Silence When It's All Too Much: VaYidom
- Hinda Eisen Labovitz
- Feb 20
- 2 min read
I deleted Facebook from my phone today. I'm deleting well-written emails from reputable news sources and organizations I respect. I just can't today.
Like everyone else, for the 502 days since October 7, I held onto the hope that the hostages were all still alive, including all four members of the Bibas family.
I know it is a privilege to put my head down and turn off the news and social media when I need to, and I am grateful that there are people who are able to raise their voices in anger and anguish, that the Jewish world is finally mobilized in its outrage that babies are dead. That a mother is dead. It hits too close to home.
Ariel Bibas, z"l was exactly 15 days older than Ronen, z"l would have been. I can't look at their faces being plastered anywhere, any more than I can stand looking at the tiny caskets on the news.
In the book of VaYikra, Moses's brother Aaron, the high priest, loses two of his four sons, Nadav and Avihu. In the moment, the Torah reports vayidom aharon - Aaron is silent. I have said this before: Much attention has been given to his silence here, with commentaries ranging from his silence assenting to God's punishment, to accepting his own guilt in the matter, to silently screaming.
In my estimation, not enough commentary is shared on the moment that Aaron does speak up ten verses later (Lev. 10:19), when Moses insensitively accuses Elazar and Itamar (named, in the text, "Aaron's remaining sons," Lev. 10:16) of mucking up the ritual.
At this moment I don't have more to say about Aaron's subsequent statement, though I have written about it in the past. I'm just looking to it for chizuk today. Sometimes in the depths of our grief, there is just silence. Sometimes we find the strength to fight in the world, to fight for ourselves, later. I'm grateful for those fighting today -- but today I need to nurse my own raw wounds so that I can continue to move through the world, continue to support those who need my immediate help, continue to make it through one day at a time.