Parashat Chukat D'var Torah

Scott and I became good friends in elementary school. While we were much closer when we were younger, we nevertheless retained a friendship through high school. He was one of those guys willing to do anything for a laugh, and, well, he always succeeded in that with me. I ran into him at Somerset just a couple years ago. We chatted long enough to accept each other as Facebook friends that evening, and more or less kept up with each other through social media.

Bonnie and I became fast friends in high school. We were in all the same classes, she dated a friend of mine, and it was not long before we were traveling in the same social circle. We both attended the University of Michigan, and I remember relying on each other freshman year during some of those homesick days in one's first year away at college. She was a good friend, with a wonderful sense of humor, keen sense of right and wrong, and she truly celebrated life in all that she did. Bonnie and I too drifted apart after college graduation--she remained in Michigan for law school and I moved to Jerusalem for rabbinical school. But, thanks to that modern invention of Facebook, she and I--like Scott and me--were able to stay connected.

This spring, quite suddenly, both Scott and Bonnie died. Scott succumbed to complications from diabetes and Bonnie lost her fight with cancer. They were both 36. Though it has been years since I've had a meaningful relationship with either of them, losing them has affected me deeply. The stark reminders of the fragility of life and of the shortness of life have been bitter pills to swallow. I've worked hard in recent weeks to reach out anew to friends from high school and to tell them how much the wonderful memories we share continue to enrich my life. I've tried to hug my family tighter, to be even more grateful for the blessings which God has showered upon me, and to reach out more significantly to those in need. The tragic deaths of Scott and Bonnie are significant reminders that I need to live my life even more fully.

In our Torah Parashat Chukat, our ancestors, in the fortieth year from their Exodus from Egypt and not long from the Promised Land, lose both the prophetess Miriam and the High Priest Aaron. Miriam's death is juxtaposed with the strange story of the Red Heifer: an animal whose ashes come to render pure anyone who has been in contact with a corpse or items in proximity of a corpse. Recognizing the Red Heifer's strange juxtaposition with "Miriam died there [in Kadesh, in the Wilderness of Zin] and was buried there" (Numbers 20:1), the Talmud comes to teach, "Just as the ashes of the red cow atone for sin, the death of a righteous person does the same" (BT MK 28a). To this the Etz Hayim chumash adds, "In the wake of a good person's death, we are moved to re-examine our own lives" (pg. 883).

Scott and Bonnie did not die so that I could live my life more fully. But in their death, and my sadness, I am reminded of life's shortness and fragility. Miriam and Aaron, the leaders of our people, did not die so that our ancestors could become reflective. But if the Israelites in their time, and we in our time, do not seize this opportunity to reflect on the meaning of righteousness and the importance of deepening our journey toward holiness, then a true opportunity will have been missed. Tragedies do not occur, I believe, so that we will learn. But tragedies do occur, and we must learn from them. This is why, I believe, the Torah recounts so specifically the deaths of Aaron and Miriam: every year we must re-examine our own lives.

During this week of Parashat Chukat in which we mourn the deaths of Miriam and Aaron, Scott and Bonnie, and we consider the loss of our own family and friends over the years, may God bless us with keen insight and wisdom that comes from deep reflection ... and may God bless us all with life and with peace.