MATOS- MASEI

Can't We All Get Along?

This weeks Torah reading contains a striking anomaly: the Torah records the precise date of Aharon's death - the first of Av -even though his passing was already described in Parashas Chukas without any date.

The Rebbe explains this is deliberate: the Torah wants us to encounter Aharon's yahrtzeit at the moment we read this parashah, which always falls around Rosh Chodesh Av. The message is urgent -because the cause of the Beis Hamikdash’s destruction, baseless hatred, is the exact disease that Aharon's life was the cure for.

Aharon was defined by a relentless, boundary-crossing pursuit of unity. He would visit quarreling parties separately, tell each one that the other was heartbroken and ashamed, and dissolve the hatred between them. More strikingly, he would greet known sinners warmly and publicly -well beyond what halacha requires -because he understood that a person is always greater than his worst behavior. As the Tanya puts it: both responses are simultaneously true -hatred toward the evil in a person, and love toward the divine spark that remains within him.