Parsha_Push, Parshat Shmini

Many people want to touch greatness, or even achieve greatness themselves. They desire honor, fame, responsibility, power, influence, meaning, and many other things – some better than others – that come with power.
Our Torah portion follows the priests who attained all these – a meaningful role, honor and glory and great closeness to the holy. But it also tells us about the price of such attainment. The costs of touching greatness are many. One is that whoever comes too close, in the wrong way, can get hurt. The greater the matters one deals with, the greater the risk. Nadav and Avihu paid for this with their lives.
But there is another price, one not always noticed – the price of being swallowed up within something great to the point of giving up one’s self.
After the death of Nadav and Avihu, Aaron and his remaining sons are asked to put their feelings aside (others will mourn the burning for them), and to continue with the eighth day’s service. Proximity to power and greatness, and the powerful life that accompanies them, sometimes come at the expense of “life” itself.
When Korach sought greatness for himself, and throughout the generations when people sought power, they did not always consider the immense price that can come with it. Aaron loses two sons, and Moses’s two sons also get lost along the way.
The Torah does not embellish things; it does not claim that one can have it all –power, greatness as well as a fulfilling family life. When the Torah selects a limited number of chosen individuals to attain greatness, it may provoke jealousy, but it ultimately promotes a more balanced life for the rest of the chosen people.