(9) These you may eat of all that live in water: anything in water, whether in the seas or in the streams, that has fins and scales—these you may eat. (10) But anything in the seas or in the streams that has no fins and scales, among all the swarming things of the water and among all the other living creatures that are in the water—they are an abomination for you (11) and an abomination for you they shall remain: you shall not eat of their flesh and you shall abominate their carcasses.
הרש"ר הירש על ויקרא יא:י
שֶׁקֶץ הֵם לָכֶם, ושקץ יהיו לכם – בטבעם הם שקץ, ולפיכך תנהגו בהם כשקץ. איסור אכילתם תלוי בניגוד הממשי שבין מהותם למהותכם.
"They are an abomination for you, and an abomination for you..." - in their nature, they are an abomination, therefore you must encounter them as an abomination. The prohibition against eating them depends on the essential contrast between their essence and yours.
שֶׁקֶץ הֵם לָכֶם – דבר נתעב ומגואל, ולא שהן שקץ בעצם, כי הם בריות שברא השם, וחלילה שיברא ה' דבר משוקץ , אבל הוסיף מילת לכם, כלומר לעם קדוש כמוכם יחשבו לשקץ שלא יאכלום.
זאת החיה אשר תאכלו – התחיל תחילה בהיתר המאכלים וכן בדגים וחגבים משמע מהראוי שלא לאכול שום בעל חי וכמו שאחז"ל 'עם הארץ אסור לאכול בשר' (פסחים מ"ט ע"ב) לכן הוצרך להתחיל דבר אל בני ישראל 'זאת החיה אשר תאכלו' כי ההיתר הוא חידוש.
ויקחו בני אהרן נדב ואביהוא, before the fire had emanated from the Holy of Holies they each took his own pan planning to offer incense on the golden altar, seeing that this offering precedes (timewise) the disposal of not totally burned leftovers from the previous day’s sacrificial meat. They placed “alien” fire on these pans, something which had not been commanded by Moses to be done on this day. Even though on ordinary days the rule of “the sons of Aaron will place in these pans fire on the altar” (Leviticus 1,7) was in effect, this rule did not apply to the day of inauguration, and Moses had not wanted any man made fire to be introduced into the Tabernacle. This was because he expected heavenly fire to manifest itself so that the addition of man made fire would have completely ruined the impact of the miracle. On this day the name of G’d would be glorified by all the people becoming aware of Divine approval of their offerings, by G’d accepting same by means of heavenly fire.
...the proximity of and getting near to God, which is the purpose of every offering, is only to be found by the way of obedience, by compliance with God’s Will and subordination to it. This is one of the points in which Judaism and Paganism go in diametrically opposite directions. The Pagan brings his offering in an attempt to make the god subservient to his wishes. The Jew, with his offering, wishes to place himself in the service of God; by his offering he wishes to make himself subservient to the wishes of his God. So that all offerings are formulae of the demands of God, which the bringer, by his offering, undertakes to make the normal routine for his future life. So that self-devised offerings would be a killing of just those very truths which our offerings are meant to impress upon the bringers, would be placing a pedestal on which to glorify one’s own ideas, where a throne was meant to be built for obedience, and obedience only. We can understand that the death of the priestly youths, and their death in the first moment of the consecration of the Sanctuary of God, is the most solemn warning for all future priests of this Sanctuary; it excludes from the precincts of the Sanctuary of God—which was to be nothing else but the Sanctuary of His Torah—every expression of caprice, and every subjective idea of what is right and becoming! Not by fresh inventions even of God-serving novices, but by carrying out that which is ordained by God has the Jewish priest to establish the authenticity of his activities.
אש זרה אשר לא צוה אותם, “strange fire which He had not commanded them (to use).” The reason the Torah uses the unusual formulation “which he had not commanded them,” instead of ”which He had forbidden them,” is that on occasion, in exceptional circumstances, God does permit something which is ordinarily prohibited. The Torah underlines that this was not such an occasion.
Another aspect of the word בקרבתם may be that these people were closer to God than anyone. Had Moses been closer to G'd than Nadav and Avihu, God should have demonstrated the lesson of בקרובי אקדש by punishing Moses for some minor infraction he was guilty of. If God chose Nadav and Avihu instead to demonstrate this principle, they must have been the people closest to God at that time. Perhaps G'd explained all this to Moses on this occasion so that afterwards Moses said to Aaron in Leviticus 10,3: הוא אשר דבר ה׳ לאמור בקרובי אקדש, "this is what God has said to say: I will be sanctified by those who are close to Me." We would then have to assume that the content of God's communication in verse 1 of our chapter was said to Moses immediately after the death of Nadav and Avihu. The fact that their deaths had been reported earlier does not matter as we have a principle that the Torah is not bound to report events in chronological order.
ואומרו וימותו בתוספות וא''ו, רמז הכתוב הפלאת חיבת הצדיקים, שהגם שהיו מרגישים במיתתם לא נמנעו מקרוב לדביקות נעימות עריבות ידידות חביבות חשיקות מתיקות עד כלות נפשותם מהם...
This is the meaning of the extra letter ו in בקרבתם לפני ה׳ ו־ימותו. The Torah alludes to the fact that though these righteous people felt that they were approaching an area which would result in this "kiss of death" they did not flinch and kept getting closer. They attained a state of religious intoxication. The desire of their souls to fuse with the divine was so overpowering that they no longer made decisions in which their powers of conscious perception were involved.