Death, Ritual and Meaning in Parashat Chukkat

This week, two different events have me thinking about our Jewish rituals around death and burial. First, our community lost a beloved individual earlier this week: Jessie Towbin, the wife of long-time Kavana partner Barry Lasky, died on Sunday. Jessie touched so many lives as a teacher, and will continue to teach and inspire even after her death; you're invited to click here to read her beautiful obituary (which of course she wrote herself). Second, as you may have seen in the local news this week, fire seriously damaged a Jewish burial preparation facility here in Seattle a few days ago (it seems to have been a regular fire, not arson). The building, located on the property of BCMH synagogue in Seward Park, housed the Seattle Jewish Chapel, "a full service funeral home, which caters to all members of the greater Seattle Jewish community who want their loved ones prepared in the traditional Orthodox fashion. The Seattle Chevra Kadisha provides services such as Shmira (guarding) of the deceased and the Tahara (ritual washing)." 

This Shabbat, Jews throughout the Diaspora will read the double portion of Chukkat-Balak. While it's ever-tempting to write about the latter parasha and its famous talking donkey, I want to focus instead on the first of the two Torah portions, Parashat Chukkat, which swirls around the themes of death, loss, and ritual.

Chukkat opens with laws about ritual impurity, including that "Whoever touches a corpse—the body of a person who has died—and does not undergo cleansing, defiles God's Tabernacle..." (Numbers 19:13). This section of Torah then goes on to prescribe a ritual of purificationfeaturing the ashes of a red heifer. From this opening, we can feel the power and mystery -- and also the fear -- surrounding our ancient ancestors' encounters with death. Jewish tradition, like every other human civilization, has created rituals around death to try to contain it and help us make sense of it.

Chukkat then moves from the general to the specific, as it features two significant deaths of biblical characters who are well-known to us and were beloved by the Israelites. First, Miriam dies in Numbers 20:1:

וַיָּבֹ֣אוּ בְנֵֽי־יִ֠שְׂרָאֵ֠ל כׇּל־הָ֨עֵדָ֤ה מִדְבַּר־צִן֙ בַּחֹ֣דֶשׁ הָֽרִאשׁ֔וֹן וַיֵּ֥שֶׁב הָעָ֖ם בְּקָדֵ֑שׁ וַתָּ֤מׇת שָׁם֙ מִרְיָ֔ם וַתִּקָּבֵ֖ר שָֽׁם׃

The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin on the first new moon, and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there.

And then, in the very same chapter, in Numbers 20:28-29, we read of the death of her brother Aaron:

וַיַּפְשֵׁט֩ מֹשֶׁ֨ה אֶֽת־אַהֲרֹ֜ן אֶת־בְּגָדָ֗יו וַיַּלְבֵּ֤שׁ אֹתָם֙ אֶת־אֶלְעָזָ֣ר בְּנ֔וֹ וַיָּ֧מׇת אַהֲרֹ֛ן שָׁ֖ם בְּרֹ֣אשׁ הָהָ֑ר וַיֵּ֧רֶד מֹשֶׁ֛ה וְאֶלְעָזָ֖ר מִן־הָהָֽר׃ וַיִּרְאוּ֙ כׇּל־הָ֣עֵדָ֔ה כִּ֥י גָוַ֖ע אַהֲרֹ֑ן וַיִּבְכּ֤וּ אֶֽת־אַהֲרֹן֙ שְׁלֹשִׁ֣ים י֔וֹם כֹּ֖ל בֵּ֥ית יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ {ס} 

Moses stripped Aaron of his vestments and put them on his son Eleazar, and Aaron died there on the summit of the mountain. When Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain, the whole community knew that Aaron had breathed his last. All the house of Israel bewailed Aaron thirty days.
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These back-to-back deaths capture the rabbinic imagination, on multiple levels. Midrash teaches that both of these sibling leaders (and later, their younger brother Moses too) "died by a Divine kiss." In other words, the deathsthemselves are envisioned asmaking manifest Miriam and Aaron's intimacy with God and their holiness.

What happens in the wake of their deaths also underscores the important roles they each played in their lifetimes. The Babylonian Talmud (Taanit 9a) connects Miriam's death to the verse that follows it, which states that "the community was without water." From this juxtaposition, the Talmud intuits that the Israelites' water in the wilderness came from a magical well which followed them around due to Miriam's merit. Only in the wake of Miriam's passing did the Israelite community come to fully understand how she hadsustained them with water throughout their journey. Similarly, the Talmud posits that upon Aaron's death, the "ananei kavod" -- the "Clouds of Glory" that had offered protection, shade, and Divine guidance throughout the wilderness trek -- disappeared from the Israelites. By virtue of the presence and then absence of water and clouds, respectively -- both so life-sustaining and essential -- Miriam and Aaron are appreciated and missed in their absence.

Finally, multiple Jewish ritual practices around death, burial and mourning are hinted at or derived from these verses. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (a modern compendium of Jewish law) derives from the quick proximity of the verbs "died" and "was buried" in the verse describing Miriam's death that a burial should happen as quickly as possible following a death. From the verses about Aaron's death, we get the idea of sheloshim -- a thirty-day period of intense mourning. The medieval Spanish commentator Rabbenu Bahya also derives from the phrase "kol beit yisrael" in Aaron's death that both women and men mourned for him, leading to the halakhic understanding that people of all genders have an equal obligation to mourn the loss of loved ones.

As a rabbi, I often hear people reflect on the fact that "Judaism does death well." In that statement, I hear an appreciation for our tradition's playbook of prescribed rituals to fall back on when we find ourselves in the wake of a significant loss... an appreciate that I share.

And yet, there is always room for continued deepening of the work. In recent years, a new non-profit, the Shomer Collective, has tried to push the American Jewish community to talk about death more openly and, in doing so, to empower more people to benefit from the wisdom of Jewish traditions about life and death. They have virtual programs coming up about anticipatory grief, palliative care, and more... and if these topics feel timely for you, you're cordially invited to check out their offerings.

On a local level, we have had a lovely relationship with the Seattle Jewish Chapel, which I mentioned above. A fund has just been opened to help with the quick rebuilding of their facility, and we encourage you to contribute if you're able (click here). And, at the same time, there are conversations percolating in the Seattle Jewish community about also creating a liberal Chevra Kadisha (burial society) that could serve a broader swath of our community (including those whose Jewish status isn't recognized by Orthodox halakhah, non-binary and trans individuals, etc.). If you might be interested in participating in specific trainings about Jewish burial preparation rituals and perhaps serving on a new liberal Chevra Kadisha in the future, please feel free to reach out to me privately.

This Shabbat, as we read in Parashat Chukkat about the power of creating rituals around death and of the specific deaths of Miriam and Aaron, my prayers are that we all find meaning in the rituals of our tradition and comfort in the wake of the losses we experience as we move through our lives. May the souls of Miriam and Aaron -- and also Jessie Towbin -- be bound up in the bonds of life forever, and may their memories and legacies endure as a blessing to us all. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum