The Torah tells us that after the death of Aharon’s two sons, “Vayidom Aharon— and Aharon was silent.” “But what about his wife?” asks Baruch. How did she cope?
He was going strong and two-and-a-half years into daf yomi when, within days of 9/11, the family’s upwardly mobile life experienced its own ground zero. The Cohens’ daughter, 15-year-old Hindy, was diagnosed with a pediatric cancer called Ewing’s sarcoma and the Cohens’ world changed irrevocably.
“I had to juggle an active law practice, we had to take care of our other children, deal with the emotional trauma of pediatric oncology, arrange medical care, babysitters, Chai Lifeline, Bikur Cholim — the works — while avoiding the gravitational pull of the black hole of anxiety, fear, and depression,” Baruch remembers. Though he was a very active learner before the crisis, his learning fell by the wayside as Hindy’s battle took center stage.
Hindy faced her illness with grace and courage, but succumbed after two-and-half-years, leaving the family bereft and grieving. Her passing demanded a new set of existential challenges for Baruch and would send him on a unique journey in his learning.
“During the shivah,” he remembers, “people would express meaningless clichés and drop platitudes that were almost repulsive to me. Phrases like ‘ein milim,’ there are no words. What did that mean? There is a word for everything in the Torah. Torah is timeless, it has messages for everybody. How could it be that there were no words in the Torah for a bereaved parent?”
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