​One of my favorite professors from rabbinical school, Rabbi Israel Francus z”l, was beloved at the Seminary for his quick, sharp wit and self-deprecating modesty. He once told my Talmud class a story about his own days as a student at JTS. Relatively new to critical text study and to America, he was sitting in a Bible class taught by the great Bible scholar H.L. Ginsberg. Ginsberg - who would later be one of the primary editors of the JPS translation that we use today - was well-known for emending the text to get at its truest meaning. By switching letters in certain words or even words themselves, previously opaque sections of the biblical text would become clear. Reading through the JPS translation of the Tanakh, one can often find footnotes that say, “Emendation yields xxx.” These all came from H.L. Ginsberg. 
 
In this Bible class, Rabbi (then student) Francus watched his teacher work his magic with the text. It seemed to make sense to him, so he thought to try it out himself, raising his hand and offering his own suggestion for an emendation of the text that would clarify its meaning. Enraged, Ginsberg (in Rabbi Francus’s telling) pushed his desk over as he stood and yelled, “Moron!” Rabbi Francus ran out of the room, banished from class. 
 
(Because Rabbi Francus was hilarious - he also told us the coda to the story: “I didn’t run out of the room because he yelled at me,” he said. “I ran to the library to find a dictionary so I could look up what was a ‘moron.’”)
 
While Rabbi Francus’s story is amusing, at its core is an example of a student not quite ready to stand in the shoes of his teacher, not quite aware of the depth of expertise it took to draw such meaning from the text. He overstepped a boundary and immediately felt the consequences of his hubris.
 
Parashat Shemini gives us the story of Nadav and Avihu, who similarly overstepped a boundary. The consequences imposed upon them, however, were far more dire. The parashah begins immediately after the seven days of inauguration for the Mishkan, during which Moshe showed Aaron how each of the sacrifices was to be properly done. On the eighth day, it was finally Aaron’s turn to assume his role as the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest. 
 
Aaron dutifully followed the instructions he had been given and carefully offered each of the sacrifices, solidifying his place at the top of the priestly hierarchy. He then blessed the people, entered the Tent of Meeting with Moshe, bringing more blessings to the nation and triggering the appearance of God’s presence. 
 
In the wake of this powerful scene, Aaron’s two eldest sons, Nadav and Avihu step forward to make their own offerings, placing incense in their fire pans and lighting it. Immediately, God’s fire came forth, not to consume their offerings, but to consume them, and they were killed. 
 
There are many ways to understand this story. Undeniably, it is a troubling one to read for so many reasons - it speaks to the danger that lurks in holy spaces, to God’s seeming fickleness. It challenges our sense of justice in the world since it never quite explains exactly what Nadav and Avihu did to deserve such immediate and severe punishment.   
But it also contains a powerful message about the importance of boundaries and of knowing our own places in the world. In this context, it reads like an exaggerated cautionary tale. Nadav and Avihu, foolishly thinking that they could step into their father’s place as Kohen Gadol, incurred swift and permanent consequences. 
 
We can understand why they might have believed themselves qualified to bring their offerings. Having witnessed up close first Moshe and then their father performing the sacrificial rituals, and knowing that they were slated to eventually take Aaron’s place, they probably did understand the technical procedures for offering each of the sacrifices. The priestly system was still quite new; they likely didn’t quite realize just how firm the hierarchical boundaries were. We’re meant to learn from their tragic example to tread carefully in the holy spaces of our communities, to be aware of which roles are accessible to us and which ones are not, to recognize that just because something looks straightforward doesn’t mean it actually is. 
 
Our communities today have much lower and more flexible boundaries than in the time of the Torah. Chevrei Tzedek, in particular, is especially democratic - we welcome and seek out everyone’s meaningful participation in the life of our shul. We are a community of learners and doers, who love sharing our viewpoints and skills, and who value the new ideas, melodies, and perspectives we encounter. How blessed we are to be able to hear and learn from so many different voices. 
 
Each of us has something we can offer to the community with skill and expertise. And each of us has areas where we can continue to grow and learn as we try out new things. We are fortunate to have a community full of people with ability in many different areas; ideally we reach out to them to benefit from their experience as we try out new ways of contributing. 
 
Especially as we walk that path of exploration and experimentation, we will inevitably butt up against some boundaries, breaching them perhaps without even realizing it. We may unwittingly say something hurtful to another person, for example, not realizing the impact of our words. We might take liberties with the tradition without fully understanding the implications of our actions. Fortunately for us, God’s fire will not burst out and consume us when we do. And we can be kind, patient, and give each other the benefit of the doubt when we feel our boundaries crossed. The story of Nadav and Avihu reminds us to be mindful and self-aware in how we act in community. When we strive to do so, our communities can be the holy spaces they’re meant to be. 
 
Shabbat shalom.

​As I write this, the brisket is cooling on the counter, my fridge is overflowing, and I’m beginning to wonder how I’m going to get it all done. For those of us who host Seder for our family and friends, a significant part of the preparation for Pesaḥ lies not in ruminating on the deeper spiritual essence of the holiday, but in the hard work of reorganizing our kitchens and dining rooms and cooking a seemingly endless array of symbolic and nostalgic foods. 

This past week at school, we held our annual Learning Festival, a three day event during which teachers develop out-of-the-box classes on a specific theme. This year’s theme was “Hidden Worlds.” My class was on exploring the infinite worlds hidden in the words of our sacred books and creating Midrash through the lens of the Haggadah. My students chose from among several texts from the Haggadah and then followed a specific process before turning their ideas into paintings, poems, playlists, collages, or stories. The first step in the process, after reading the text carefully, is to ask probing questions. Their answers would then become the kernels for their midrashic work.

One of the texts I offered them was the well known instruction at the end of the Maggid section: “In each and every generation, one is obligated to see themselves as if they left Egypt.” Over and over again, the students who chose this text asked a question that I didn’t expect. Why should we envision ourselves back in Egypt, when it was so terrible? Focusing not on the imperative to see ourselves in the Exodus, they all wondered why we had to imagine the experience of being enslaved in order to celebrate being free. 

The students who chose this question as the basis for their Midrash went in different directions with their answers, but most of those answers focused on how the experience of being enslaved in Egypt is essential to Jewish identity. And they’re not wrong. One of the - perhaps the most significant - core tenet of being Jewish is knowing that we were enslaved in Egypt and were then freed by God’s strong hand and outstretched arm. We don’t simply spend hours on the topic at our yearly Sedarim, we include this principle in our daily prayers, speaking of it multiple times daily, and it appears throughout the Torah, not only in the first 15 chapters of the book of Shemot. It’s a powerful story that resonates with us so deeply because we know it’s about us. 

Imagining ourselves in Egypt can be a powerful experience. I, for one, can’t get through the “There Will be Miracles” scene in The Prince of Egypt without bawling. However, I think there’s more to the requirement to see ourselves as having left Egypt than retrojecting ourselves into the story from so long ago. After all, the Haggadah instructs: “In each and every generation…” We are meant both to put ourselves into the story of the Exodus and see our lives today through the lens of leaving Egypt. 

This isn’t always easy to do. While slavery, tragically, still exists in our world, most of our lives are so far away from that reality that we cannot even fathom what it would be like to be freed from enslavement. To fit the lens of the Exodus over our lives today, we need to understand it metaphorically. To find meaning in this instruction, we need to figure out for ourselves a  contemporary corollary for leaving Egypt. 

At base, the Exodus is a journey from extreme constraint to freedom - not boundless freedom, but the freedom to exist in divine relationship. The questions, then, that we need to ask ourselves, center around these ideas. What are the challenges we are facing? How do the limits of our world as it currently is hem us in or make us feel constrained? Where do we see fewer possibilities than we would ideally want? What in our lives opens us up? Who are the people in our lives who help us feel most like our best selves? What new opportunities lie ahead for us?

Amid all the work of getting Pesaḥ ready, it’s important to take a little time to get ready for Pesaḥ. Especially with the intervening day of Shabbat this year providing a bit of a buffer, my wish for us as we enter the holiday is that we find our own answers to these questions, so that we can truly see ourselves as having left Egypt.

Shabbat Shalom and a zissen Pesaḥ to us all.