Well, I would say, what do you mean holier than us? They died because they sinned. They didn't die because they're holier than us. But on a deeper level what it actually means is they were so holy that perhaps they personally were beyond the rules of Halakha. But God took them because nobody else could live on that level and no one else is supposed to live on that level. That that's what Rav Soloveitchik says and again as I say it's a very very daring idea. It's a very dangerous idea because I think the fear is that people are going to say, "Oh yeah, I'm one of those I'm like Nadav and Avihu. You know, I don't have to keep Shabbat. I I have my private relationship with God." And I've I've I've heard I mean people didn't use the word of Nadav and Avihu, but I've heard people say, "I have my own relationship with God." Well, sorry. You're not Nadav and Avihu. We're not Nadav and Avihu. That was a unique type of situation and they were taken from the world because that philosophy would have been too dangerous in destroying Ami Israel. I think these are some perspectives on the idea of Eish Zara and Mishael. Good Shabbos and be well. Thank you very much.