In Parshat Emor, God commands the Israelites to provide pure olive oil for lamps and fine flour for twelve loaves of bread, which the kohanim must arrange regularly with frankincense in the mishkan as an ongoing service every Shabbat. At the very end of these verses, God emphasizes that this service is most holy to him. This is juxtaposed with a story about a half-Israelite, half-Egyptian man who gets into a scrum in the camp with a different Israelite. During the fight, the half-Israelite curses out God (seemingly because he is losing). Because of this, God commands Moshe to have the man brought outside the camp by the people and stoned by them. Afterwards, God gives more rules regarding offenses against others.
The progression of these events can also be seen in Parshat Shemini, specifically in Vayikra chapter 9. Aaron and his sons sacrifice a chatat (sin), olah (burnt), and shelamim (peace) offering to God in front of the entire community. They bless the people twice, and the fire of God consumes the offerings before them in all His glory, and the people are in awe. Afterwards, Nadav and Avihu burn incense before God at the inner entrance of the mishkan and are killed with the same fire that consumes the offering only two psukim prior. Moshe then tells Aaron’s nephews to carry their cousins outside the camp. Finally, God enacts priestly practices and rituals for them to follow.
These stories have the same exact archetype. They both start off talking about the details of a service to God, continue with an attack on God resulting in death, carry on with the perpetrators being taken out of the camp (one situation was after death, the other was before being killed), and end with God stipulating laws relevant to the groups of people associated with the incidents (regular people with their day-to-day lives and kohanim with their services).
However, the differences teach a lot more than the similarities. For example, Nadav and Avihu are kohanim, who are the holiest group of people in the nation, and God’s fire kills them despite trying to emulate an awe-inspiring moment they had just experienced. This is a sharp contrast to the half-Israelite, killed by his fellow people for purposefully cursing out God.
This teaches us that well-intentioned holy actions can be as displeasing to God as mundane, ill-intentioned wrongdoings. From here, we see that holier people are held to higher standards and are judged more immediately and severely than ordinary people. People of leadership and power should serve as role models for the people they are leading and should act with the utmost honor and integrity. If the leaders and role models cannot act properly, where does that leave us?
