Naming and Serving

I’m taking a class with Rabbi Dianne Cohler Esses, “Rabbinic Views on Suffering,” which focuses on the narrative of Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aaron who are consumed by fire when they offer unsolicited ‘strange fire’ before God. I was struck reading last week’s Torah portion by the linguistic parallels between the descriptions of Nadav and Avihu’s actions and those of the followers of Korach. The offerings of both are responded to with an ‘aish ochelet’ (‘a consuming fire’). It is unclear exactly what is consumed; it seems to consume their souls, as their bodies remain and need to be removed from the camp. 250 of Korach’s followers are killed by this fire.
I can’t imagine living in a paradigm where God blatantly punishes the ‘wrong’ worship. Aaron’s eldest sons and Korach’s followers all sought an intimacy with God that was forbidden to them, they wanted to make offerings that weren’t prescribed. Were these efforts to go beyond the call of duty, or a disingenuous desire to connect to God?
What does it mean that we no longer have a clearly subscribed way to serve God?
Does the modern lack of clarity about the nature of God allow us to create God? Has God changed so that there is a greater variety of ways to connect, to serve appropriately?
The Kotzsker Rebbi taught that worshipping the same way two days in a row is idol worship. Because God changes, our relationship with Him must evolve. I wonder to what extent God can actually change, how much of that seeming change (for instance, the reactive and responsive ‘version’ of God in the Torah, versus the seeming hiddenness of God now) is merely our lens shifting.
There are places in Prophets where ‘haEl haGadol haGibor vhaNora’ (“The great God, the Mighty, and the Awesome,” a line said by Moses, now cited in the Amidah prayer) is modified, only using two of those descriptors “HaGadol vHaNora (Daniel 9:4)” or “HaGadol vHaGibor (Jeremiah 32:17).” The rabbis of the Talmud address this discrepancy saying “Since [the prophets] knew that the Blessed Holy One is real, they could not ascribe false [things] to Him.” (Babylonian Talmud Yoma 69b). Do we ascribe false things to God? Without prophecy, I suppose we can’t really know. We have to rely on people from thousands of years ago and trust that God hasn’t changed so much…I think the modern tension of a Jewishly engaged life dances along a line between innovation, honesty, and tradition.
I’ve been looking at a lot of places in Tanach where the people have an intimate experience of the presence of God, and are horrified, fear-stricken, incapable of being in that relationship. I wonder if the apparent distance we feel from God is out of His graciousness: while it takes a lot of work to relate to Someone hidden, the project of revealing God can be at our own pace, can be to reveal the aspects of God that each person wants to find, to relate to.
I’m feeling tremendously grateful. While I’m certainly still figuring out what it means to be relating to God, I feel so, so blessed. I had a wonderful Shabbat in the city, culminating in Lizzy (my wonderful roommate) and I hosting 15 wonderful people in our itty bitty living room – the walls could hardly contain the song and sweetness.
Today there was blue sky, which was also quite remarkable.
[These ideas came from a number of places: wonderful conversations, classes, and divrei Torah.]