- Shemini implies the first of history for the same reason that it is מילה, representing the post-Creation pre-history. So it has the עשר עטרות, the list of “Firsts”, of which the primary and primal is ראש חודש the first step of human time-reality, the transition between the given מקדש השבת and the מקדש ישראל והזמנים , what should have been the beginning of the Torah itself. The Maharal traces the pain of ויהי to the nature of that process itself, what we call “time.” Indeed the first hint of the “unfairness” we sense in that process occurs at the moment of the creation of the sun and moon themselves, the source of the רא חודש phenomenon. It is the לכי ומעטי עצמך which presages the death of the the Best and the Brightest here who were מוסיפים אהבה על אהבה. The only קרבן that was messed up here is indeed the שעיר של ראש חודש which is the דרש-דרש, the essential search of all humanity for sense in the human condition.
Exposure is the issue here, and must be traced back to the original לא יתבוששו as the basis of הוספה and self-awarness. It is the אנשי השם element that makes טוב שם משמן טוב of שמיני directly end in ויום המות מיום הולדו. Thus the נספה בלא משפט “has exposure” through her dangerous baking, just as the Moon and נדב ואביהו are exposed. The Haftara defines the true nature of exposure as כבוד עצמו in Dovid’s rebuke of מיכל: It is not the length of your father’s sleeves that defines his צניעות existentially, but the level of his self-concern. In כבוד עצמו דרש-- א"ל של בית אביך היו מבקשין כבוד עצמן-- he is the extreme opposite of Dovid’s own ונקלותי עוד מזאת and becomes שוטה וחוטא: וכל המגיס דעתו וחולק כבוד לעצמו ומתכבד בעיניו במקומות אלו חוטא ושוטה. Absolute exposure was the only solution for Shaul.
That exposure is in the כל המוסיף גורע of הוסיפו אהבה just as the עץ הדעת was הספה and is part of אסיפה itself, part of what becomes אני ואפס"י עוד.

Ver todos los episodios