35 You must therefore stay day and night for seven days at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, i.e., in the Courtyard. You must keep God’s watch, in order that you not die, for I was thus commanded, i.e., that not complying with this installation ritual is a capital offense.”
36 Aaron and his sons did all the things that God commanded them through Moses.
Chasidic Insights
did the seven days of Creation, inasmuch as the Divine revelation that accompanied the construction of the Tabernacle was able to overcome the spiritual darkness that had spread throughout the world in the wake of the original, progressive departure of the Divine Presence.
36 Aaron and his sons did all the things that God commanded through Moses: It is self-understood that Aaron and his sons did what God expressly told them to do, so the import of this verse, as Rashi explains, is rather that “they veered neither right nor left” from God’s instructions. This does not mean that they did not intentionally make any changes in anything that God had instructed, for this, too, is self-understood. Rather, this statement should be understood in light of the fact that God considered the Tabernacle rites so complicated that He provided the priests with seven days for practice and preparation. In this context, this verse is praising Aaron and his sons for not veering at all from the proper procedure even during preparatory these days, managing to fulfill every detail properly as God had commanded.
How did they manage such a feat? King Solomon stated: “No wrongdoing shall befall the righteous.” By “wrongdoing” he cannot mean sin, even unintentional sin, for someone who is susceptible to sin cannot be termed “righteous.” Rather, the righteous referred to by King Solomon are those who are in tune with the Divine energy informing whatever it is they are doing, and thus, they are automatically protected from even the slightest deviation from God’s will—even one that would not be considered a wrongdoing for an average person. Aaron and his sons reached such a degree of surrender to God; their bodies were naturally attuned to fulfilling God’s will without even the most minor deviation.
The lesson for us here is that some people feel that, at least as a start, it is enough to do just the “big things”—the most serious of the commandments—while leaving the myriad details and “minor” laws for some later time. The Torah therefore points out that Aaron and his sons, even during the educational days of setting up the Tabernacle, were careful not to veer at all from God’s express will. Every detail was by God’s explicit instruction, making its exact fulfillment crucial to their task. The same is true of every detail of Jewish law, and even every Jewish custom, for they too are integral elements of our Divine mission.
By saying that they veered “neither to the right nor the left,” Rashi is telling us that they did not deviate even if they thought that a specific situation warranted a change “to the right,” i.e., to increase holiness, or “to the left,” i.e., as a further protection against negative influences. Rather, they fulfilled everything exactly as they heard it from Moses, without regard to their own appraisal of the situation.
The lesson in this case is twofold: Firstly, we should fulfill all of God’s directions without regard to our own appraisal of the situation, even if we mean well. The second, more subtle lesson is that it is only Aaron and his sons who are praised for not having changed anything at all, for they were at the time in an environment of sublime spirituality, in which extra caution was not warranted. In our dangerous times, however, there is a need for both types of deviation: to go beyond the letter of the law (“veering to the right”) and to avoid even permissible activities (“veering to the left”), if such activities might lead to dangerous consequences.
