Balancing Perspectives
Children’s emotions are straightforward; when a child wants something he wants it fully, when a child hates or fears something, the emotion fills her little heart completely. As we mature, however, our emotions become more complex. We want something but at the same time we are capable of feeling it’s downsides as well. We love the piece of chocolate but we hate it’s calorie count. We may hate to hard work but we love how it makes us feel at the end. We can hate and pity someone at the same time. We can love certain traits of a someone while hating others.
As we mature spiritually, our emotional complexity develops further. As the holy Zohar states “Weeping is lodged in one side of my heart, and joy is lodged in the other”. I may be saddened because of the state of my material being, but at the same time I can rejoice about the state of my spiritual soul.
On what was the most emotionally intense day of his life, Aaron the high priest was called upon to achieve extraordinary emotional maturity.
It was the moment he anticipated all his career, the portable temple was finally complete, the seven day inauguration period has past, and, for the first time, he was performing the priestly service, cause G-d’s presence to descend. As the verse states:
And fire went forth from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fats upon the altar, and all the people saw, sang praises, and fell upon their faces.
And yet, just a few short moments later, Aaron suffered the greatest tragedy of his life, two of his sons tragically died:
And Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, each took his pan, put fire in them, and placed incense upon it, and they brought before the Lord foreign fire, which He had not commanded them. And fire went forth from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.
Moses turns to his brother Aaron and instructs him to put his personal pain aside. This is a joyous day to G-d, and Aaron and his remaining two sons were called upon to serve as representatives of all the people, and therefore they were called upon to experience the Divine joy.
And here is where the story gets complicated. Moses finds out that one of the offerings, that was meant to be eaten Aaron and his sons, was burnt. Moses was furious. He asks Aaron:
"Why did you not eat the sin offering in the holy place? For it is holy of holies, and He has given it to you to gain forgiveness for the sin of the community, to effect their atonement before the Lord!”.
Moses was asking “why have not eaten the offering? How could you have placed your personal mourning ahead of G-d’s joy?"
Aaron responds by explaining to Moses that the correct thing to do was to eat some of the offerings (the ones that were unique to that day), and to burn the other (the one that was to be offered on a regular basis). The verse concludes that “Moses heard [this], and it pleased him”.
Aaron taught Moses an important lesson. Aaron taught Moses that it is relatively easy for the spiritual seeker to ignore himself and devote himself completely to the Divine reality. That, however, is not G-d’s will.
The correct spiritual path, argues Aaron, is to be spiritually mature enough to experience both perspectives.
Aaron understood that a relationship with G-d, does not mean suppressing our own sense of reality, it means being able to balance and experience our reality as well as G-d’s. It means being able to burn some of the offerings, as an expression of feeling personal pain, yet eating other offerings, as an expression of feeling the Divine joy.