Drash on Parashat Shemini 2025

Cantor Michel Laloum

Temple Beth Israel

A Silent Scream
Often when we come to Parashat Shemini, the focus tends to be on the laws of kashrut.  However, I find myself drawn to Aaron’s silence in the face of an almost unthinkable loss, when the inauguration of the Tabernacle, after seven days of celebration, suddenly goes awry with the deaths of Aaron’s two sons, Nadav and Avihu.

As you would expect, the sages offered many opinions about what happened to Aaron’s sons and why, but as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out, the simplest explanation comes from the Torah. The Torah tells us in Leviticus (Shemini) and then in Numbers that the two sons brought a “strange fire,” which had not been commanded by God and they were consumed by it.  In the face of this unthinkable loss, Aaron is silent, even when his brother Moshe tries to offer words of comfort.

As the parsha progresses, we learn that Moshe instructs relatives to take the bodies of Nadav and Avihu to a place outside the camp. He then tells Aaron and his remaining sons that they should not engage in the rituals of mourning, “but your kin, the house of Israel shall bewail the burning that the Eternal has wrought.”  And Aaron and his sons obeyed Moshe.

Silence.  Aaron, especially as the High Priest, is caught in the impossible bind of not questioning God, but also not being allowed to express his profound distress. We can discern as much from silence as from what is said, and since 7 October, both the noise and the silence has been deafening.

There is too much silence from people who should have spoken out. In a book of essays, Christine Brückner posits – Desdemona, if only you had spoken!  What could the outcome have been in Othello, had she cried out?

Could the extent, length, and/or toll of the war with Hamas have been lessened if the world had not kept silent in the face of such evil?  Had world leaders spoken out instead of trying to excuse the inexcusable?

The anguished silence from some of the families of those held hostage is juxtaposed against the loudest commentators who espouse ill-informed (at best), irresponsible and insensitive statements about negotiations which have not been public and the price to free the hostages.

The silence of the press when Hamas ‘quietly’ issues a revised (reduced) count of the death toll in Gaza, when those in Gaza brave enough to protest openly and call for the removal of Hamas have been subsequently kidnapped, tortured and left to die on the doorstep of their family.

As the election draws closer, it is disappointing to see politicians who have kept silent in the face of grotesque acts of intimidation and antisemitism towards the Jewish community, suddenly finding their voice and proclaiming all that they have done to promote Jewish inclusion.

Ecclesiastes 3:7 tells us that there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.”

We read in the Talmud, (Metzia 37b) “Shtika k’hoda’a”, that “silence is tantamount to agreement”.

How did Aaron grieve the loss of his sons in silence?  He was not permitted the rites of mourning.  Neither have the hostage families been able to grieve, even those who know their loved one is dead, have no body to bury.

Psychologically, we know the importance of the rituals associated with death and dying.  The stages of grief, the need to have a body to bury.  Denied these rituals, this acknowledgement of loss, the comfort of mourners, how does one grieve?  How does one’s mourning progress from the intense period of shiva through shloshim towards any sort of peace? Their grief arrested; they keep silent. The type of silence that comes in a nightmare where there is no sound from a scream.

At Pesach, we had empty chairs at our seder tables for a second year.  While families continue to wait for news, while fighting resumes and festivals come and go, the maror tastes more bitter and the salt water needs no explanation.

Our moment of silence was symbolic but too many families, too many communities and for too many Israelis, the silence was not symbolic.  Their tables really have an empty chair where someone used to sit.  And there’s a silence at the table, where there should be a voice lifted in singing.

But around the world, the silence is deafening – unless it’s about Israel.  South Sudan is on the brink of another civil war, in earthquake-stricken Myanmar, the military has reportedly been targeting rebel communities again, women continue to be erased from society in Afghanistan and education for girls is now forbidden.

Rabbi Sacks spoke of a “momentous courage” borne of the exchange between Moshe and Aaron, “who has the strength to grieve and not accept any easy consolation, and the courage of a Moses who has the strength to keep going in spite of grief.”  The Jewish people have suffered throughout history but notably, “like Aaron, they did not lose their humanity.”

In the wake of 7 October, in the aftermath of all the incidents that have occurred both in Australia and abroad in the past 18 months, the most shocking for many, has been that they were met with silence. Perhaps the most profound counterpoint to this has been the joining of an overwhelming majority of Jews, shattering the silence by proclaiming: Am Yisrael Chai!