Aaron the High Priest

The Bipolar Model of Leadership: Moses and Aaron as Cosmic Complements

The leadership of the people of Israel in the period of the wilderness and the Exodus from Egypt is presented in Scripture and reflected in the interpretation of the Sages as a paired and complementary model of leadership, made up of two polar figures that complete each other into a single wholeness of leadership.^{[1, 2]} Whereas Moses our teacher represents the transcendent dimension of the Divine, rigid law and absolute truth, Aaron the Priest represents the immanent dimension: rhetorical mediation, loving-kindness and the adaptation of the abstract system to the weaknesses and needs of the actual human being.^{[2, 3]}

Moses, whose soul was exalted and detached from earthly material reality, acted as the representative of the supernal Divine Presence.^[2] His absolute self-nullification before the Divine prevented him from developing ordinary rhetorical abilities, since rhetoric requires entering into the world of concepts and everyday human language.^{[2, 3]} This limitation, called in Scripture "slow of speech and slow of tongue," reflects the inability of absolute truth to compromise with the limitations of its listeners.^{[2, 3]} Aaron, by contrast, acted from within the people and toward them.^[2] He began his work as an officiating prophet in Egypt already during the period of servitude and suffering, and thereby developed empathy and a deep understanding of the souls of his listeners.^[2] Aaron's role was to translate, mediate and make the word of God accessible through stories, parables and midrashim, and thereby to arouse enthusiasm and an inner desire to fulfill the commandments.^[2]

The differences between the two are well illustrated by the image of the "judge" as against the "counselor."^[2] The judge decides according to the pure law without regard for personal circumstances, out of the conception of "let the law pierce the mountain."^{[2, 4]} The counselor comes from the side of the simple person, understands his soul and tries to bridge and reconcile the demands of the law with the sensitive and complex reality of the individual.^{[2, 5]} This difference is also reflected in the personal sacrifice of Moses, who was compelled to separate from his wife and children for the sake of total leadership, whereas Aaron kept his family whole, and it became the eternal dynasty of the priesthood.^[3]

Despite Aaron's central standing in the management of the Temple service and at the apex of the hierarchy of leadership, he is at times presented in Scripture as one who stands in the shadow of Moses.^[6] Moses is the chief navigator, and it is he who clothes Aaron in the priestly garments, an act that illustrates the superior power of Torah and prophecy over office and practical service.^[7] The midrash Shemot Rabbah explains that when Moses was commanded to appoint Aaron as High Priest, it grieved him, and the Holy One, blessed be He, appeased him by saying that the Torah belongs to him (to Moses), and thus it was established that the power of Torah (the crown of Torah) is greater than the crown of priesthood and the crown of kingship.^[7] The crown of Torah, unlike the crown of priesthood, which is unique to the seed of Aaron, remains open and accessible to every person in Israel as both a right and a duty.^[7]

The Figure of the High Priest as an Organic Representative and Counselor of the People of Israel

The service of the High Priest in the Temple does not amount to dry ceremonial acts but expresses his being the authentic representative of the people of Israel before God.^[1] A clear expression of this is found in the priestly garments that Aaron wore on his body: the names of the children of Israel were engraved on the two onyx stones on the shoulders of the ephod as a remembrance, and on the stones of the breastplate upon his heart when he entered the Sanctuary.^[1] The bearing of the names of the tribes on the shoulders and on the heart illustrates that Aaron's leadership stemmed from carrying within himself the burden, the pain and the identity of each and every member of Israel.^[1]

Alongside his role as the people's representative toward Heaven, Aaron acted out of an immense spiritual yearning for holiness, defined in Hasidism and Kabbalah as a state of being "lovesick" and an unceasing thirst for God.^[5] Aaron was always in a movement of self-sacrifice stemming from the essence of his soul, and were it not for the explicit divine warning "that he come not at all times into the Sanctuary," his soul would have been in danger of actual "expiry of the soul" from the intensity of his longing to merge with the Divine.^[5] This warning, as the Rashbam explains, was meant to protect him from reaching a state in which he would enter the Sanctuary improperly and die like his sons.^[8]

Aaron's priestly leadership laid the foundation for the spiritual development of the people of Israel even after the destruction of the Temple. The historical transition from the practical offering of sacrifices to Torah study and acts of loving-kindness is reflected in the words of Abaye in tractate Rosh Hashanah 18a, who explains that the iniquity of the house of Eli (of the seed of Aaron) would indeed not be atoned for by sacrifice and offering, but it is atoned for by Torah and acts of loving-kindness.^[1] This insight stresses that the priesthood developed from a physical ritual of sacrifices into a system of spiritual guidance, halakhic instruction and social loving-kindness, in keeping with the original character of Aaron the Priest.^{[1, 9]}

His Educational and Social Teaching: A Hermeneutics of Drawing Near, of Peace and of Shaping the Public Sphere

Aaron's Torah and moral teaching is formulated in the saying of Hillel the Elder in tractate Avot: "Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving people and drawing them near to the Torah."^{[4, 10]} The use of the word "be" teaches a demand for the constant renewal of this trait in a person's soul, with self-effacement before Aaron's special way.^[4] Aaron's love of peace was not passive; he was a "pursuer of peace" in the most active sense, as it is said, "Seek peace and pursue it."^[10] He did not wait for the disputants to come but went ahead to their homes to make peace between a man and his fellow and between a husband and his wife, being willing to depart from absolute truth in order to extricate the other from a state of strife and hatred.^[5]

This hermeneutics of drawing near is expressed in the definition of the concept "loving people."^[10] The commentary Tosafot Yom Tov stresses that one must love human beings by virtue of their being creatures of the Holy One, blessed be He, irrespective of their virtues, their righteousness or the personal benefit that can be derived from them, and even if they lack any good trait.^{[5, 10]} This approach raised a halakhic difficulty in light of the prohibition "do not associate with the wicked."^[10] The Maharam (cited in Tosafot Yom Tov) resolves this contradiction and explains that Aaron would greet them first and show them a cheerful countenance in order to create personal closeness.^[10] As a result, when that wicked person was about to commit a transgression, he would remember Aaron's shining face and make an inner reckoning of the soul: "If I commit the transgression now, I will be ashamed before Aaron and will not be able to show my face before him."^[11] This educational mechanism caused the wicked to repent out of inner shame and love, and not out of harsh rebuke or social ostracism.^{[11, 12]}

In Avot de-Rabbi Natan the dialectical contrast between Moses and Aaron is stressed: whereas Moses represented the approach of "let the law pierce the mountain," Aaron chose the way of loving-kindness and compromise.^[4] Hillel the Elder adopted this way in full, as demonstrated in the famous story of the man who tried to provoke him on the eve of the Sabbath for a wager of 400 zuz.^[4] Hillel behaved with extraordinary patience, answered his provocative questions respectfully, and declared that it was better for the gambler to lose his money than for Hillel to lose his patience, thereby demonstrating in practice the educational legacy of Aaron.^[4]

The Episode of the Golden Calf: A Theology of Delay, an Error in Teaching and Its Historical Consequences

Aaron's involvement in the sin of the golden calf is one of the most difficult and complex chapters of his life.^{[13, 14]} On the surface, the verses present a grim picture of complicity in the sin.^[14] But the Sages and the commentators sought to uncover the deeper layer of the event, which presents Aaron as one who acted under duress and anxiety and through attempts at delay and rescue.^{[9, 14, 15]}

Understanding the background of the sin requires a theological analysis of the people's intention. According to the Kuzari and Nahmanides (Ramban), the children of Israel did not seek an alternative god in place of God but a tangible physical intermediary to replace Moses, who had disappeared.^{[15, 16]} The people, who at the revelation at Mount Sinai had been privileged to see the lower part of the divine chariot ("and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot"), sought to reproduce this image as a physical anchor for the indwelling of the Divine Presence.^[16] Structurally, there was no essential difference between the calf and the cherubim in the Holy of Holies, apart from one critical difference: the cherubim were made by divine command, whereas the calf was made without a command.^[16] The sin of the "generation of knowledge" was the attempt to materialize the Divine Presence and to create a place for the indwelling of the Divine Presence not in accordance with God's command.^[13]

Aaron, who found himself under enormous pressure from the crowd and the mixed multitude, acted out of deep anxiety and a temporary weakness of leadership.^{[14, 15]} Rashi interprets the words "And Aaron saw, and he built an altar before it" through a play on the words: Aaron "understood from the slaughtered one" before him.^[14] The "slaughtered one" was Hur (the son of Aaron's sister and his partner in leadership), who was murdered by the crowd when he tried to oppose them.^{[9, 14]} Aaron understood that if he resisted firmly he too would be murdered, and thus the terrible sin of murdering a priest and prophet in the Sanctuary of the Lord would come upon the people, a sin that has no atonement forever.^[9] He preferred to take upon himself the guilt of the calf, thinking it better that they sin with the calf, since for this sin there would be a remedy through repentance.^[9]

In an effort to delay the process until Moses came down from the mountain, Aaron employed sophisticated strategies of delay, as Rashi details ^[14]:

Demanding the jewelry of the women and the children: Aaron assumed that the women and the children would cling to their gold and refuse to hand it over quickly, which would gain precious time.^[14]

• Building the altar by himself: Aaron refused to let the people build the altar quickly, and insisted on building it with his own hands and slowly.^[14]
• Postponing the festival: Aaron proclaimed "Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord," and not today, in the hope that Moses would return during the night and prevent the sin.^[14]

Despite his pure intentions, the attribute of justice called Aaron to account.^[9] According to Rabbi Yitzchak Abarbanel, Aaron was not punished together with the worshippers of the calf because his intention was for the sake of Heaven, but he was held to account for "an error in teaching that counts as willful sin," a grave mistake by a halakhic teacher that caused an enormous public stumbling.^[9] The severity of the charge is expressed in Moses' words in the book of Deuteronomy: "And the Lord was very angry with Aaron to destroy him," and Moses had to pray specially on his behalf to save him from utter annihilation.^{[15, 17]}

The consequences of the sin echoed throughout the history of the people of Israel.^[13] Nahmanides (Ramban) offers a historical insight according to which Aaron was also held indirectly to account for the golden calves that Jeroboam son of Nebat set up in Dan and in Bethel hundreds of years later.^[13] Jeroboam used Aaron's act as a legitimate theological and legal point of support, and thereby the historical sin of the calf in the wilderness became the prototype of religious schism and of sin for generations.^[13]

The Death of Nadab and Abihu: A Theology of Silence, the Father's Atonement and the Idea of Exactitude with the Righteous

The tragic death of Nadab and Abihu on the eighth day of the inauguration (the Miluim) is one of the great religious and family dramas in the Torah.^{[11, 18]} Aaron's two eldest sons died by a fire that came forth from before the Lord after they had offered "strange fire, which He had not commanded them."^{[11, 18, 19]} Their death stemmed from unrestrained religious ecstasy and excessive enthusiasm that caused them to approach the Sanctuary without prior consultation with Moses and Aaron.^[20]

The Torah describes Aaron's reaction to the terrible news in the short and powerful words: "And Aaron was silent."^{[20, 21, 22]} This silence represents the power of stillness in moments of existential catastrophe.^[20] Whereas speech expresses human understanding and an attempt to delimit reality with intellectual tools, silence expresses the recognition that the Divine is infinite and cannot be reduced to our limited human conceptions.^[20] Aaron accepted the divine judgment completely and thereby entered the line of the fathers of the nation (Abraham and Jacob) who accepted the divine judgment as just.^[22] The reward for his silence was immediate: he merited a personal and exclusive divine revelation (without the presence of Moses), in which the section prohibiting priests from drinking wine when entering the Sanctuary was spoken to him.^{[11, 21, 22]}

At a deep theological level, the death of Nadab and Abihu is linked directly to their father's sin of the calf.^[17] According to a midrash of the Sages, all four of Aaron's sons were destined to die by the attribute of justice on account of the sin of the calf.^[17] Moses our teacher prayed for Aaron, and his prayer annulled half of the decree, so that his two remaining sons (Elazar and Itamar) remained alive.^{[15, 17]} Nadab and Abihu, who were perfectly righteous and did not themselves sin with the calf, were punished by the attribute of justice for their own sin with the incense, but their death served at the same time as a mechanism of atonement for their father, in the sense of "a son brings merit to his father."^[17]

In their death they were regarded, as it were, as the two goats of the Day of Atonement that atone for the sins of the entire house.^[17] Their death demonstrates the principle according to which the Holy One, blessed be He, is exacting with the righteous to a hair's breadth, and when He executes judgment upon the righteous His name is exalted and feared in the eyes of the people, as it is said: "Through them that are near unto Me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified."^{[17, 21, 22]}

Aaron as a Man of Halakha, a Halakhic Teacher and the Founder of Hermeneutical Independence

Besides being a High Priest entrusted with the Temple service, Aaron is presented as a man of halakha, knowledge and instruction, who serves as a father and model for the halakhic sages of all generations.^[9] Aaron was the first in the transmission of the Oral Torah and the chief recipient of the tradition from Moses.^[9] The Gemara in tractate Eruvin 54b describes the order of study in the wilderness: Moses would hear from the mouth of the Almighty, Aaron would enter and Moses would teach him his lesson.^[9] Afterward his sons and the elders entered, and at every stage Aaron would hear and rehearse the material again and again.^[9] From here the Sages learned that a person is obligated to teach his student four times.^[9]

The role of the priest as a halakhic teacher is anchored in many verses of Scripture, such as "And you shall come to the priests the Levites... according to the Torah which they shall teach you."^[9] The peak of Aaron's independent halakhic work took place on the eighth day of the inauguration, in the midst of the mourning for the death of his sons.^[9] Moses was angry with Elazar and Itamar for having burned the sin-offering goat of the New Moon instead of eating it in the holy place.^[9] Aaron intervened in the confrontation and presented an independent and brilliant legal-halakhic argument: he argued that the law of aninut (mourning on the day of death) applied to them and forbade them to eat of sacrifices of the hour, even if it was a special command of the hour given by Moses.^[9]

Moses' reaction, "And when Moses heard that, it was good in his eyes," constitutes a historic and foundational confirmation of the authority and the duty of the sages of the Torah to interpret the Written and Oral Torah according to their rational understanding and the hermeneutical rules accepted by them, completely independently and without dependence on the will of the prophet or on a renewed prophetic revelation.^[9]

The Priestly Blessing: The Mechanics of the Flow of Grace, the Revelation of Faith and an Anthropology of Love

The commandment of the Priestly Blessing is one of the most ancient and precious commandments in the Jewish tradition.^[23] This threefold blessing, mentioned in the book of Numbers, is meant to make the priests a spiritual channel for the flow of divine abundance and protection upon the people of Israel.^{[23, 24]} Maimonides (Rambam) in his Guide of the Perplexed explains that the purpose of the daily blessing is to implant the foundations of faith among the people and to remind them that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the source of life and abundance in the world, and that He blesses His people through His servants.^[23]

The meaning of the word "with love" in the wording of the blessing arouses great interest.^[26] Unlike other commandments, here love is an integral part of the wording of the blessing itself.^[26] The halakhic authorities explain that the "love" required is not merely an embellishment of the commandment but an indispensable condition.^[26] A priest who hates the congregation, or whom the congregation hates, endangers his life if he raises his hands, and he must leave the synagogue before the blessing.^[26] The blessing must be given wholeheartedly, out of free will and not under compulsion (angaria).^[26] The Maharsha adds that the blessing of the one who blesses takes effect in accordance with the intention of his heart, and therefore a generous eye and true love are required so that the abundance will flow through the right channels.^[26]

In addition, the word "with love" also refers to the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, who in His love for His people commanded the priests to bless them, while the Divine Presence itself (which is called "ahavah," love, in gematria 13, equal to the value of the word "echad," one) peers through the lattices of the priests' fingers when they spread out their hands.^[26]

Etymologically, the word "berakhah" (blessing) is related to the root "lehavrich" (to bend a shoot down and root it in the earth).^[28] The priest's role is to bend and bring down the sublime spiritual abundance from the upper worlds and to root it in earthly reality quickly and without the delays of the attribute of justice, like the rod of Aaron that brought forth a flower and a blossom in a single night.^[28] The sixty letters that make up the three verses of the Priestly Blessing correspond to the sixty tractates of the Oral Torah, to teach us that the abundance of blessing is inseparably bound up with toil in Torah and knowledge of halakha.^{[27, 28]}

The Passing of the Shepherd of Israel: The Clouds of Glory and the Symbolism of the Burial on Mount Hor

The death of Aaron the Priest on the 1st of Av, in the fortieth year after the children of Israel went out of Egypt, is the only date of death stated explicitly and precisely in the Torah.^{[11, 29]} His passing marks the end of an era and the beginning of the dissolution of the leadership of the generation of the wilderness.^{[11, 30]}

During the forty years of wandering in the wilderness, the people of Israel were granted three miraculous gifts in the merit of its three leaders: the well of water in the merit of Miriam, the manna in the merit of Moses, and the clouds of glory in the merit of Aaron.^[30] The clouds of glory surrounded the camp of Israel, protected them from the hazards of the wilderness and from enemies, and created a protected and sanctified space.^[30] With Aaron's passing, these clouds of glory departed at once.^{[4, 30]} The departure of the clouds exposed the physical and spiritual weak point of the people, and served as a sign for the Canaanites (the king of Arad) to go out and fight against Israel, understanding that the unifying power of Aaron no longer protected them.^[4]

Aaron's burial on Mount Hor (Hor ha-Har) carries deep symbolic meaning.^[31] Hor ha-Har is described as "a mountain on top of a mountain."^[31] This symbolism reflects the way in which Aaron saw himself throughout his shared life with his younger brother Moses.^[31] Aaron saw himself as a "small mountain" set on top of the "great mountain" (Moses), out of inner humility and sincere joy in his brother's greatness.^[31] Aaron was buried dressed in his priestly garments, a testimony to his being a faithful emissary of the Holy One, blessed be He, and of Israel until his last moments, and he left behind him a glorious priestly dynasty that continues his way of peace, love and blessing to this day.^{[1, 31]}

Summary

The work and Torah teaching of Aaron the High Priest outline a unique model of leadership that balances the ritual service of the Sanctuary with deep and active social involvement. Aaron represents the ultimate mediator: between a man and his fellow, between a husband and his wife, and between Israel and their Father in Heaven. His educational way, based on unconditional love for every creature and the active pursuit of peace, offered a softening alternative to dry law and enabled even sinners and those who were far away to find their way back to the Torah.

Even in the great moments of crisis in his life, the sin of the calf and the death of his sons, Aaron acted out of a complex theological system of considerations involving self-sacrifice, steadfast faith and an inner, accepting silence. As an independent man of halakha and as the source of the daily blessing of the people of Israel, Aaron shaped the figure of the priesthood not as a remote office of power but as a public service founded on love, loving-kindness and a whole-hearted desire to bestow good on all of reality.