Chukkat - What's the Difference?

Parshat Chukkat - What’s the Difference?  Numbers 20 tells us of the deaths of Miriam and Aaron, Moses older sister and brother and two of the key leaders of the Exodus.  Miriam’s death is told all in the first verse, “In the first month [of the fortieth year] the whole Israelite community arrived at the Desert of Zin, and they stayed at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried.” 

Aaron’s death comes at the end and is described like this:

“²³ At Mount Hor, near the border of Edom, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ²⁴ “Aaron will be gathered to his people. He will not enter the land I give the Israelites, because both of you rebelled against my command at the waters of Meribah. ²⁵ Get Aaron and his son Eleazar and take them up Mount Hor. ²⁶ Remove Aaron’s garments and put them on his son Eleazar, for Aaron will be gathered to his people; he will die there.”

²⁷ Moses did as the Lord commanded: They went up Mount Hor in the sight of the whole community. ²⁸ Moses removed Aaron’s garments and put them on his son Eleazar. And Aaron died there on top of the mountain. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain,²⁹ and when the whole community learned that Aaron had died, all the Israelites mourned for him thirty days.

Big difference between the two of them.  It would be easy to chalk the difference up to Aaron being a man and Miriam a woman and thus Aaron gets more attention, and that may very well be a big part of what is going on here and shouldn’t be discounted.  However, if that’s all we see going on, we may perhaps miss other lessons these passages attempt to teach.

Right after Miriam dies the people complain they have no water, and tradition tells us that they merited water from a special well during Miriam’s lifetime but lost that gift when she died.  Perhaps the urgent need to find water in the desert is part of the difference?

Aaron is the inaugural High Priest, a very public figure. Miriam, though a leader and a prophet in her own right, comes across in the text as perhaps less of the public figure and a little more of a behind the scenes or supporting player.  Is there a reason or a need to mourn public figures of the type like Aaron differently than private ones like Miriam might have been? 

Furthermore, people are just different, in life and in death.  Has every member of your family lived a similar life?  Have those you loved and lost always had similar funerals? 

I think the Torah wants us to consider all these possibilities to draw us further into the story.  I also believe the Torah leaves the answer unspoken because at different times in our lives we will need the emphasis in a given story to be different depending on where we are. 

But I also believe very keenly in the importance, in death, of celebrating each life in a manner that best suits the individual, regardless of their rank or family.  It is one of the most important ways we show our love and respect for them when we do this. 

And if it is important to do that when a loved one dies – well perhaps we needn’t wait that long to recognize and appreciate all the unique gifts our loved ones possess.  Shabbat Shalom.