‘And Aharon was silent’

He was an old man, and in many ways came from a very different world than I. And yet he taught me more than anyone else. One of the things he taught me was that no one suffers as much as a parent who loses a child.

He delivered this lesson more than fifty years ago. He was my grandfather, and the family had broken the news to him that his youngest grandchild, my baby cousin, had died. It was a sudden death, totally unexpected, and everyone was distraught. Grandpa, too, took the news very hard.

He then did something which surprised everyone present. He rose to leave the room, beckoning to me — his oldest grandchild, then 14 — to accompany him. We entered a small adjoining room in which there were a few sacred books, including a siddur. He opened the siddur, read from it for several moments, and then looked at me and tearfully whispered:

“There is nothing worse in the world than the death of one’s own child. A parent never recovers from such a blow. May the merciful G-d protect us all from such a fate.”

I will never forget those words. I remember them verbatim today. And a lifetime of experience in counseling has confirmed the truth of these words over and over again.

In this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Shemini, we read of just such a tragedy. On a bright spring day, somewhere in the Sinai wilderness, the Tabernacle is inaugurated. It is an awesome spiritual experience in which “a divine fire descends from on high, in which all the people sing in unison, and fall upon their faces.”

It is the moment of a peak experience, but especially for Aharon, the High Priest.

At that very moment, his two elder sons, Nadav and Avihu, step forward and commit a sacrilegious act that dispels the mood, and ruins the entire experience. Commentators differ widely as to exactly what was the sin. Scripture just says that “they offered G-d a strange fire, something He did not command of them.”

G-d’s wrath was expressed instantly. “A fire descended from before Him and consumed them, and they died in the presence of G-d.”

A parent, a father, lost a child. Not just one, but two. Not through a long illness but suddenly, unexpectedly. And not in any ordinary set of circumstances, but in an act of sacred worship.

What is Aharon’s reaction? Does he moan and rend his clothing? Does he scream out in grief? Or does he vent his anger against the G-d who took his boys from him?

None of the above. “Vayidom Aharon.” Aharon is silent. Shock? Acceptance of fate? Perhaps. Or, perhaps, the silence of a range and depth of emotions too overwhelming to express in words.

If the sage words that my grandfather shared with me are true, Aharon remained silent about his grief for the rest of his life. Had he used the words of his ancestor Yaakov, he could have said “I will go down to the grave in my agony.”

Soon after the episode in which my grandfather shared his wisdom with me, I had the occasion to read a book which taught me more about grieving parents. It is quite possible that it was during the winter of my cousin’s death that I was assigned the book Death Be Not Proud by John Gunther in my English Literature class.

I doubt that this book is still on the required reading lists of tenth-graders today. But if it is not, I certainly recommend it, particularly to teenagers who are learning their first lessons about life and its tragic disappointments.

In the book, the author describes his son, who was taken from him by a vicious disease. He describes his son positively, but realistically. And he rages against the disease, and in some way, the Divine being who took his son from him. He insists to Death itself that it be not proud about its victory over its victim, his dear child.

It has been decades since I have read Gunther’s book, and it may be that I do not remember it with complete accuracy. But I do recall the power with which the author conveyed the range of his painful emotions. And I will never forget those passages in which he insists that he will never recover from his loss, that the wounds of a parent’s grief for his child can never heal.

Many are the lessons that students of Bible and Talmud have derived from the sad narrative in this week’s Torah portion. But there is at least one lesson every empathic reader will surely learn as he or she attends to the opening verses of Leviticus 10.

It is the lesson contained in the mystery of Aharon’s reaction to his sons being consumed by heavenly fire. For within the deafening silence of “Vayidom Aharon” is depths of terror every parent dreads, and some parents have suffered: The dread of bereavement, of the loss of one’s child.

As always, in contemplating darkness, light stands out in contrast. Reflection upon death leads to an appreciation of life. The story of the death of Aharon’s children should, if nothing else, enable us to appreciate all the more those of our children who are alive and well.

As we embark upon this new pre-Pesach spring season, with all the springtime symbols in the way of life and renewal, let us celebrate and appreciate all of our own offspring, may they live and be well.