[Picture: we read that ‘’the camel does not part the hoof..." Free Image - CC0 Creative Commons - Designed and Uploaded by Wphoto to Pixabay]

[For articles on the “Sabbath of  Shemini" in Hebrew, click here] [For a collection of Hebrew articles on the Holocaust and World War II, click here] [For Hebrew articles on independence and memory, click here]

Rabbi Dr. Yossi Feintuch was born in Afula and holds a Ph.D. in American history from Emory University in Atlanta. He taught American history at Ben-Gurion University.

Author of the book US Policy on Jerusalem (JCCO).

He now serves as rabbi at the Jewish Center in central Oregon. (JCCO).

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When the Torah portion of Sh’mini was timed a  l o n g time ago in Babylon to fall soon after Passover no one could anticipate that many centuries later it would fall in very close proximity to the State of Israel’s day of commemorating the Holocaust (Yom Ha-Shoah) on 27 Nissan.  The Sh’mini portion highlights the tragic death of Nadav and Avihu, the two elder sons of Aaron, the High Priest. Irrespective of how the two had violated the ritual protocol in the just-completed making of the Tent of Meeting, linking their offering of incense presented with a ‘’strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them’’— to an eeriest and mysterious death by fire is a conundrum. Their death was so traumatic for the people of Israel that the Torah references the deaths of Nadav and Avihu four times; twice in Leviticus and twice in Numbers.

[Picture: Nadav and Avihu ... By: Ari Elon, Painting: Yona Arazi Publication date: 09/04/16, Project: Bible Sacrifices for 929]

No matter what we think of what wrong they might have done, nothing could make sense and explain why Nadav and Avihu had to die at this instance or in this manner - ''the burning that the Lord inflicted'' (Lev. 10:6) . And this is certainly the case when it comes to the Holocaust, a catastrophe that defies any theological explanation. Understanding theologically these two events will remain as a total enigma until the end of days.

When the Parasha shifts to explain why certain animals are unfit for becoming food to the Israelites, animals whose meat is ''unclean'', we read that ‘’the camel does not part the hoof… and the rock-badger … will not part its foot… and the rabbit… did not part its hoof’’ either (Leviticus 11:4; unlike the Hebrew, the common English translation features these three tenses only in the Present Tense).

[Picture: we read that ‘’the camel does not part the hoof..." Free Image - CC0 Creative Commons - Designed and Uploaded by Clker-Free-Vector-Images to Pixabay]

Indeed, what is quite enigmatic and strange herein is the fact that the Torah uses different grammatical tenses to describe each species' non-cleaved hooves – present, future, and past respectively.  Rabbi Yisrael Salanter resolves this enigma by interlinking it to the following two Parashot (Tazri’a and Metsora) that largely deal with an affliction of skin lesions called tsara’at that the Rabbis explain as a consequence of verbally maligning other folks, i.e., of gossip and slanderous speech. Rabbi Yisrael thus teaches from the dietary restrictions to project on speech restrictions; Before you find a person to be  socially unfit and defiled (i.e., not kosher or ‘’treif’’) you first need to see whether all these three tenses apply to him. Hence, a person must not be socially shunned like non-kosher meat, or isolated like a leper, unless all three tenses justify it. Namely, even if there is a moral blemish in one’s present time, one needs to verify before ostracizing such a person that the same blemish was already manifested in that person’s past, and is likely to recur in the future too. Unless you can safely use all three tenses (that appear only in the Hebrew text), no person should be viewed as socially impure, or worthy of being tarred and feathered by society.

[The original image is a free image for use at CC BY 2.0 level, uploaded by Martin Abegglen to flickr]

The enigmatic and peculiar nature of the land of Israel – Israel’s independence is observed a week after Yom Ha-Shoah, and right before we read in Leviticus 14:34 that God would ‘’put the plague of tsaraat [commonly translated wrongly as ‘’leprosy’’] in a house of the land of your possession [Canaan]’’. The affliction of a house with Tsaraat is unique to the land of Israel; this being a mark that distinguishes the land of Israel from all other lands where no house could be similarly afflicted. The mystical character of this land is found also in the 5708^th verse of the Torah (Deuteronomy 30:5): ‘’And the Lord your God shall bring you to the land that your fathers took hold of, and you shall take hold of it…’’— mysteriously, this verse about the national restoration of the Hebrews to their ancestral land was earnestly fulfilled in the Hebrew year of 5708 (1948)…

[For articles on the “Sabbath of  Shemini" in Hebrew, click here] [For a collection of Hebrew articles on the Holocaust and World War II, click here] [For Hebrew articles on independence and memory, click here]