Shemini (parashah)

[4] In the first reading, on the eighth day of the ceremony to ordain the priests and consecrate the Tabernacle, Moses instructed Aaron to assemble calves, rams, a goat, a lamb, an ox, and a meal offering as sacrifices (קָרְבֳּנוֹת‎, korbanot) to God, saying: "Today the Lord will appear to you.

[15] Moses instructed Aaron and his sons Eleazar and Ithamar not to mourn Nadab and Abihu by rending their garments or leaving their hair unshorn and not to go outside the Tent of Meeting.

[17] In the fourth reading, Moses directed Aaron, Eleazar, and Ithamar to eat the remaining meal offering beside the altar, designating it most holy and the priests' due.

God also showed approval by sending fire in Judges 13:15–21 upon the birth of Samson, in 2 Chronicles 7:1 upon the dedication of Solomon's Temple, and in 1 Kings 18:38 at Elijah's contest with the prophets of Baal.

The parashah has parallels or is discussed in these early nonrabbinic sources:[31] Philo interpreted Leviticus 10 to teach that because Nadab and Abihu fearlessly and fervently proceeded rapidly to the altar, an imperishable light dissolved them into ethereal beams like a whole burnt-offering and took them up to heaven.

The Midrash deduced that God was mourning by noting that Genesis 6:6 reports, "And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him (וַיִּתְעַצֵּב‎, vayitatzeiv) at His heart."

'"[45] Rabban Simeon bar Yochai taught that we learn in Leviticus 9:1, among many places in Scripture, that God showed respect to the elders.

Nadab and Abihu lacked their robes (implied perhaps by the report of Leviticus 10:5 that they their bodies were carried out in their tunics), in connection with which Exodus 28:35 mentions death, saying, "And it shall be upon Aaron to minister ... so that he does not die."

The Midrash deduced that when in Numbers 11:1, the people murmured, speaking evil, and God sent fire to devour part of the camp, all those earlier 70 elders had been burned up.

The Midrash continued that the earlier 70 elders were consumed like Nadab and Abihu, because they too acted frivolously when (as reported in Exodus 24:11) they beheld God and inappropriately ate and drank.

[80] A Midrash taught that the death of Nadab and Abihu demonstrated the teaching of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi that prayer effects half atonement.

Rabbi Tarfon noted that Nadab and Abihu had performed only one good deed, as Leviticus 9:9 reports, "And the sons of Aaron presented the blood to him" (during the inaugural service of the Tabernacle).

[88] Rabbi Levi taught that God gave the section of the Torah dealing with the drinking of wine by priests, in Leviticus 10:8–11, on the day that the Israelites set up the Tabernacle.

The Gemara reported that Rabbi Joḥanan interpreted Deuteronomy 31:26, "Take this book of the law", to refer to the time after the Torah had been joined together from its several parts.

And the Gemara cited a Baraita that taught that if a priest ate preserved figs from Keilah, or drank honey or milk (and thereby became disoriented), and then entered the Sanctuary (to perform the service), he was culpable.

The Gemara thus concluded that these verses taught that three priests were required for this part of the service, giving effect to the teaching of Proverbs 14:28, "In the multitude of people is the king's glory.

[102] Rava recounted a Baraita that taught that the rule of Leviticus 13:45 regarding one with skin disease, "the hair of his head shall be loose", also applied to a High Priest.

In this case (involving Nadab and Abihu), because of his anger, Moses forgot the law[104] that those in the first stage of mourning (onen), prior to the burial of their dead, are prohibited from eating the meat of sacrifices.

The Rabbis taught that Moses said "as the Lord commanded" in Leviticus 10:13 to instruct that the priest were to eat the grain (minchah) offering, even though they were in the earliest stage of mourning.

[112] Reading Leviticus 11:1, a Midrash taught that in 18 verses, Scripture places Moses and Aaron (the instruments of Israel's deliverance) on an equal footing (reporting that God spoke to both of them alike),[113] and thus there are 18 benedictions in the Amidah.

The term "ordinances" (מִשְׁפָּטִים‎, mishpatim), taught the Sifra, refers to rules that even had they not been written in the Torah, it would have been entirely logical to write them, like laws pertaining to theft, sexual immorality, idolatry, blasphemy and murder.

[130] Reading Leviticus 11:7, "the swine, because it parts the hoof, and is cloven-footed, but does not chew the cud, is unclean to you," a Midrash compared the pig to the Roman Empire.

Just as the swine when reclining puts out its hooves as if to say, "See that I am clean", so too the Roman Empire boasted (of its virtues) as it committed violence and robbery under the guise of establishing justice.

The Midrash compared the Roman Empire to a governor who put to death the thieves, adulterers, and sorcerers, and then leaned over to a counselor and said: "I myself did these three things in one night.

[98]) The parashah is discussed in these modern sources: James Kugel reported that according to one theory, the Priestly source (often abbreviated P) invented Nadab and Abihu, giving them the names of the discredited King Jeroboam's sons, so that they could die in the newly inaugurated sanctuary (as noted in Leviticus 16:1) and thereby defile it through corpse contamination, so that God could then instruct Aaron in Leviticus 16:3 about how to purify the sanctuary through Yom Kippur.

[149] Robert Oden argued that the reason for the Priestly laws of kashrut in Leviticus 11 was the integrity of creation and what the world's created order looked like.

[151] Noting that Leviticus 11:3 limits the mammals that qualify for the Jewish table to those that chew the cud and show split hoofs, Milgrom observed that these requirements effectively prohibit people from eating the flesh of the entire animal kingdom, except for three domestic plant-eaters—cattle, sheep, and goats.

[153] Mary Douglas suggested that animals that Leviticus 11 prohibits represent the vulnerable—blind worms, vulnerable scaleless fish, and ceaselessly laboring ants—which parallel human beggars, orphans, and widows.

[155] Interpreting the laws of kashrut in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14:3–21, in 1997, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of Conservative Judaism held that it is possible for a genetic sequence to be adapted from a non-kosher species and implanted in a new strain of a kosher foodstuff—for example, for a gene for swine growth hormone to be introduced into a potato to induce larger growth, or for a gene from an insect to be introduced into a tomato plant to give it unusual qualities of pest resistance—and that new strain to be kosher.

[156] Similarly, in the late 1990s, the Central Conference of American Rabbis of Reform Judaism ruled that it is a good thing for a Jew who observes kashrut to participate in a medical experiment involving a pork byproduct.