What is set aside
Division
and transition
What is touched
carried
ingested
Within flowing waters
[For full chapter, click here
Aaron's answer to Moses at the closing of the previous chapter triggers a change. He is now a subject rather than passive object; no longer spoken to, but one of the speakers.
After the "fire that came forth" to "eat" (ahal) the offerings and the two sons of Aaron, we move to human eating: what can be eaten, and what cannot. As in the previous chapter, the focus is on the specificity of appropriateness. "These are the things that are good for you" "they are unclean to you." All is defined by context; nothing is absolute.
The aftermath of the death of Nadav and Avihu continues to be havdala, differentiation. As in the previous chapter, the clearly demarcated spaces and merged by transitional limens. The priests who remain at the doorway here becomes the watery solvent that both doesn't become impure, but yet enables impurity. We differentiate between what enters the lips, ingested ; and what is carried outside the body]
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