Sometimes Silence is the Answer - Chukat 5785

 (Dedicated to the memory of Rachel bat Yosef Shmuel. Beloved wife, mother, grandmother, teacher and friend. She passed away on Erev Shabbat and was laid to rest surrounded by her family and many, many friends in the Holy Land.)

Chukat, the Parsha we read and study this week, talks a lot about death. Miriam and Aharon, two of the three greatest siblings of our people, pass away. And Moshe is informed that he will not live to take the Jewish People into Israel.  The Parsha begins with the laws of the “Red Heifer.” This was the cow that was slaughtered and then burned, and its ashes mixed with “living” spring water. The mixture was sprinkled on a person who had come in contact with a corpse, twice over a period of seven days, and he or she would then immerse in a Mikvah and thus be purified from the Tumah (ritual “impurity”) that came from contact with the corpse. 

There is a fascinating Midrash that recounts a discussion between Hashem and Moshe. Hashem taught Moshe the laws of Tumah (ritual impurity), outlining various situations which bring a person to that state. some examples are having an emission, touching a dead rodent or giving birth. In each case, Hashem also taught him how to emerge from Tumah to purity, for example immersing in a Mikvah filled with rainwater or in a pool fed by a living stream. 

When it came to the unique Tumah of being in contact with a human corpse, Hashem did not tell Moshe how one emerges from that Tumah to purity. Moshe asked Hashem, the Midrash says, and Hashem did not answer, and Moshe’s face turned green. At a later time, when Hashem taught Moshe the laws of the red Heifer, He told him that this was the answer to the question that had previously gone unanswered. Moshe asked “is this the way to achieve purity?”  Hashem answered "This is the law; it is my decree and there is no existing creature who can comprehend this decree."

How can we understand this Midrash?  Why did Hashem initially not give Moshe an answer?  Was it too hard to understand?  Is it that it doesn’t make sense that ashes mixed with water can purify or that a corpse, a holy human body, defiles?  Well what about giving birth, the miraculous creation of life in partnership with Hashem, bringing new life to the world?  How could that defile someone. And how does dipping in a pool of water, not a bath or a shower but a collection of rainwater, remove whatever that defilement is?  

None of this is logical. It is, as Hashem said, His will, and we can’t understand it. So why specifically in this case did Hashem not initially give Moshe the remedy for the Tumah? And why Moshe’s reaction of his face turning green?  Were there not many difficult passages in the Torah, without an explicit explanation, that required delving into the deeper meanings to discover?

The Rebbe addressed this question in a talk he gave at his house one month after his wife, the sainted Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, passed away. (Adapted from a beautiful article written by Rabbi YY Jacobson.) 

What Hashem was teaching Moshe here was not just the technical rules of Tumah and purification. When a loved one dies, the pain of the loss is deep and the grief affects us to the core of our being. Something dies in us along with our loved one, and sometimes we never get over it. Moshe asked Hashem, how is it possible to overcome such a loss and such a pain?  Hashem was silent. Because this is a question that can’t be answered. There is no response that can wash away the grief. In fact the laws of Shiva require the visitor to be silent and only speak in response to the mourner. Many who have been through this will attest to the fact that often well-meaning but misplaced words can have the opposite effect. 

It was only later that Hashem taught Moshe how a person moves on. The loss is real, but yet life must continue and flourish. Ashes are what is left after the cow is burned and finished, representing death. The living waters are the foundation of life. The majority of our bodies is water, and water is essential to all life. Mixing the ashes with living water teaches us that we can and must move on to continue living and to being more life to the world. 

We keep the person’s memory alive by increasing life and bringing more goodness to the world, transforming the pain to light. The soul lives forever in the spiritual worlds, and our bringing additional light in this world, especially when inspired by our late loved one, continues their life in this world. 

Last week we lost a remarkable woman. Rachel Rafelson was know. By all who knew her as the epitome of goodness. In all the years I knew her, I never heard a negative word from her. Not about other people and even about any challenges that came her way. The Chesed she did and the positivity she spread had a deep impact on her family and friends. 

When she found out that she had a terminal illness, she said that she was in Hashem’s hands and ready to accept whatever He had in store for her.  Rabbi Jacobson wrote in his article: “Those who truly live are not afraid to die, because the end of something is only frightening for one who never owned it in the first place.”  I think this statement epitomizes Rachel. Her memory is a blessing. May her family be comforted amongst the mourners of Tziyon and Yerushalayim.