Word: וידם, vayidom, “he was still and silent”
Context: After seven days of practice, on the eighth day, the Tabernacle is consecrated. Aharon and his sons follow the instructions precisely, the sacrifices are offered, the people are blessed, God finally appears to the people in the Tabernacle, and a fire comes out to consume the sacrifices. The people shout and bow down in awe. And then tragedy strikes – Aharon’s two oldest sons offer “a strange fire,” and are also consumed by fire. Moshe tries to comfort Aharon. Aharon’s response is: וידם אהרן, Aharon was silent and still.
Another use of this root: The root of this word, דמם, damam, is not a common root, appearing only one other time in the Torah, and only 28 times in the rest of Tanakh. 1 Kings 18-19 tells a story with striking parallels to our story, and in the story, it uses this root in the form demamah in the famous phrase – קול דממה דקה, “ a still, small voice.” Consider the tale:
The prophet Eliyahu endeavors to prove to Israel that there is only one God and they should stop worshiping Baal. He holds a contest with the prophets of Baal in which they each offer sacrifices and wait to see whose god comes down in fire to consume the offerings. After the false prophets fail, Eliyahu makes a big show which concludes with a divine fire coming down to consume the offerings. The people are amazed and bow down in awe, and Eliyahu proceeds to slaughter all the false prophets. Soon after, an angry Queen Jezebel sends Eliyahu his death warrant, and Eliyahu runs away in fear to the desert, where, on Mount Horeb, he encounters God. A stormy wind appears, but God is not in the stormy wind. An earthquake, but God is not in the earthquake. A fire, but God is not in the fire. Until, finally, God appears as –
קול דממה דקה
“a still, small voice”
Interpretation: What was Aharon doing, standing still and silent, after the tragic death of his two sons? Surely the shock, the pain and the raw grief, must have been unbearable. What Aharon was doing was turning to the still place inside him, a still point God implants inside each of us, and, from this place of divine stillness, he was holding the pain that no human can bear alone. This stillness, this peace, can never itself be disturbed, but it knows and can witness and hold any suffering. While God’s presence had appeared as a consuming fire at the consecration of the Tabernacle, in the aftermath of tragedy, Aharon encountered a different, quieter aspect of God – the ability to sit still with pain, not to get rid of it or fix it, but simply to be present with it, to be a calm presence for its turmoil.
Eliyahu learned a similar lesson. He worked hard, as Aharon did, to create an experience of God’s presence that would wow the people, convince them clearly and undeniably of God’s existence. And he succeeded. Yet soon afterwards, it became apparent to him that evil still ruled, that in fact his own life was now in danger because the queen of Israel in all her evil still held sway. Surely Eliyahu experienced both great fear and intense despair and frustration, a sense of the hopelessness of ever truly succeeding. Eliyahu’s encounter with God on Mount Horeb, was, like Aharon’s experience, a private encounter following an intense public display of divine fire. Here, in this quieter place, through his own suffering, Eliyahu found God not in the fire that had appeared earlier as spectacular proof, but in the still small voice that came to be with him – in all his fear and hopelessness – that came to be still with him and accompany him in his suffering.
Message: Where is God? We try so hard to do right in the world, so that God and His goodness will be strong and apparent, and often we do have some success. But there is still inexplicable tragedy. Children die. Despite our best efforts, evil persists, and often, in fact, seems to have the upper hand in this realm. So where is God?
God is in the stillness that can hold the pain, the tiny but steady, everpresent voice of stillness that God implanted inside each of us, that we can access at any time. This still presence does not attempt to fix or get rid of or diminish or avoid or distract from the pain. It has the capacity to hold it in all its intensity – even as intense as a parent’s grief for his child, doubled for two children – to hold it in all its intensity, never wavering, never stopping, never saying – “this is too much.” No suffering, no grief, no sadness, no anxiety, no fear, no despair, is too great for this still presence to bear, to witness and to accompany.
Sometimes we turn away from pain, our own, and also the pain of others we care about, and the pain we see and read about in the world. It feels like too much for us to bear. But there is a place inside us, a very still quiet present place, where we are connected to the God whose care and compassion is infinite and unending, and from this place, we, too, can allow the heartache, can offer it company and shelter inside us.
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