The Peacemaker's Paradox: Finding Wholeness in the Month of Av
The Peacemaker's Paradox: Finding Wholeness in the Month of Av
The Temple fell to baseless hatred, yet God placed the yahrtzeit of Aharon — the great lover of peace — at the very threshold of Av, offering us both the wound and the remedy in the same breath.
The Hebrew month of Av arrives with a heavy heart. We mourn the destruction of our Temples, a devastation the Sages tell us was caused by sinat chinam, baseless hatred (Talmud Yoma 9b). How striking, then, that the Torah anchors us at the very start of this month, on Rosh Chodesh Av, with the yahrtzeit of the one individual who was the antithesis of this destructive force: Aharon HaKohen. In Parshat Masei, the Torah explicitly mentions the date of Aharon's passing, an honor given to no one else in the Tanakh in this way. It is as if Hashem, in His infinite wisdom, provides the healing before the pain (Talmud Megilah 13b), telling us that the key to rebuilding what was lost is hidden in the life of the man who embodied peace.
Hillel, in Pirkei Avot (1:12), famously instructs us to be "among the disciples of Aharon, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving all creatures and bringing them close to the Torah." But what did this pursuit look like? The Bartenura explains that when Aharon saw two people fighting, he would approach each one separately and, with a "white lie" of compassion, tell each party that the other was filled with regret and wished to reconcile. When the two would next meet, they would embrace, their conflict dissolved through Aharon's loving intervention. This was Aharon's genius: he prioritized the wholeness of relationship, the shalom, over unyielding truth, emet. This was part of his greatness.
Aharon would choose to see the good in others, even when people didn't see the good in themselves and above all he cherished peace in the home, shalom bayit, even humbling himself to encourage husband and wife to reconcile (Avot D'Rebbe Natan 12:3-4). It is for this reason that all the couples in Israel mourned his passing (Bamidbar 20:29) and a whopping 80,000 young men named Aharon escorted him during his funeral procession (Kallah Rabbati chapter 3); Quite a moving testament to the significant impact he had in bringing peace to so many families.
This is the Aharon who rejoiced in his younger brother Moshe's leadership without a hint of jealousy (Shemot 4:14, 27). Aharon is an example of prioritizing connection over perceived correctness. The heart that was glad for his brother's honor wears the glorious gems over his heart in the breastplate of the Kohen Gadol (Shemot Rabbah). It is the Aharon who, upon the sudden death of his two sons, was silently accepting—Vayidom Aharon—maintaining equanimity and trust in Hashem even amid unimaginable pain (Vayikra 10:3). No trace of ego, no seeking personal honor, Aharon guides us in creating peace within oneself and with others.
During this potent time of Av, our tikkun for sinat chinam is to start with humility and self-love. The Midrash Shmuel (Avot 1:12) teaches that an individual can be a student of Aharon HaKohen by first seeking peace internally. Then it will extend towards helping to create peace between other people. True peace is not the sterile silence of conflict avoidance. Shalom, as Rabbi Sacks (Covenant and Conversation Parashat Naso) writes, is the "harmonious coexistence of otherwise conflicting individuals…" Essentially, aren't any two individuals inherently different? According to the Gottman Institute, typical interpersonal conflicts serve as a reminder that personalities and preferences between individuals differ. Their research indicates that 69% of these differences cannot be resolved. Do we choose to prove how our way is the right way, or do we choose peace?
By definition, every relationship is going to have strife, including our relationships with ourselves. May we love peace and pursue it, firstly with inner shalom, by accepting our own complexities and tendencies, embracing our nuanced parts of our personalities with love. May we then bring it into our homes, transforming friction into understanding and accepting our inherent, undeniable differences. And may this internal and familial peace radiate outward, healing our people and bringing the ultimate blessing found in the Priestly Blessing: V'yasem lecha shalom—"May God grant you peace", the peace of a rebuilt and redeemed world, peace for our people and peace in our land.
Originally published on Matan.
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