Oftentimes true greatness cannot be seen but in the smallest and most mundane behaviors and acts.
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“The whole congregation saw that Aharon had died and they cried for Aharon, for thirty days, the whole house of Israel.” (Bamidbar 20:29)
When Moshe (with torn clothing and ashes) and Elazar (wearing the clothes of the Kohain Gadol) descended the mountain, the people looked for Aharon. They couldn’t believe that the man who stood up to the Angel of Death at the plague, could have succumbed to him and died. [They were actually right, because it was Hashem, Himself, who took Aharon’s soul with a Divine kiss.]
They were afraid and exposed, because with Aharon’s death, the Clouds of Glory which had previously surrounded them and protected the Jews from all manner of threats, were now gone. Just as when Miriam died, the well of water which had come in her merit disappeared, now the clouds which came because of Aharon disappeared. (Moshe would bring them both back in his own merit.)
Chazal tell us that everyone cried for Aharon, including men and women, because he had been the one to restore peace between people and healed relationships. When a couple had a falling out, Aharon would come and speak to each spouse and help them repair the relationship. Because the women were more personally affected, their crying is highlighted by Aharon’s death as opposed to by Moshe’s later on.
The question is, were they crying for Aharon, or for themselves? Perhaps, they weren’t just mourning the loss of the great man, but lamenting what they now realized was possible for a human being to achieve.
When Miriam died, the well disappeared. The people knew she was a holy person, and it made sense that such a great miracle happened because of her. Though they didn’t know it was in her merit while she was alive, when she died, they could understand that such a tzadeikes could be the source of such a bracha which helped everyone.
When Aharon died, and the Clouds of Glory disappeared, they realized that it was in his great merit that they’d been protected all these years, and now they were afraid. Why? Because Aharon wasn’t an aloof tzaddik. He wasn’t an ascetic hermit who dwelled on a mountain top, but a man of the people who was involved in day-to-day life.
This brought into focus that each of them, man or woman, young or old, could do so much more than they realized. They recognized the potential they had for caring for others and that they had not learned enough from Aharon in his lifetime. They had underestimated him and missed the chance to maximize their own lives.
This was enough to bring everyone to tears.
R’ Moshe Feinstein would often be driven home by a student from the Yeshiva. One day, when his regular driver was not available, they looked around for a student with a car. Seeing one, the boy making the arrangements said, “Goldstein!* You have a car, right? The Rosh Yeshiva needs a ride.”
Rushing to his car, the young man began to prepare it for his prestigious passenger, hurriedly cranking the sunroof closed as R’ Moshe approached.
“No, no, don’t close it,” said R’ Moshe with a smile as he removed his hat and sat down in the car. He raised his face to enjoy the sunshine and said, “It’s very nice this way.”
The sage, who was constantly involved in Torah study, was not too big or too busy to stop and appreciate the simple pleasure of the warmth of the sun.
©2024 – J. Gewirtz
