Could FOMO[1] date back all the way to Aharon hacohen? Is it not hard to imagine that Aharon hacohen, whose very name conjures up singular sanctity and super human piety, would succumb to a modern day emotion? Yet at first blush Rashi explains that the description of the lighting of the menorah, which opens this week's parsha and is seemingly totally unanchored in the sequence of events of this parsha, tells the story of Aharon's moment of feeling left out.
In last week's parsha we read that every shevet bar Aharon's created, sponsored, and enacted the dedication ceremony of the mishkan. Thus Bahaloscha opens with Hashem once again charging Aharon and his children with the mitzvah of lighting the menorah as chizuk (words of comfort and strength) and reminding him that his share in the mishkan will endure long after the momentary gifts of the nesiim will be long over, only read and discussed.
I can well imagine Aharon, along with his children and every other Jew, watching each nassi create an entirely new venue of gifting to Hashem and expressing how it resonated with the history of their shevet, and he, Aharon, was not amongst them. He heard how Hashem, despite Moshe's hesitation, welcomed their gift and approved of their "chidush". Aharon was not one of the innovators. Then he watched how Hashem organized each shevet assigning them their days of service, but shevet Levi did not get a day. Day by day, another shevet presents and is celebrated, and the unwavering loyalty of Levi does gets absolutely no recognition. Finally the twelve days of festivities came to a close and in the final episode of parshas Naso the gifts are all tallied and the Jewish people proudly observe, and perhaps celebrate, the achievement of their unity and harmony. And yet, Aharon, the greatest peacemaker, is absent.
Disappointment is not at all a strong enough to capture Aharon's feelings; Rashi describes Aharon's feeling as being "chalishus hadaas" (lit. weakening of one's faculties), a crushing and debilitating distress.
Many commentaries, most notably the Ramban, question and explore just how the job of tending to the menorah consoled Aharon and his family. But I am troubled by Aharon's reservations in getting involved to begin with - why was he not there? Why did he not join the other shevatim and bring his own gifts alongside their sacrifices? They had not initially been divinely ordained to bring the korban, so why could Aharon not join them and keep the party going for another day?
Apparently Aharon knew that this was not his event and not his tribe's occasion. Why not? It seems to me that Aharon understood that Hashem's wisdom was to grant our people both the nesiim, the administrative leadership, and the Leviim, the spiritual guides, and that we will thrive with two distinct and distinguished forms of leadership.
The kohein gadol and his family's lives were centered around the mishkan and tended to her day in and day out. Later they would circulate around Israel for their livelihood and teach as they travel, all the while their home would be their enclaves and Yerushalayim. The nesiim lived among the people and their teaching was of no less consequence. We can never forget that the nesiim held us together at our lowest moments in Mitzrayim and that their backs took the whips intended for their brethren. They stood side by side with Moshe counting every family and expressing Hashem's unusual love for His children. They include among their ranks none other than Nachshon ben Aminadav.
Aharon understood that we thrive when we have both teachers whose lives are defined by the purity and wholesomeness of the mishkan and reach out from that separated and distinctive space, as well as teachers who live among us and help us stretch well beyond our culture. Our people flourish when we travel through the Levite camp on our way to the mishkan impressing ourselves with the piety of their sacred station and come home to teachers who will instruct us to integrate what we have learned into our own quiet quarters.
This is what gave Aharon pause. For twelve days he and his family were left to ponder the relative value of the builders and the preservers; of the streetwise guides and the secluded saints; of those who facilitate transporting the mishkan from place to place and those who light up an established sanctuary; of those who help us in sacrifice and prayer and those who would embrace together with us the fullness of human endeavor.
While Hashem's words of chizuk gave Aharon strength and certainty, Aharon's doubts are of infinite value for us all as well.
[1]"fear of missing out"