RABBI YISSOCHER FRAND (Aish.com)
ֹּAnd Aharon was silent. (10:3)
Aharon’s two older sons, Nadav and Avihu, were men of extraordinary stature, righteous leaders who were worthy of someday stepping in the shoes of Moshe and Aharon. And then, during the joyous dedication of the Mishkan, they made a small error, and a fire reached out from the Holy of Holies and snuffed out their lives.
We cannot even begin to imagine the shock to Aharon, a father who witnessed his two glorious sons perish right before his eyes. What went through his mind in that split second? His own loss, the loss suffered by the entire Jewish people, the loss suffered by the two deceased sons themselves. So much loss. Such a gaping void.
What was Aharon’s reaction? The Torah tells us that “Aharon was silent.” Silence. Complete acceptance. Unshakable faith. One of the most eloquent and powerful exhibitions of faith recorded in the Torah.
The Torah forbids excessive mourning over a deceased relative (Devarim 14:1). “Do not mutilate yourselves, and do not tear out your hair between your eyes over the dead.” The Ramban writes that self-destructive mourning shows a lack of faith in Hashem. If we believe in the immortality of the soul and that all Hashem does is ultimately for the good, we do not mourn too much, even in the face of tragic youthful death.
A few years ago, the Baltimore community suffered a tragic loss on Erev Pesach. Mr. and Mrs. Israel Weinstein’s son and his wife were killed in an automobile accident while coming from Lakewood to Baltimore for Pesach.
I was not there to witness it personally, but I heard from others that Mr. Weinstein’s faith and acceptance were incredible. It is hard to conceive how a man who has just been told that his two beloved children had been torn away from him can walk into the Pesach Seder and make the Shehechianu blessing, thanking Hashem for sustaining life and bringing us to this joyous occasion. It is hard to conceive how such a man can walk into shul the next day and say “Gut Yom Tov” to everyone without a trace of his grief on his face so as not to disturb the festival spirit. It is hard to conceive how such a man, sitting in shul, can reach out and affectionately pat the cheek of a little child that happens to walk by. It could only be accomplished by a man whose heart is full of a rare and unshakable faith.
During the Shivah, the father of the boy whose cheek Mr. Weinstein had patted asked him, “How, in the moment of your most profound grief, could you still bend down to a child and pat him on the cheek?”
“At that exact moment,” Mr. Weinstein responded, “when your little boy walked past me, with everything I was feeling in my heart, I realized how special each and every one of our children is. Sometimes we take our children for granted. Times like these clear our vision.”
A person can only have such strength if he has a clear vision of the eternal light
