Shabbat Parshat Eikev - 5762
An Inquiry into the Personality of Aharon

One of the most fascinating characters in all of the Chumash is Aharon, the older brother of Moshe, and the younger brother of Miriam. We meet him first when he comes to redeem the concept of brotherhood. For until his appearance, the relationship between brothers as depicted in the Torah seems not at all a loving one:

• First came Kayin and Hevel, whose conflict involved finding favor in the eyes of the L-rd and Kayin committed the first murder over that issue.

• Next came Yitzchak and Yishmael. When Yishmael mocked Yitzchak, Sarah Imenu saw him for what he was, and had him thrown out of the house of Avraham. His hatred for that has never abated, and we face him, and his unremitting hatred, today.

• Yaakov and Esav followed, who dueled over the issue of who was the “bechor,” the first born. On the surface, Yitzchak loved Esav and Rivkah loved Yaakov. Rivkah saw to it that Yaakov received Yitzchak’s blessing, and Esav’s thirty five hundred year hatred has only in recent years begun to abate.

• Next came Yoseph and his brothers. Their father, Yaakov, loved Yoseph more than the brothers, and, again on the surface, made the mistake of revealing this. Yoseph’s brothers reacted to this and to Yoseph’s other behaviors, and sold him into slavery.

Finally, with Moshe and Aharon, we find two brothers whose relationship is free of jealousy, or between whom the natural characteristic of sibling rivalry has been almost entirely sublimated. HaShem says of Aharon, to counter Moshe’s protest that his older brother will be upset if he is chosen the leader (Shemot 4:14), “Behold Aharon your brother is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will rejoice in his heart.” Aharon acts, as HaShem has told Moshe, as Moshe’s faithful spokesman in the time of the Ten Plagues, and they act as one during the entire period of the Exodus.

The only time that the Torah shows us any “conflict” between the brothers is when Aharon and Miriam come to the defense of Tziporah, Moshe’s wife, in an attempt to restore their “Shalom Bayit,” marital harmony, after Moshe has distanced himself from his wife. They are shown to be wrong by HaShem Himself, because Moshe’s level of prophecy and state of closeness with HaShem is on an entirely different and higher level than theirs, and requires this separation (although celibacy is not at all an ideal of Judaism).

A great tragedy that Aharon becomes involved with is that of the “Egel HaZahav,” the Golden Calf that the Jewish People worship at the very foot of Mt. Sinai, after receiving the Torah there from G-d. On the surface (yet again), Aharon’s role in this matter is quite central, as we find in verse Shemot 32:4, with regard to the gold that had been collected from the people, “And he took it from their hands, and he fashioned it with a goldsmith’s tool, and he made it into a molten image of a calf...”

In Parshat Eikev (Devarim 9:20), Moshe says “And against Aharon, HaShem’s wrath burnt very fiercely, such that He intended to destroy him...” RASHI comments on the expression “to destroy him,” that this refers to the destruction of one’s children. And that when Moshe says, “... And I prayed also in behalf of Aharon at that time,” he means to say that his prayers were able to save two of Aharon’s sons, Elazar and Itamar, but he could not save Nadav and Avihu. Regarding whom we saw (VaYikra 10:3), after Nadav and Avihu had been killed by a “fire from the L-rd,” Aharon does not protest HaShem’s judgment, “And Aharon was silent.”

Now we know that CHAZAL and the Meforshim search for ways to deflect the cause of the deaths of Nadav and Avihu onto the two of them, and away from their father. First of all, the verse does say (VaYikra 10:1), “And Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aharon, took each of them his censer, and put fire in it, and put incense upon it, and offered strange fire before the L-rd, that He had not commanded them.” And other faults are heaped upon them: that they were intoxicated, unmarried, that they presumed to decide Halachic issues in the presence of their elders, etc.

And with regard to the Golden Calf, there were certainly other factors present – in particular, the “Erev Rav,” the “mixed multitude” of Egyptians, who had cast their lot with the Jews, in order to be on the side “of the winners,” but now that the enterprise seemed to be falling apart, relied upon their “kishuf,” black magic, that they had brought with them from Egypt, to bring forth from the flames one of their old gods, the calf.

But Moshe’s statement (Devarim 9:20), mentioned above, “And against Aharon, HaShem’s wrath burnt very fiercely, such that He intended to destroy him...,” his own rebuke to Aharon upon his descent from Sinai (Shemot 32:21), “And Moshe said to Aharon, ‘What did this people do to you that you brought upon them this great sin?!’,” and the testimony of the Chumash itself, where we find (Shemot 32:25), “And Moshe saw the people, that they were out of control, because Aharon had made them wild,...” all demand an explanation.

Perhaps the explanation is that Aharon, in his righteousness, desired to deflect all the blame for the disloyalty to HaShem exhibited by Israel at that time, upon himself, so that if anyone would be destroyed as a result of the great sin, it would be he alone.

And this selflessness of Aharon, was exhibited as well by his brother, Moshe who said to HaShem (32:32), “If you forgive them, well and good, but if not, erase me, I beg you, from the Book that You have written.”

So we see that selflessness is a pre-requisite for leadership of the Jewish People, and we must look for that characteristic in all who would assume the leadership of our people.

Rabbi Pinchas Frankel

Archive