We are Uzzah

Written by Rabbi Elliott Karstadt — 17 April 2023

One of the most thought-provoking books I have been reading recently is called A Guide for the Jewish Undecided. The book’s author wants to persuade his audience of three things:

that it is more plausible to believe that God exists than that there is no God
that if we assume that God exists then it is most plausible to accept that the revelation to the Israelites at Sinai really happened (in one way or another)
that if we assume God exists and the revelation at Sinai was real, then the most plausible thing for God to want is for Jews to live an orthodox way of life.

This final premise is based on the assumption that, when God gave the revelation of the Ten Commandments and, indeed, the whole Torah to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, in doing so God gave what the author calls ‘something like a divine stamp of approval to the religious tradition that grew out of it’. Or more accurately, one of the religious traditions that grew out of it. And how do we know which religious tradition is the one that we need to look to that will provide us with the most reliable version of what God wants us to do?

The author, Sam Lebens, who grew up here in the UK and now works as professor of philosophy at the University of Haifa, argues that ‘as in the past, it is the most religiously committed cross section of the community that primarily carries forward the torch of Sinai today’ (p. 202) and that therefore ‘the warrant of Sinai flows most forcefully today in the direction of Orthodoxy’ (p. 203). To which my response on reading was ‘hmmm’.

I want to challenge this deeply held assumption, which I find not only among Orthodox Jews, but also internalised by some Progressive Jews, that there is somehow a more direct line from Sinai to the Orthodox Judaism of today than there is to Progressive Judaism.

As Ezekiel taught this morning, one way of understanding the actions of Nadav and Abihu is as ritual innovators – religious leaders who tried something different, and were punished for it. And our tradition is full of those who have demonstrated their commitment to Judaism not through reverent obedience but through innovation and chutzpah – what Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah names ‘trouble-making Judaism’. And we encounter in our tradition not only instances in which this kind of innovation and trouble-making is punished, but also times in which it is encouraged and rewarded. In particular she draws attention to the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, who took many of the traditions laid out in the Torah and challenged them: when the Israelites came to the Land of Israel and were too focussed on the sacrifices and ignored the suffering of the orphan, the stranger, and the widow, they admonish them for it. This already provides us with a different view of religiosity to the dramatic deaths of Nadav, Abihu and Uzzah that we have read about today.

Nearly 2000 years ago, the rabbis of the Midrash (Leviticus Rabbah 20:9) were equally uncomfortable about the way in which Nadav and Abihu were punished. They don’t speak their discomfort explicitly, but they do try to find other ways in which to explain why the two sons of Aaron die when they bring the ‘strange fire’, other than the fact itself that they bring the strange fire. One argument is that they did so when they were drunk. Another argument is that they did so wearing the wrong kind of clothes. Finally it is argued that they are punished for the fact that they disdain fathering children. Why do the rabbis feel the need to give other reasons for the punishment of Aaron’s sons? Was it not enough to say that they brought strange fire before God and were therefore punished?

Well, no it is not enough if we think of the rabbis themselves as creators of ritual innovation. Following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70CE, the rabbis were the ones who reinvented Jewish life in such a way that it could continue to exist without a Temple. In doing so, they innovated and revolutionised what Judaism was. They were trouble-making Jews, who inherited from the prophets of the bible the imperative to innovate and adapt.

Our haftarah this morning was about the equally controversial figure of Uzzah, who is punished for putting out his hand to steady the ark to stop it falling off the cart on which it is being transported from Shiloh to Jerusalem.

In the Midrash (Numbers Rabbah 4:20), there is a disagreement between the rabbis as to why Uzzah is punished for touching the ark. Rabbi Yochanan says that he is struck down for his error – that somehow he made a mistake in touching the ark – that the ark was being transported incorrectly, as it had previously been established that the ark should only be carried on the shoulders of human beings and not on the back of a cart.

By contrast, Rabbi Eleazar argues that it was because Uzzah attended to his own needs in the presence of the ark as it was being transported to Jerusalem. This is again to move the sin away from the act itself – it was not necessarily wrong for Uzzah to reach out to defend the ark as it was falling – and towards the character of the one who did the act, and further, the motivation for doing what they did and the reverence in which they held their acts of religious service.

The rabbis of the Midrash understood that what they were doing was perhaps similar to Nadav and Abihu, and to Uzzah. They were adapting and innovating. They were reaching out their hands to steady the ark – to stop their precious Judaism from falling to the ground and shattering on the floor.

According to the rabbis, therefore, Nadav, Abihu and Uzzah are all struck down not because they innovated, and not because they did things differently, not even because they may have made trouble for others. But because they came to the project of innovation in the wrong frame of mind. Because they did it irreverently, with the wrong motivation, or because they did it for their own purposes and their own needs.

So, let us commit ourselves to making trouble, to innovating and changing, and moving our tradition in a way that accords with modern life. And let us not apologise for it. But let us also remember that this is not a game, and not to be done lightly – that Judaism is fundamentally important to us and that when we extend our hand to steady it, it is out of love and reverence and a seriousness to the task in hand.