torah: rabbi david etengoff

Can we be like Aharon and his sons?

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The final verse in parasha Tzav, “And Aaron and his sons did all the things that the L-rd commanded through Moses,” contains the unusual phrase, “that the L-rd commanded through Moses” (Sefer Vayikra 8:36). It appears only twice more in Tanach, namely, in Sefer Bamidbar 36:13 and in Sefer Nechemiah 8:14. In stark contrast, the standard formulation, “as the L-rd commanded Moses,” is found 38 times in Chamisha Chumshei Torah alone, and three more times in Sefer Yehoshua. Little wonder, then, that Chazal felt driven to analyze the uncommon use of the expression, “that the L-rd commanded through Moses.”

Rashi suggests that the reason Torah employed the phraseology was to “to tell their [Aharon and his son’s] praise, namely, that they did not deviate to the right or to the left.”

In his classic super-commentary on Rashi, Gur Aryeh, the Maharal of Prague (R. Yehudah Loew ben Bezalel) explicated Rashi’s comment: “This is the case, since the Temple service is of overarching import and replete with many stringencies that stem from the numerous laws that constitute the Sacrificial Service.

Therefore, the Torah teaches us that they neither deviated from, nor erred regarding, any of them — “neither to the right or to the left,” since they acted with great intention and exactitude” in the fulfillment of their task.

The Sifra, the halachic Midrash to Sefer Vayikra, takes a different approach to our phrase. Instead of focusing on what Aharon and his sons actually did, the Midrash discusses their reactions to being commanded to perform the Sacrificial Service: “They rejoiced and were exhilarated when they heard the command from Moshe, as if they had heard it directly from the Holy One Blessed be He. This is precisely why the Torah states: ‘And Aaron and his sons did all the things that the L-rd commanded through Moses.’ [This means that rather than being Moshe’s emissaries,] they felt they were in the noble position of being Hashem’s immediate representatives. As such, the commandments [of the Sacrificial Service] were [particularly beloved] to them.”

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