As I was driving home today, watching the sun set on Yom HaShoah, I was thinking about the siren earlier today, and what two minutes of silent contemplation can accomplish.
In shul this past week, we read וידום אהרון which we usually translate as “And Aharon was silent.”
Aharon’s two oldest sons, Nadav and Avihu, had just died in misplaced service to God. Moshe comforted him, saying that he knew the Mishkan would be sanctified through God’s “Close Ones”, only he had thought that would have been himself and Aharon, and not Nadav and Avihu.
What does וידום אהרון mean in this context?
One way to understand it is that he held back his tears. He realized the personal loss that he had just suffered, but he also realized the momentous occasion he was part of, with the inauguration of the Mishkan. He was able to suppress his own personal feelings of loss through Moses’s consolation that his sons were really holy.
I think another way to understand this is that Aharon took a moment of silence to try and process what had just happened. There are bad things that happen which are sometimes impossible to fully wrap our minds arounds. But just ignoring them and living our lives as if they didn’t happen is dangerous and unhealthy. We have to take time to reflect, contemplate, and try to understand how things like the Holocaust could happen – even today – and what we can do to create a world where this is not just unthinkable, but also undoable.
When reading through the parsha on Shabbat, I noticed a new translation for וידום אהרון which I had never seen before. Every version of Onkelos that I’ve seen before, translates it ושתיק אהרון – “And Aharon was silent” as I mentioned above.
But the blue Torah Chayim chumash, has the text ושבח אהרון – “And Aharon gave praise”.
This was shocking to me. This translation is basically saying that even in probably the darkest moment of Aharon’s life, he was able to look up and say ברוך דיין האמת – “Blessed is the True Judge.”
While I was driving, I realized that the two ideas really come together. The only way to really say ברוך דיין האמת is by taking moments to pause and reflect. Saying BDE as a reflexive answer when hearing bad news is not praising God, at least not fully. It’s not taking a moment to properly appreciate that God’s infinite wisdom understands things that we can’t.
Maybe Aharon’s silence helped him realized what a powerful and holy job he was entering into. The Mishkan was not just a beautiful golden building; If God’s manifest holiness is capable of death when misused, imagine what an exalted life it can create if used correctly.
Maybe we can see the Holocaust in the same way.
The Holocaust really is an unfathomable evil. But my personal take away from today is that if humanity is capable of unfathomable evil, we are also capable of unfathomable good.
And maybe the sound of siren and our own silence reflection can give us the push to create the uplifted world that we’re capable of.
