Parashat Sh’mini - Hearing Silence

Parashat Sh’mini - Hearing Silence

In Memory of Elissa Froman, z'l

April 5, 2013 ~ 26 Nissan 5773

Rabbi Jen Gubitz

Source texts drawn from Nehama Leibowitz’s New Studies in Vayikra

There was a hush in the room.

What to say?

What not to say?

Amid the silence,

memories, stories, feelings came alive.

And though she was no longer,

and we were speechless,

there was so much to say,

and yet no one spoke.

But the silence

as it often does

said more

than words ever could.  

In the beginning

and in the end,

we listen -

for a sign of breath,

for a sign of life...

In the last breath,

and before the first breath -

we listen into the silence.

Silence is technically

the complete absence of sound.

But living, we know,

breathing

is quite noisy.

And so actually

is silence.

We listen,

we hear

even in the deafening quiet.

**

In this week's Torah portion,

Sh'mini,

Vayidom Aharon

And Aaron was silent.

His sons,

Nadav and Avihu

are consumed by a fire from God.

Moses,

his beloved older brother,

appears to try to console

and make meaning of Aaron's loss.

Vayidom Aharon.

But Aaron was silent.

What is one to make of his silence?

Why is he not screaming out with grief?

His life has literally gone up in flames.

Silence is technically

the complete absence of sound.

But we can hear

Aaron's silence across the generations.

We can hear even

in his deafening quiet.

We know

as daily live-rs

that Aaron's silence

in this moment of extreme loss

is in fact the noisiest sound of living.

Vayidom Aharon       

And Aaron was silent.

Very simply stated,

but our commentators

could not accept his silence either.

They, too, sought

to listen for a deeper meaning.

Vayidom Aharon -

Rashi amends the sentence to read:

And Aaron was silent and did not complain

and consequently

he was rewarded for his silence.

Rashi implies that

Aaron understood within his loss

divine judgment.

Vayidom Aharon

And Aaron was silent and did not complain.

Building on Rashi’s Commentary,

the 19th Century

Polish commentary,

Shem Olam -

points to an understanding of silence

based on word choice:

“Scripture chose vayidom

rather than vayishtok...”

a synonym for silence,

we know vayishtok

from trying to quiet a room with Sheket B’vakasha!

“The latter,” he writes,

“signifies the abstention from speaking,

weeping, moaning

or any other outward manifestation...

The verb domem however,

connotes inner peace and calm...

Accordingly

Scripture describes the saintly Aaron

as vayidom and not merely as vayishtok,

thus emphasizing that his heart and soul

were at peace within,

that rather than questioning

the standards of God,

he justified the Divine verdict.”

Rolling back centuries,

Vayidom Aharon -

Rambam reads this to mean:

And Aaron became silent.

He writes,

This means that he had cried aloud,

and then he became silent.

It is not the silence of acceptance

that Rashi or Shem Olam describe;

but a silence of struggle.

It is a silence that attempts to understand

the mysteries of God

the mysteries of life.

Vayidom Aharon:

Abravanel,

15th century Portuguese scholar,

riffs on Vayidom -

when Aaron was silent -

“that his heart turned Vayidom -

k’domem

to lifeless mineral stone

and he did not weep

and mourn like a bereaved father,

nor did he accept Moses' consolation”

for he had no more strength,

his soul had left him

and he was speechless.

Or perhaps a final interpretation:

the 18th century Hakorem teaches,

that Aaron was intentional about his silence,

suppressing his grief and weeping,

in order to show publicly

his acceptance of Divine Judgement -

Aaron knew his public role modeled behavior

and he wanted to keep the Israelites

on the track of accepting

all that God had to offer

while maintaining his authority and authenticity.

But he goes back to work

too soon after his grievous loss

and fails to accurately carry out

the sin-offering sacrifice

required of Priests.

11th century Rashbam

creates this conversation

between Aaron and Moses:

"Would it be pleasing

in the sight of God

for me to partake

of the offering in joy

while my heart is full of grief and sorrow?"

Aaron asks.

Hakorem and Rashbam

depict an Aaron

who has great depth,

and deep humanity -

They suggests two sides of Aaron -

the public and private Aaron -

the Aaron he showed the masses,

and the Aaron whose inner being

he kept private

but for his inner circle and God.

Vayidom Aharon:

the Torah teaches that

Aaron was silent;

he did not complain;

his inner being was quiet;

he cried aloud,

then he became silent;

he struggled;

his heart was like a stone

his soul left him

he was speechless.

He was intentional

he was self aware.  

So many component parts

of Aaron’s being.

Some of these commentaries

feel truer

or more real

to our own life experience

than others -

and who are we really to ask

What Aaron’s silence meant?

Whether it was

speechlessness,

stillness or submission

or all of them...

or none of them...

We stand witness

to what our leader Aaron

chose to offer us in that moment...

That is what it means

to fully bear witness

to another’s grief.

That is why

when we enter a house of mourning -

we say nothing

until the mourner speaks.

They get to choose

in that moment

what that moment of interaction

will look like.  

We are entitled

to the most public displays of grief,

renting our clothes, wailing in despair;

and we are also entitled

to a most private experience.  

And the silence

that might hover

between the mourner and ourselves

could feel uncomfortable,

awkward,

endless -

and we might want to fill it

as did Moses,

with words of consolation

or meaning making,

but this is that time to be silent

that Proverbs speaks of.

We are to wait...

and we are to sustain the silence,

and be silently present in the silence,

until by the mourner,

the silence is broken.

Only one other being

can break that silence.

After Nadav and Avihu’s death,

after a lengthy break in communication,

finally

V’yadaber Adonai el Aharon L’aymor

God speaks to Aaron.  

God gets to break the silence.

**

While silence may be

the complete absence of sound.

We know that living

is quite noisy.

And so actually

is silence.

We can listen,

we can hear,

we can be,

we can comfort

even

in the deafening quiet.

*

There was a hush in the room that day.

What to say?

What not to say?

Amid the silence,

memories, stories, feelings came alive.

And though she was no longer,

and we were speechless,

there was so much to say,

and yet no one spoke.

But the silence

as it often does

said more

than words ever could.