"Grief, Yearning, and the Boundaries of Connection"

"Grief, Yearning, and the Boundaries of Connection"

“The sons of Aaron, Nadav and Avihu, each took his fire pan…

They brought before Hashem an alien fire that

God had not commanded them.

A fire came forth from before Hashem and consumed them,

and they died before Hashem.”

Among the many interpretations of Nadav and Avihu’s sudden, tragic death is the idea that their souls yearned for a spiritual connection too intense for this world to contain.

As it says, “No man can see Me and live.”

In their longing to encounter the Divine fully, they reached beyond the boundaries of the physical world.

Their zeal, however sincere, frayed the delicate threads binding soul to body—until the threads snapped.

Their souls soared upward, unmoored from this world,

leaving their bodies behind.

Their passion was real, but misdirected.

On the very day the Tabernacle was inaugurated—

a day of collective joy and sacred connection—

their unauthorized act led to devastating loss.

The people rejoiced at God’s presence entering the Mishkan through the proper channels, while Nadav and Avihu were consumed by their attempt to connect on their own terms.

In their quest for transcendence, they bypassed the boundaries that anchor us to life.

And so, they died not because their desire for G-d was unholy,

but because it was ungrounded.

“And Aaron was silent.”

Faced with unimaginable loss, Aaron had no words.

His silence echoes through time, resonating with anyone who has lost a child.

The Zohar teaches that,

“all weeping that cannot be expressed in words is perfect weeping.”

Unlike Aaron, many of us cry out.

We scream, question, and beg:

Why did my baby die?

Why couldn’t it have been me instead?

We would trade places in a heartbeat.

The world becomes disordered, unfamiliar, unsafe.

We confront the truth of our helplessness.

The future we imagined disappears.

And still—we wake up.

We keep living the life we’ve been given.

We cannot see the full picture.

In this world, our understanding is always partial.

Like Aaron, we are invited to live with that limitation.

To seek connection with God through channels that are grounded, intentional, and humble.

To trust that God’s ways,

even when they shatter us, are ultimately good.

With love, and Shabbat Shalom and a Chodesh tov,

Elissa