“And Aaron was silent.” (Leviticus 10:3)
Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, were consumed in a fire they offered in tribute to G-d. They had been faithful enough to be given the honor of ascending Mt. Sinai directly behind Moses and Aaron, but now, suddenly, they were gone. Apparently their deaths were the price they paid for unwittingly violating ritual law.
Why was Aaron silent? Why didn’t he express his outrage and his sorrow?
While the saying goes that “G-d gives us only what we can handle,” that might not have been the case here. Perhaps Aaron’s silence indicated an unbearable grief. Or maybe he thought it better to remain silent than to substantiate something that was truly inexplicable.
I’m reminded of a lecture that the great Elie Wiesel once gave at Williams College, where he discussed whether or not it was a mistake to use the word “Holocaust” to portray what had happened to the Jewish people. What took place, he said, was so incomprehensible that it may well be best not to give it a particular name. To name it, he suggested, is to bring it into our realm of understanding.
On the other hand, if we don’t label something, we risk forgetting it, and Wiesel devoted his life to unrelentingly and passionately memorializing the Shoah. Along those lines, when we speak of the “Oct. 7 Massacre” we seek to imprint this recent atrocity onto global consciousness. Naming it helps us remember, even if the process of remembering takes an enormous toll on us all. Over the past year my anguish has been almost unendurable. And I know that I am far from alone.
Is this an instance of G-d giving us more than we can handle? And why, for that matter, must we deal with agonizing misfortune at all?
I am inspired by the insights of rabbis who regularly contend with such questions. Rabbi Steven Stark Lowenstein from Am Shalom in Glencoe, Illinois, believes that not only does the human heart have the capability to experience both incredible joy and incapacitating sorrow, one animates the other. While joy is the manifestation of love, grief is evidence that love is about something more than our ourselves. For Rabbi Lowenstein, the capacity to feel true sorrow suggests the existence of a higher power. Can our suffering at times threaten to overwhelm us? Yes, he witnesses that all too often. But he also sees that a caring community and an abiding faith help get us through.
Rabbi Annie Tucker from Temple Israel Center in White Plains, New York, recognizes the reality that despite the efforts of so many, we are consumed with pain. Indeed, self-destruction and despair are proof that burdens may go beyond what we can handle. Moreover, the implication that it is acceptable to inflict the greatest burdens on those who are the strongest strikes Rabbi Tucker as cruel and unfair. Nevertheless, she ascribes to the view that while G-d set the world in motion and serves as a source of comfort and strength as we progress with our lives, we control our own destinies.
Rabbi Jay Levy, formerly at the Sephardic Temple in Los Angeles, reinforces that view. He believes that we have a G-d-given capacity to grow and to live our lives even after unspeakable tragedy. While we have been gifted a magnificent world, we have the free choice to determine what we do with it. For Rabbi Levy, the question to ask is not how G-d can allow such horrible things to happen, but rather, how humanity can allow them to happen.
For Rabbi Levy, the question to ask is not how G-d can allow such horrible things to happen, but rather, how humanity can allow them to happen.
Rabbis such as these have a responsibility not just to observe, but to guide the reality we are making. They are there at our most significant moments, elevating the joyous and comforting the bereaved. B’nai mitzvot, weddings, and baby namings one day; funerals the next.
Encouraged by their wisdom and compassion, may we garner the strength to handle the worst misfortune, while rededicating ourselves to healing our broken world. This is more important than ever during these excruciating times.
Morton Schapiro is the former president of Williams College and Northwestern University. His most recent book (with Gary Saul Morson) is “Minds Wide Shut: How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us.”
