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Shemini

Leviticus 9:1-11:47

Exodus 12:1-20

Ezekiel 45:16-46:18

The untimely and tragic deaths of Aaron's two sons, Nadav and Abihu, are described in this week's Torah portion, Shemini. The reader is told that God sent a heavenly flame to destroy Aaron's two sons almost immediately after their elevation to the role of priest because they offered alien fire (Lev. 10:1). A later passage presents a different account of their death: "They drew too close to the presence of God" (Leviticus 16:1).

No matter which explanation one accepts, the rabbinic tradition provides a rich panoply of rationalizations for the death of Aaron's children. The rabbis were uncomfortable with such a tragedy befalling a devout man and his sons, so they blamed the victims, charging Nadav and Abihu with arrogance, insolence, alcoholism, disrespect for their elders, jealousy, idolatry and religious fanaticism.

Certainly, most youngsters have been guilty of one or more of these behaviors. Death, in most cases, is not the punishment that befalls them. If that were the case, few youngsters would survive to maturity.

While a reader may find justification for the boys' deaths, the Talmud offers a far more troubling illustration: that of a child who was sent up a ladder by his father and asked to chase away a mother bird before taking the eggs from her nest. The child died in a fall while fulfilling the multiple mitzvot of obeying a parent and not taking the young in the presence of their mother (Talmud, Kiddushin 39a).

Here the child was not only perfectly innocent, but also died while fulfilling God's commands.

While interpretations and justifications for these shocking tragedies are of interest, the response by Aaron and Moses to the catastrophe detailed in Shemini deserves fuller examination because the tragic loss of loved ones is such a universal experience. Aaron is joined in an unending chain of parents who have lost children, parents whose sacred stewardship was reduced to bitter mourning, the harshest fate a parent can endure.

Moses attempted to comfort Aaron. His words — "This is what the Lord meant when He said: `Through those near to Me I show Myself holy, and assert My authority before all the people'" (Lev. 10:3) — offer little apparent solace. Imagine a parent whose child is hit by a car being told by a friend, "I warned you. That is what happens when you let your child play in the street."

Aaron's response was simply: Va-yeedom Aharon — "And Aaron was silent" (Lev. 10:3).

Most Jews are not aware that Jewish tradition demands that a visitor not speak to a mourner until the visitor is spoken to. This tradition developed out of the deep understanding that in all likelihood, at the moment of most intense grief, no comment is going to be useful or of consolation. Far more soothing is the comforter's silence and warm embrace; these might allow the mourner to share his or her heartache and pain.

Andre Neher once commented, "Man can accept God's silence but not that other men should speak in His place." Aaron's silence should have been a signal to Moses to keep still. However, like so many others who have been confronted by death, Moses could not deal with Aaron's silence, and like so many others, he offered explanations and words of comfort that did more damage than good.

We hear the echoes of Aaron's silence in our own inability to put into words the complex emotions we feel after a death. Thus, we should take our cue from Jewish tradition and say nothing until spoken to; this can only be accomplished if we ourselves can be comfortable with silence as we enter the mourner's stunned stillness, as Howard Thurman's eloquent "Meditations of the Heart" suggests:

I share with you the agony of your grief,

The anguish of your heart finds echo in my own.

I know I cannot enter all you feel

Nor bear with you the burden of your pain;

I can but offer what my love does give:

The strength of caring,

The warmth of one who seeks to understand

The silent storm-swept barrenness of so great a loss.

This I do in quiet ways, That on your lonely path

You may not walk alone.