Acharei Mot

Source Sheet by Yair Robinson

It is interesting to me that one of the parshiot about atonement begins with a reminder of the death of Nadav and Avihu, Aaron’s sons, who died back in parashat shemini. We begin reflecting on Yom Kippur acharei mot, after their death. Why now? Why would we brign it up in this moment? I don’t have a good answer; the traditional commentators see it as a warning, but I think it’s actually more poignant than that. When we offend someone, when we commit an act of wrongdoing, there is a kind of death that takes place: death of relationship, death of our sense of self, of who we thought we were; and to ask forgiveness is a kind of death of the ego, where we have to do some real work and self-discernment. The classical commentator Sforno riffs on both the Talmud and Maimonides when he writes: “absolute forgiveness, rehabilitation, can occur only in the presence of the Eternal God, which in turn can be achieved only by personal confession of one’s sin and one’s absolute undertaking not to commit such sins again in similar circumstances. …only the Eternal God is aware of the sincerity of one’s teshuva, one’s repentance.” That is, nothing is going to happen until the person does the work of repair and strives to not commit the same course of action again—the ‘absolute undertaking’. And, we understand, perhaps intuitively, that the process of kapparah doesn’t mean necessarily a repair of the relationship; it doesn’t mean that the offended person may still be our friend. It does means they—we—did the work, apologized, fixed the damage, and will not do it again.

At Yom Kippur we recite—the choir sings, actually—the words of verse 30:

כִּֽי־בַיּ֥וֹם הַזֶּ֛ה יְכַפֵּ֥ר עֲלֵיכֶ֖ם לְטַהֵ֣ר אֶתְכֶ֑ם מִכֹּל֙ חַטֹּ֣אתֵיכֶ֔ם לִפְנֵ֥י יְהֹוָ֖ה תִּטְהָֽרוּ׃

For on this day atonement shall be made for you to purify you of all your sins; you shall be pure before יהוה.

While ‘this day’ in the text means Yom Kippur, but we should also understand it more broadly. This day, any day, could be the day we make atonement. Any day could be the day of purification before God. Any day we could wash ourselves clean of our errors and forgive others their offenses. But only if we—they—do the work, that absolute undertaking and complete confession, are willing to let the previous idea about ourselves perish.

And there may also be another aspect present. There is a tradition that we should atone for our sins one day before we die. The problem, of course, is that most of us do not know when that will be. Nadav and Avihu’s death reminds us that we should strive for kapparah, for atonement, in all that we do, and always look for the opportunity to ask for forgiveness, or to extend a little grace to one another. Can we imagine such a world? Can we imagine that for ourselves? I hope we can.