Comunidad Hebrea de Guadalajara, México
This week’s parashah opens with one of the most difficult moments that a person can experience: the day after the death of a loved one: “And the Lord spoke unto Moses, after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord, and died” (Lev. 16:1).
After this brief introduction, the Torah gives a detailed list of ordinances and activities that Aaron had to carry out, activities with the purpose of following a path so “that he die not” (16:2). Therefore, and at first sight, we can see that the text offers us a fundamental teaching: with all the pain in the world, and as much as it may cost us, those of us who are still alive must walk on, must keep on doing whatever we can, so that the memories of our loved ones may transcend into the work of our hands. Hence, according to the tradition of Israel, the first thing that mourners should do after returning from the cemetery, is eat together as a family. This meal is not optional, and accounts for how essential it is to connect with basic actions and familial connections, which may help us later on with maintaining a healthy mourning.
Nevertheless, and beyond the specific practices we, as Aaron before us, are invited to follow in times of grief, I think that by reading our Parashah, we cannot but think – or at least I cannot but think – on what must have passed through the mind of Moses’ brother, who had just lost his two older sons. I suppose Aaron, through all those days and once he recovered from the impact of the loss he had suffered, devoted himself to finding some meaning in the tragedy. Perhaps it is not so difficult to imagine, because like Aaron, each one of us tries to find meaning in times of tragedy, loss and grief. When we witness situations that hit us, almost immediately we try to find some kind of explanation that will help us and allow us to reconstruct a world that seems to have shattered before our powerless eyes.
It is in this spirit that we should understand the different reasons given by our sages – that is, the meaning – of Nadab and Abihu’s death. An important group affirmed that God punished Aaron’s sons with no consideration that it was the only sin they committed in their lives. Some proposed reasons adapted to exegetical readings of the text, and others preferred to set the boys as an example, in order to teach some moral and ethics lesson to their contemporary readers and audiences. Many years later, a large part of the Jewish theological thought is still anchored on this simple equation, which measures the tragedies and misfortunes in terms of punishment for transgressions we have committed, consciously or not.
A second group of sages embraced a different approach regarding the tragedies that happen in our world. To them, they are no longer punishments inflicted by a God who knows nothing about exceptions to the rule, but that it is rather an expression of a divine decree of which we cannot grasp the foundations due to our limited intellectual capacity. We are too small to be able to see the world under the necessary perspective, which would enable us to understand why we have to suffer from things mistakenly described as ills. We suffer because we do not understand, but when we gain awareness, we will find comfort in the idea that our suffering serves in helping us overcome the loss. Thus, in those days, the sages justified the horrendous death of Rabbi Akiva at the hands of the Romans, and in our days, several contemporary scholars used this to explain the great tragedies of our time: in Rabbi Soloveitchik’s terms, we are like those who see the back of a tapestry. The threads, the seams, the imperfections… everything is in full view. But how different would it be if we could see the tapestry’s correct side. We couldn’t stop admiring so much beauty and perfection.
Finally, the midrash also offers us the vision of those sages who preferred to focus not on the death of Nadab and Abihu, but on God’s reaction to the tragedy. Consequently, in Leviticus Rabba (Acharei Mot, 20:10), we are told that the Lord hurt twice as much as Aaron from the death of his sons. Undoubtedly, the midrash is not trying to raise a competition on who suffers most. To the contrary, what it says is that in times of grief, God does not appear as the One who is punishing us or decreeing something against us that we will never be able to understand. In this case, God appears as the One who keeps us company and empathizes with us in our grief, hoping that together we will be able to pull through it. Therefore, we will not look for offenders or transgressors. We will focus our energy on trying to once more find our equilibrium and continue ahead.
On the day after the tragedy, when the pain is still expressed without anesthesia, we are invited to believe in a God who does not cause our agony, but rather is part of all the things each one of us can do in order to alleviate the suffering of those around us. It is in these redeeming actions where we realize the living presence of God in our lives. And it is in that doing that each one of our lives fills with meaning and transcendence.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Joshua Kullock
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