Each year, the Reform congregational rabbis of our community co-teach an Introduction to Judaism class. We take turns teaching different units, but my favorite is always the life cycle. Jewish rituals for the big moments in our lives are unique and special, and even students raised as Jews often have a lot to learn. 

For each life cycle, I include a list of helpful phrases of what to say and what not to say during those holy moments. The simcha phrases are easy — more often than not, mazel tov is an excellent catch all. The loss phrases, not so much. Nearly everyone struggles with how to respond during difficult times. And while it’s universally challenging to know the right thing to say, especially following a death, Judaism definitely has some opinions about the wrong thing to say.

In this week’s Torah portion, Moses seems to offer the perfect example of what not to say. Parshat Shmini contains one of the most upsetting death scenes of the entire Torah. Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Abihu, make an offering to God that is not what God commanded, and they are immediately killed. Their deaths are horrible, and inexplicable; while the Rabbis of our tradition try and figure out exactly what about their offering was so wrong that it demanded death, it is clearly unprecedented.

Moses’ response after their deaths would not make my list of helpful phrases. He says to their father, Aaron, “This is what the Holy One meant when God said: Through those near to Me I show Myself holy, and gain glory before all the people.” 

What could this possibly mean? Was he trying to silence Aaron before he got emotional? Was he trying to keep Aaron focused so he could finish his work? Was he trying to comfort Aaron by saying that his sons would be glorified after death? Was he telling Aaron that their deaths should have been anticipated?

Jewish mourning customs would find much fault with this. We take care to not to posit explanations for why someone died. We don’t say things like, “he’s in a better place.” We don’t prevent mourners from sharing their emotions. It seems, in fact, that much of the way Jews mourn is taken directly as the opposite of what happens in Shmini. Aaron is forbidden to rend his clothes, and so we learn to rend ours on hearing of a death. He is told to keep cutting his hair, so we learn to avoid doing the same for a period of mourning. Moses insists that Aaron keep going about his planned activities, so we sit shiva, giving ourselves a time to break from our regular routines.

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And when it comes to saying the right thing, we follow the lead of the mourner. In the parasha, Aaron is silent. From this we learn that sometimes, all the helpful phrases in the world may not be enough. Instead, we sit with the mourner, following their lead, and that may just be enough.

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