Should Children Follow in their Parents' Footsteps?

 Few are the passages in the Torah that are more cryptic and enigmatic than that of the death of Nadav and Avihu. Anyone who has stepped foot into a synagogue on Parshat Shemini has likely heard the rabbi quote some of the multifarious reasons given by the sages: they were single, they were drunk, they hadn't spoken to Moses etc. etc. The Medrash has a field day, going so far as to suggest that they were punished for golden calf that Aharon had scultped. Rabbi Sacks has an exceedingly interesting interpretation where he delineates a dichotomy between leaders who have carte blanche to do what they deem effective in the altering, changing political landscape, and priests who have to adhere to the status quo, who have to preserve rite and ritual over ingenuity and dynamism. 

I would like to weigh in with a thought of my own. It would seem that Nadav and Avihu, having seen their father, Aharon, incapable of bringing the divine presence on the Mishkan - a heavenly fire came down to consume the day's offerings only after Moshe joined him, and not as per Moshe's initial instructions that Aharon and his sons would be able to accomplish the deed on their own - decided that they could either preserve their family's dignity, or earn the good graces of their father by one-upping him. By showing him that they could enter his shoes, and even outdo him, a father's greatest pride and joy. 

Ever so often children make life decisions based on what they think their parents want, an ever so fatal mistake. Children fail to listen to their inner voice and be their own person, the same way it works with any attempt to act in a given way as a function of how it would be perceived in society, perhaps the message of the proverbial traveler in the "Road Not Taken;" if you choose a path because you want to be different - because it's grassy and wants wear - then you'll find, at the end, that "the passing there" has done little more than wearing them "just about the same." The one who acts not in keeping with his or her own heart has done little to serve, and answer to that inner voice ever so holy and sacrosanct. The fire that the heavens brought down in response to Moshe and Aharon's prayer was not a "foreign fire" - or eish zarah in the words of the Torah; Nadav and Avihu, who tried to preserve the family's pride, or outdo their father, or show their father how it could be done right, were adding something foreign to the place that only accepted and sought inner peace, and true sanctity, the ability of man to be true to himself, better his ways, and serve God in a way unadulterated by social influence, peer pressure, and the need for posterity. And perhaps that is what Hashem tried to teach Cain; a work of divine service requires introspection, and an examination of one's true intent, something he failed to perform even after diving prodding, and a lesson Aharon did learn after the golden calf, but which his sons failed to grasp, which is perhaps why in a wry and fascinating way the Medrash connects Aharon's golden calf, to his own sons' deeds, to show that Aharon learned the message after being swayed by social pressure, while his sons did not.