Musar sobre Números 9:6

The paragraph describing the details of the פסח שני, alludes to the מחנה ישראל camp of Israel in accordance with what I have written earlier in my introduction to these three פרשיות. I had then described "the camp of Israel," as an allusion to the נפש, i.e. "soul," of the Jewish people. This is demonstrated by the introductory verse ויהי אנשים אשר היו טמאים לנפש אדם, "There were some men who had been impure through contact with the soul of a human being (Adam), etc." We have a tradition in the name of the Arizal, that Nadav and Avihu had been part of the נפש of אדם הראשון. These men whom the Torah describes as having been defiled through contact with נפש אדם are Mishael and Eltzafan who had carried the bodies of Nadav and Avihu out of the Sanctuary (Leviticus 10,4). This is the reason the Torah repeats here in 9,10, איש איש כי יהיה טמא לנפש אדם או בדרך רחוקה, וכו' The meaning is that whether someone is impure due to the present state of the נפש, such as Mishael and Eltzafan, or due to causes far distant in time such as the נפש of original "Adam", such as in the case of Mishael and Eltzafan, the result is similar.. The reason there is a dot over the letter ה, in the word רחוקה is that though it is to be understood literally it also alludes to what we have just described.

Adam squeezed out a cluster of grapes and became a heretic at that very moment, as our Rabbis have stated in Sanhedrin 38b. Our sages have expressed this as והיה נעשה אחר, "he turned into someone else." Noach planted a vineyard (Genesis 9,20) and when drunk became spiritually hurt, lost his sanity. Abraham planted an orchard and emerged unscathed. This is the mystical dimension of being the מרכבה, the carrier of the שכינה. The two sons of Aaron, Nadav and Avihu, also had a glimpse of these mysteries but they died in the process. The Talmud described the experiences of the four scholars as being identical with the four people who had tried to probe these mysteries before them. As far as the death of the two sons of Aaron is concerned, it occurred because they had penetrated so deeply into these mystical matters, i.e. they came so close to the purely spiritual dimensions of G–d that their bodies could not keep up the pace. It is significant that the Torah speaks about their coming close to G–d i.e. בקרבתם, not about בהקריבם, their bringing close, i.e. sacrificing something else (Leviticus 16,1). This means that their very death was their coming close to G–d. They had brought themselves to such closeness. They sanctified G–d by their very death because they had achieved an exceptionally high spiritual level. Moses explained this to his brother Aaron in 10,3: בקרובי אקדש ועל פני כל העם אכבד, "Through those near Me I will show Myself holy, and gain glory before all the people." G–d Himself testified to the stature of these two sons of Aaron and to the fact that He felt honoured by their attempt to draw close to Him. These two sons of Aaron rehabilitated their forebear Adam. We have a tradition going back to the Arizal that these two sons of Aaron were the re-incarnation of the soul, נפש, of Adam. These re-incarnations can occur on three levels, נפש, רוח, or נשמה respectively. Nadav and Avihu were re-incarnates of the נפש of Adam as is hinted at in Numbers 9,6: ויהי אנשים אשר היו טמאים לנפש אדם, "There were two men who were impure due to the soul of Adam." Rabbi Akiva believed that the men referred to were Mishael and Eltzafan who carried the bodies of Nadav and Avihu out of the Sanctuary. He appears to have understood the word נפש in our verse as referring to that of first man, Adam (Sukkah 25b). This is supported by Leviticus 10,5 in which Mishael and Eltzafan are described as וישאום בכתנותם, as having carried them in "their tunics," the latter word referring to the כתנות אור, the tunics made of light worn by Adam prior to his sin.