“And the Holy One spoke to Aaron, saying, ‘You and your sons are not to drink wine or hard liquor when you come forward into the Tent of Meeting. This is so you will not die. And this will be a rule you’ll follow from now on'” (Leviticus 10.8-9).
Back in the nineteen-eighties, horror movies were morality plays. The kids who lived were the good ones—the ones who weren’t promiscuous, and most certainly didn’t drink. That’s how you knew who was going to survive to the end in those old movies. The fraternity boys and football jocks with beer cans in their hands? They were no match for some creature back from the grave. The wages of drinking were death, or so the movies taught us.
Leviticus seems to have the same sort of rule. In the aftermath of Nadav and Avihu’s deaths, God gives the prohibition above regarding being sober when they’re acting in their priestly duties. Effectively, it’s the same rule most of us live with—don’t drink on the job.
The presence of this prohibition in this chapter led the Rabbis in their commentaries to conclude that Nadav and Avihu were intoxicated at the time of their incident in the Tent. This instruction and this story led to the admonition that one shouldn’t drink before prayer. It is, after all, an approach to the presence of the Holy One. It’s not that alcohol is inherently bad. It’s because of what it does to the human heart.
The intoxicated teens in old horror movies often met their end in a moment of bravado. Their egos dulled by cheap beer, they charge forward, believing they are equal or greater to what they’ve gone forth to face.
Perhaps Avihu and Nadav were intoxicated. Maybe their death came because they were so dulled by wine they didn’t recognize the danger they could encounter in the wild Presence of the Divine. Or, maybe, they were drunk on something else.
If I put on my English major’s cap, I can argue that the vulnerable, intoxicated teen is a metaphor for how it feels to grow into adulthood. Insecure about who you are and the world you find yourself entering, I know I found whatever I could to feel secure, to assure myself I could face the uncertainty around me. Maybe it’s arrogance, or ability, or intelligence, but, like wine, it can drown the inhibitions just enough to make you believe you can take on anything.
Maybe this is the sobriety to which God called Aaron and us. Maybe it wasn’t so much the danger of wine or beer or whiskey, but what we use to drown our insecurities and our fears. It makes me wonder if the danger presented here, like what lurks in the horror movie darkness, is very real.
It may be that our relationship with Christ demands a sobriety that goes beyond wine or hard liquor. Maybe the intoxicants we should avoid flow forth not from grains and fruits but from our hearts. Hearts so full of pride and insecurity that we go blundering forth as though we were unstoppable.
Only to meet someone who came back from the dead.
Resurrected One, let me drink from your waters when I am tempted to get drunk upon the sour wine from my heart.