Shabbat Greetings
This week’s Torah portion, Shemini (Leviticus 9:1-11:47) arrives with a jolt. Just as the Mishkan (portable tabernacle)is inaugurated in a moment of joy and divine closeness, tragedy strikes: Nadav and Avihu, filled with a passion to serve, bring “strange fire” and are consumed before God. The text does not explain; it does not soften the blow. Aaron’s response is silence: “Vayidom Aharon.”In that silence, we encounter a form of faith that does not try to resolve suffering, but instead holds it with honesty, restraint, and presence.
As we approach Yom HaShoah (Monday evening, 7 pm), that silence feels painfully familiar. We stand in the shadow of immense loss that resists explanation. Like Aaron, the Jewish people have known moments where words fail, where theology feels inadequate, where the only honest response is to bear witness as we are obligated to remember, to mourn, and to refuse to let absence have the final word. And yet, this year in particular, many of us are carrying our own sense of being jolted by the world around us, by rising tensions, by fear, grief, uncertainty, or even a quiet sense of disorientation. The ground can feel less steady than it once did.
Shemini speaks directly into that emotional landscape. It does not rush us past the shock. It allows space for numbness, for confusion, even for silence. There is something deeply pastoral in that permission: we do not have to have the right words. We do not have to make sense of everything. Like Aaron, we are allowed to simply be still, to feel what we feel, and to know that even in that stillness, we are not alone.
And yet, Shemini does not end in silence alone. Life continues, though it is forever changed. The pportion turns, almost abruptly, to the laws of kashrut, to the daily, embodied practices that define holiness by what we eat. It is as if the Torah is gently guiding us: after rupture, we return not to grand answers, but to small, grounding acts. We eat, we bless, we gather, we mark time. These rhythms do not erase grief, but they hold us within life, within community.
This movement, from shock, to silence, to sacred living, offers a way to approach Yom HaShoah in our own time. We remember those who were lost not only through memory, but through the stubborn, sacred act of continuing to live as Jews, to show up for one another, to create moments of care and connection in a fractured world. Especially now, when so many feel unsettled or vulnerable, these acts matter even more.
We may not be able to explain the fires that have burned in our history, or even the upheavals we feel today. But we can choose how we respond. We can make space for grief without being consumed by it. We can allow ourselves moments of silence without feeling that we have failed. And we can take gentle steps back into life through ritual, through community, through acts of compassion.
On this Shabbat, as Yom HaShoah, approaches, we are invited to honor both the brokenness and the resilience within us. To sit, if we need to, in silence. And when we are ready, to rise, perhaps slowly, perhaps imperfectly and to carry forward life itself. In a world that can feel so often jolting and uncertain, that quiet, steady choice may be the most powerful act of all.
Shabbat Shalom