By Linda Barat

As we celebrate the Fourth of July this weekend, I’m thinking of last week’s double portion Chukat-Balak, and find myself reflecting on the many meanings of freedom. The Israelites’ journey through the wilderness reminds us that freedom is not merely the absence of hardship, but the ability to move forward with faith, purpose, and hope despite life’s uncertainties. In Chukat, the Torah brings us face to face with mystery, loss, and transition: the red heifer, a ritual beyond human understanding; the deaths of Miriam and Aaron; and Moses’ painful moment at the rock. In Balak, what begins as an attempted curse becomes a blessing. Together, these portions remind us that even in the wilderness, even when answers are hidden, blessing can still emerge.

This year, that message feels especially personal. After navigating my own cancer journey, I am profoundly grateful to celebrate being cancer-free. Yet my journey has also brought me back to memories of my father, Warren Douglas Hils (z’’l). He passed away of lung cancer at age 38 after a two-year struggle. I was only 10 years old. Like the losses in Chukat, his death marked a rupture in the story of a family, a moment after which everything changed. He was denied the freedom to live the full life that should have been his. Our family was denied the years, memories, and milestones we should have shared with him.

My father was drafted into the Army and proudly served his country. During his service, he was exposed to radiation during nuclear testing in Nevada. He never had the freedom to refuse what the government would unknowingly subject him to. An engineer, a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a devoted husband, father, brother, son, and friend, he was a man with dreams, talents, and a future still unfolding. Yet that future was taken from him without his knowledge or consent. On a holiday devoted to liberty, I cannot help but hold this painful truth: freedom also means the right to know, the right to choose, and the right to live without hidden harms imposed by those in power.

In 1990, through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, the government finally acknowledged the devastating consequences suffered by Atomic Veterans and others harmed by nuclear testing. By then, my father was gone. Like so much in Chukat, the acknowledgment came after loss, after the waters had already dried up, after the people had already begun to understand what had been taken from them.

Yet 1990 also brought new life and hope. That same year, my son, Robert Warren Barat, was born and named after his grandfather. In one year, there was both acknowledgment of a painful loss and the promise of a new generation, a powerful reminder of L’dor V’dor, from generation to generation. Chukat-Balak holds that same tension: death and birth, grief and blessing, fear and forward motion. Aaron dies, Miriam dies, Moses learns he will not enter the Land, and still the people continue their journey.

Throughout my own cancer journey, I found myself wrestling with questions that have no easy answers. Why was I given the opportunity to recover when my father was not? Why was I blessed with treatments and outcomes that were unavailable to him? Why was I able to watch my children grow up when he never had that chance? Perhaps this is one of the mysteries of this weekly portion: not everything can be explained. Some sorrows cannot be resolved; they can only be carried. The red heifer teaches us that there are realities beyond reason, and yet the Torah does not leave us there. Even in the face of what we cannot understand, we are called to choose life, gratitude, and purpose.

Balak adds another layer to this reflection. The Israelites were vulnerable in the wilderness, unaware that Balak and Bilaam were plotting against them from the outside. Yet what was meant to be a curse became a blessing. There are dangers we see and dangers we never know were turned away. There are also blessings we only recognize much later. My father’s life was cut short, but the love he gave, the values he embodied, and the name he passed forward were never erased. In that sense, his memory became a kind of blessing that continues to speak.

As I celebrate being cancer-free this Independence Day, I do so with profound gratitude and with my father’s memory close to my heart. His life was far too short, but his legacy lives on in his children, grandchildren, and the values he passed forward.

The profound portion of Chukat-Balak teaches that the wilderness is not only a place of fear and loss; it is also a place where faith is tested, words are transformed, and blessing can appear where we least expect it. This Fourth of July, I honor my father’s service, mourn the freedom he was denied, and give thanks for the freedom I have been given: the freedom to heal, to remember, to tell his story, and to carry his legacy forward from generation to generation.

Linda returned to Buffalo after many years away and is currently a member of the Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies Team and a member of Temple Beth Tzedek.