Musar su Esodo 29:47

The שכינה itself resides exclusively amongst Israel, and this is the reason the Torah says "They shall make a Temple for Me so that I may reside amongst them." The Torah is also on record as: "whom I have taken out of the land of Egypt in order to dwell amongst them" (Exodus 29,46), and the Torah says: "I shall place My residence amongst them" (Leviticus 26,11). This is the residence in which the Ineffable Name of G–d is at home. G–d said to the Jewish people: "Take My residence, the one which I dwell in, for yourselves, and I will never depart from you." Even though on occasion you are bound to become ritually defiled (the antithesis to sanctity) My Presence will not depart from you. This is the meaning of: "who dwells amongst them in the midst of their defilement" (Leviticus 16,16). When G–d gave Israel this gift, and His Presence resided amongst them, Israel became the recipient of all of G–d's bounty. G–d entrusted Israel with the keys to all His treasure-chambers so that they had access to and could receive every conceivable kind of blessing from the שכינה. This is the true meaning of the verse: ונתתי משכני בתוככם והתהלכתי בתוככם והייתי לכם לאלוקים, "I make My residence amongst you….and I walk amongst you and I shall be your G–d" (Leviticus 26, 11-12). This verse almost portrays the שכינה as similar to the pledge held by a creditor, as if G–d were Israel's debtor.

Pinchas was innocent (of murder), his soul did not perish. He was restored to physical life through the transfer of the souls of Nadav and Avihu. The word נא alludes to this since it is made up of the first letters in the name נדב and אביהו respectively. This stratagem of G–d is what is referrred to in Job when both the "innocent," נקי, and "the upright," ישרים are described as surviving. This is also why Pinchas is usually described in the Torah and the Book of Joshua as not only the son of Elazar, but as בן אהרון, to indicate that his soul was connected to the soul of the High Priest whose priesthood was confirmed by שמן המשחה, "the holy oil of anointing" (Exodus 29,7). The Torah also mentions Nadav and Avihu as having been the sons of Aaron on repeated occasions (Numbers 3,4; 26,61) after they had been reported as having died. Mentioning their names does not seem to contribute anything in the context of what the Torah then discusses. The reason must be that their souls were absorbed by Pinchas, that their deaths were not absolute. At first glance these comments of the Zohar appear contradictory to the commonly held opinion that the priesthood was conferred on Pinchas (25,13) only as a reward for his fearless loyalty to G–d in risking his life by executing Zimri the prince of the tribe of Shimon. Actually, Pinchas's elevation to the priesthood was not merely a reward for his conduct, but by his absorbing the souls of Nadav and Avihu whose priesthood had been something conferred upon them by the holy oil of anointing, Pinchas became a priest בעצם, i.e. in essence. The priesthood was not just an attribute of his, such as when it is conferred upon a person through heredity. In order to convey this to us the Torah, when describing Pinchas's elevation to the priesthood, says: "והיתה לו," not as we would have expected: "ותהי לו." The meaning of the former is: "he remained," whereas the meaning of the latter is: "he became."

I believe we can use this explanation to answer a difficulty which arises from Exodus 29,33: "These things shall be eaten only by those for whom expiation has been made with them when they were ordained and consecrated; they may not be eaten by a layman for they are holy." The meaning of the verse is that the owners of the animals receive their expiation through the priests' eating. The difficulty is that Aaron and his sons consumed these parts while being owners, whereas Moses was the priest performing the sacrificial service described in the relevant section of the Torah. We can only answer this by viewing Aaron and his sons as being both priests and owners at one and the same time. They had become priests by the very fact that Moses "sacrificed them," i.e. בקרבתם לה' coming close to G–d. They became similar to the archangel Michael who, in his capacity as Celestial High Priest, offers the souls of the righteous as a sacrifice. We find an allusion to this comparison between the task of Aaron and that of the archangel מיכאל in (9,4) כי היום י-ה-ו-ה נראה אליכם where we have the letters of the names of Aaron and מיכאל side by side in the last two words of the verse. In comparison to Moses, Aaron and his two sons were indeed the owners of the sacrifices (מילואים), seeing that Moses at that time occupied a position even higher than that of the High Priest. The reason for this was that Moses had never been a זר, mundane person, and did not have to be raised to his spiritually elevated position as did his brother Aaron. We have explained that he was holy from the moment he left his mother's womb and how the whole house was filled with light at that time. To repeat, in respect to the מילואים Aaron and his sons were both owners and priests. Because this is so the religious ruling for all future generations evolved that by the priests eating the parts of the sacrifice allotted to them the owners obtain forgiveness.