Yom HaShoah: Mourning and Silence

(1) Now Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu each took his fire pan, put fire in it, and laid incense on it; and they offered before the ETERNAL alien fire, which God had not enjoined upon them. (2) And fire came forth from the ETERNAL and consumed them; thus they died at the instance of the ETERNAL. (3) Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the ETERNAL meant when God said: Through those near to Me I show Myself holy, And gain glory before all the people.” And Aaron was silent.

Rabbi Elazar said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? Who can declare God's praise?” (Psalm 106:2)? It means: For whom is it fitting to utter the mighty acts of the Lord? Only for one who can declare all of God's praise. And since no one is capable of declaring all of God’s praises, we must suffice with the set formula established by the Sages. ... Rabbi Yehuda, from the village of Giboriah, taught: What is the meaning of that which is written: “For You, silence is praise” (Psalm 65:2)? It means: the best remedy of all is silence, i.e., the optimum form of praising God is silence. When Rav Dimi came from the Land of Israel to Babylonia, he said: In the West, i.e. the Land of Israel, they say an adage: If a word is worth one sela coin, silence is worth two. §

The sages say: "Those who come to comfort a mourner should not say anything until the mourner has spoken first." [Babylonian Talmud, Mo'ed Katan 28b] As it is written in the Book of Job that Job's friends came to comfort him and they said nothing to him: It says (in Job 3:1), "Job began to speak," and only later (4:1), "Eliphaz the Yemenite responded." And it seems to me that the essence of this matter is that in comforting mourners, we are helping them to accept the judgment of the Holy One of Blessing. As it says elsewhere in Job: "God has given, and God has taken away. Blessed be the Name of God," and he was comforted in his grief.