A man trained in Morse code arrived for a job interview and sat in a crowded waiting room with several other applicants. A secretary instructed everyone to remain seated and wait their turn while music played in the background.
After a few minutes, the man stood up and walked past the secretary into the interviewer’s office.
Moments later, the secretary announced that the position had been filled. The music, she explained, had been transmitting a message in Morse code: “If you are here for the interview, walk straight through the door.” The others had heard only background music. He heard instructions—and acted.
Sometimes the hardest step is not hearing the signal, but recognizing it—and acting on it. Aaron faces such a fateful moment in Parshat Acharei Mot.
Acharei Mot describes the High Priest Aaron’s performance of the sacred Yom Kippur service. It opens with an unexpected reminder: God speaks to Moses “after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord, and died” (Leviticus 16:1). Earlier in the Torah, Nadav and Avihu had entered the sanctuary and brought an offering that God had not commanded, and they died in the presence of the Lord.
For Aaron, this moment could only have been terrifying. To perform the Yom Kippur service, he must enter the very place where his sons had lost their lives. The Torah is asking him to return to a space that has become inseparable from his personal loss.
Aaron might well fear stepping inside this holy place. Yet the Torah emphasizes that, in fact, he does enter as he brings the offerings that will secure atonement for himself and for the entire people.
The problem, the Torah suggests, was never entering the inner sanctuary per se. Nadav and Avihu’s failing was not that they traversed that space, but that they did so in a way that God had not commanded. Aaron approaches that same place, but he does so with humility and obedience.
In doing so, Aaron refuses to retreat from the place of his grief. He carries both memory and hope as he enters. His example reminds us that courage is not the absence of fear but the willingness to step forward despite it.
Holiness rarely emerges from staying safely in the waiting room. It begins when we find the courage to walk through the door and draw near.
Rabbanit Jennifer Raskas currently serves as the inaugural Community Scholar at Shir Hadash in Jerusalem, where she offers teaching, drashot, and pastoral counseling. Rabbanit Raskas is a founder of the Ohr Torah Stone International Halakha Scholars Program and a faculty member at Midreshet Lindenbaum. Additionally, she is on the leadership team of The Orthodox Leadership Project and a trained facilitator for Resetting the Table, promoting courageous dialogue across differences.
Rabbanit Raskas previously served as the Washington DC Director at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America where she spearheaded the institute’s efforts to provide Washington-based leaders with Jewish thought leadership, including White House staffers, Members of Congress, think tank analysts, executive directors, senior clergy and philanthropists. While at Hartman she also directed the Institute’s year-long Seminar and Writer’s Workshop for Journalists, the publishing of the Institute’s North American Hitkansut Haggadah L’Yom HaShoah, and she served as a Co-Director of the Institute’s Muslim Leadership Initiative from 2022-2024. A graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Columbia University, Rabbanit Raskas is an active writer and speaker across diverse Jewish platforms.
This essay was written as part of our collaboration with The Rabbi Sacks Legacy Sacks Scholars.
