Parasha Shemini
SAN DIEGO — We are living through the most emotionally taxing time of our lives. Filled with loss, economic instability, fear and isolation, we are asked to live up to the test with faith, strength, emunah and bitachon. This week’s parasha, Shemini, follows a Passover holiday that surely gave new meaning to the question, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” It presents us with the abrupt, heart-rending, seemingly inexplicable loss, the passing of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu.
We read in the parasha (10:1-2), “And Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, each took his pan, put fire in them, and placed incense upon it, and they brought before the Lord foreign fire, which He had not commanded them. And fire went forth from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.” And in the very next pasuk, we read, …”And Aaron was silent.” SILENT? Aaron, the boys’ father was SILENT? How could a parent be silent upon losing two sons? This narrative has troubled many erudite scholars, thinkers and elders over centuries.
We are currently ensnared in a seemingly indiscriminate, unexplained pandemic, one that has killed thousands, upended lives, and threatens the financial and emotional well-being of our entire nation. Are we to be silent?
Rashi tells us that Aaron’s silence was honorable and illustrated his acceptance. The Rashbam tells us that Aaron censored his desire to mourn and cry, for the sake of Hashem and his community. The Ramban, based on his understanding of “vayidom,” believes that Aaron did cry and then became silent. He cried, mourned, and then accepted.
We may feel anger, fear, anxiety, confusion over the mysterious deaths of Aaron’s sons, just as we do when we face personal loss, and as many feel facing COVID19. Our best response in every circumstance is to see the hand of Hashem in all of our days, in every breath we take. No, it’s not always easy to place Hashem in the centermost place in our lives, our hearts and our minds, but it is our wisest conduct. Wisest that is, if we want to live optimally and cope with hardship in healthy ways.
“But Daddy, what’s going to happen to me if you or Mommy get sick with this bad disease that everyone’s talking about?” This came out of the mouth of a 6-year-old overhearing the latest fear-based media commentary. Anticipatory grief is a form of dealing with loss before it happens, and complicated grief brings intense, persistent, and debilitating anguish for months following actual loss. These are becoming all too common in this time of COVID-19.
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, an early Hassidic master noted, “There are two kinds of sorrow . . . When a person broods over the misfortunes that have come upon him, when he cowers in a corner and despairs of help—that is a bad kind of sorrow. The other kind is the honest grief of a person who knows what he lacks.”
We can help our emotional pain many by encouraging a healthy airing of anguish, staying focused on the here and now, acquiring acceptance of honest grief, and magnifying emunah and bitachon.
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Michael Mantell, Ph.D., prepares a weekly d’var Torah for Young Israel of San Diego, where he and his family worship. He may be contacted via michael.mantell@sdjewishworld.com