The Zohar: The sons of Aaron are drunk on wine. Who let them drink the wine? Could it really be that they were brazen enough to get drunk on wine?

Of course, they got drunk on the wine that is described by the verse, “They brought the Creator a foreign fire.” This means that they were unable to withstand the Light which they were supposed to accept for the sake of bestowal.

But a different verse says, “It was in order to hide from another’s wife.” Yet, all of this is the same thing.

We must remember that everything happens inside a person. Aaron is the quality of Chesed (mercy) which develops by overcoming the egoistic desire that it not yet corrected. However, this desire only awakens in a person who studies Kabbalah.

When we correct it, we raise all of our desires upwards and thereby attain greater equivalence to the Creator. The sons of Aaron represent the subsequent development of this quality, which also depends on overcoming one’s egoism.

Wine represents the Light of Hochma. To drink wine and to get drunk means to attract the Light of Hochma from above downwards (egoistically), instead of accepting from below upwards, in the middle line, in the Light of Hassadim.

We have to “translate” everything being described into the language of our inner qualities. How can we correct ourselves and attain the quality of bestowal above the egoistic desire that continually grows? How can we rise higher towards bestowal to the Creator?

As we read, we have to search inside ourselves; we have to try to find the phenomena and qualities in our small inner world that are being described by every word we read. After all, every person is a small world.

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