Musar su Levitico 10:2

The matter of the fire is a mystical dimension of the whole process of Creation, the "light" available in our "lower" world, and the "light" concealed and stored in the "higher" world. The latter may be perceived as the "fire" which descends from "above" to consume the burnt-offerings on the altar. This in turn is a mystical aspect of the attachment between what we have termed cause and effect. The students are perceived as the effect, the teacher as the cause. When we said previously that the cause wants to exert influence, whereas the effect wishes to become influenced, this now leads to the tragic occurrence involving Nadav and Avihu. The latter, by presuming to teach a הלכה, religious ruling, in the presence of their teachers Moses and Aaron, reversed the role of cause and effect. As a result "fire" descended from Heaven and consumed their souls as part of the incense-offering they were carrying.

By the act of Moses "sacrificing" them to G–d they ceased being זרים, "strangers," mundane, and became sanctified. At that time the status of Aaron and his sons was similar to that of Isaac after Abraham had offered him to G–d and Isaac had agreed. All our traditional sources describe יצחק as having been an עולה תמימה לה' "an unblemished burnt-offering to G–d." The book בעשרה מאמרות specifically describes Aaron and his sons as having been sacrificed as offerings to G–d, and personifying the instruction in 1,2: אדם כי יקריב מכם. The author quotes 8,6 as his proof. He further states that the burning of the souls of the two sons of Aaron, Nadav and Avihu, is to be understood like the burning of the flesh parts of an animal offering on the altar after the blood had been sprinkled, etc. He finds his proof for this in the similarity of the wording used by the Torah which is identical with wording used in connection with animal offerings.. On the one hand the Torah (10,2) writes: ותצא אש … ותאכל אותם, whereas a little while later the Torah speaks of the remaining two sons of Aaron, Eleazar and Ittamar, as הנותרים, "the leftovers," an expression used for parts of a sacrifice which were not consumed within the prescribed time. The meaning of the word: בקרבתם in 16,1 would describe what happened when Isaac was being offered, i.e. that the fire in the pan for burning had already been lit. [metaphorically speaking, since Isaac was not an incense offering. Ed.] [This even though through Heavenly intervention the sacrifice was not actually consumed. Ed.] The Torah states in 9,22: וירד מעשות החטאת, "Aaron descended after offering the sin offering." [The author may mean that the word מ-עשות here refers to something that had not been completed. Ed.]