Imagine a group of travelers making their way through a vast wilderness. Their guide, wise, experienced, chosen by the community itself, leads them confidently. One evening, he misreads the stars and they camp a mile off course. Some whisper, “Perhaps he was never fit to lead at all.” But here is the question this week’s Torah portion, Shemini, asks us to ponder, Was our leader wrong in that moment? Yes. Was he still their guide? Also yes.
This week, we encounter Moses at perhaps his most human. After the deaths of Nadav and Avihu (Aaron's sons and Moses’ nephews) who were consumed by a Divine fire because of their unauthorized offering, Moses turns immediately to law and order. An offering must be eaten because of their sins. This is what was commanded. But Aaron had just buried his children. When Moses discovers the sin offering was burned rather than eaten, Leviticus 10:16 tells us that Moses vayiktzof (“burns with anger”). And then something remarkable happens. Aaron speaks. Quietly, plainly, with the full weight of a father's grief, he asks Moses, in this moment, could eating the offering truly have been right before Gd? (10:19). And Moses listened. And Moses accepted that he was wrong (10:20).
No defense. No doubling down. The greatest prophet in Jewish history, the man who stood before Pharaoh, who split the sea, who personally received the Torah at Sinai, recognized simply that he had missed something.
We too know this wilderness. We have been walking it for some time now.
Not long ago, our community was fractured over hostages still held in Gaza, some insisting the war must continue, others, including parents of fallen soldiers and survivors of 10-7, saying with broken and determined voices, “Enough. Bring those children home.” Today, that fracture has shifted but not healed. There are those among us who counsel that confrontation with Iran must be pursued at all costs. And there are those, equally passionate, equally pained, who say, “Enough. Even one Jewish life lost to war is one too many.”
Who is right? Nobody really knows. Not our leaders, not our generals, not our most passionate advocates on either side. All any of us possesses is our instinct, our experience, and yes, our prejudice. Only Gd holds the complete picture. And perhaps the most courageous thing a leader can do, as Moses modeled for us, is admit that even they have something yet to learn.
But here is what we do know, Jews have survived bondage, expulsion, inquisition, and genocide. We walked through the fire, literally and spiritually. And what we never surrendered during those darkest chapters was our sense of responsibility to one another, our belief in community, and our faith in the generations yet to come.
Let us not fail on that front today.
The wilderness is hard. The path is not always clear. But we walk it together. Because we are Stronger Together.
Shabbat Shalom,
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