A Taste Of Shabbos – Parashat B’haalotecha

Behaalotecha begins with the command of lighting the menorah in the Mishkan, the tabernacle. I am thinking now of how fires can be both evil, and holy! Last Sunday was one week since the Boulder fire bombing, and was day 611 since the horrific massacre and the hostages’ hellish subjugation in Israel. 611 is the numerical equivalent of the Hebrew word Torah, a Torah so connected to the strange pain and pleasure combination felt at this week’s march for the hostages and Boulder Jewish Festival, with around 15,000 participants.

This week’s portion is also very personal to me. It’s the week my father passed when I completed elementary school. My class did a presentation based on this week’s parasha, and I was designated to recite and translate the opening commentary of Rashi. The verse commands Moshe to tell his brother Aaron, ‘When you light up the lamps, it shall be in a way that the seven lamps shine toward the central shaft.’ Rashi writes, ‘Why does the section of the menorah follow the end of last week’s parasha which discusses the gifts of the princes to the Sanctuary? Because when Aaron saw the dedication of the princes, he was disappointed that he was not included, neither he nor his tribe. So the Holy One said to him, ‘By your life, your part is greater than theirs, for you light and prepare the lamps.’

That was my recitation at the time, and since then I have wondered about the deeper meaning of that Rashi and also its significance for me in particular. There are many commentaries on that Rashi itself, but the salient one seems to be from the Ramban who focuses on the words, ‘your part is greater.’ Because it would seem that it should be a similar gift; wasn’t the menorah also part of the sanctuary that was no longer in existence when it was destroyed, and even later, when the Holy Temple was destroyed along with its ‘furniture?’ The Ramban answers that G-d’s promise of perpetuity was a reference to Chanukah, where lighting the Chanukah menorah was mystically considered an extension of the Temple’s menorah.

The Hassidic masters carry this link even further. They make a connection between the light of the menorah to the original light of creation – and to the Shabbat lights, which give us a glimpse of that original light. In fact, the rebbes of Ger stress that the menorah continues to burn wherever it is hidden!

For me, this teaching has also had ongoing significance. My seventeen high school classmates were mostly from upper-middle class families. With two handicapped parents, I came from a welfare home, and knew I had less material ‘things’ than everyone else. Most of my clothes were hand me downs, and money came from welfare checks. In my youth, that bothered me a lot, though I didn’t speak much about it. Of course my classmates grew up to adopt many different roles and professions. I ended up, or rather started out, as soon as I graduated, teaching in Torah schools, and kept on teaching my entire life. Now, since the Torah is compared to light, as in the verse, ‘For a mitzvah is a candle, and the Torah is light.’ Therefore, I feel I might say that I was like Aaron in the sense that at first I felt left out of the milieu of my class in school, but as I grew, thank G-d the Torah became my ongoing source of true wealth!

Another personal reference: The very next verse says that ‘Aaron did exactly so.’ There Rashi says: ‘to tell the praise of Aaron, that he didn’t change!’ Of course this cryptic Rashi also evokes a slew of commentaries. One is that for nearly forty years, he performed the same process in the same exact way as he was commanded. Again, the Hassidic masters like to go deeper than the external fulfillment. The Sefat Emet among others tells us that just as he performed the original mitzvah with great enthusiasm, so he did for every single following day – as if it was the very first day.

Now my personal story: In my twenties, I was asked to take a baby on a plane from Boston where I lived to an OU convention in NY, and in return I could attend the convention for free. I did so (that seemed like a very long flight for an only child like me). On Shabbat morning, I sat at a table where a prominent rabbi was teaching. He conveyed the above idea from the Sefat Emet about having a renewed enthusiasm each day. I not very politely interrupted his teaching by saying, ‘Oh, I already heard that idea.’ The rabbi paused and with a broad smile, with a measured tone, said something like, ‘If you think you already heard it, then you probably didn’t even hear it correctly the first time.’ Well, he did put me in my place with a profound Torah lesson – the concept that the Torah, being the words of the living G-d, (and as many other verses allude to) need to be heard in a new way, even if it seems that a similar message is repeated over and over.

The two above personal stories are wisely balanced. The first reminds me that I have a greater value than I personally thought, and the second one reminds me that I still have a lot to learn! In terms of a Shabbos connection, this message is also relevant. On one hand, on each Shabbat, when we light the candles, we are given a taste of the original infinite light that pervaded the entire world. On the other hand, since this light was hidden, our exposure and preparation for it, continues to grow from week to week, so it is always different.

Last Sunday in particular, in Boulder Colorado, we had a taste of both. On one hand, we had the sobering reminder that just the Sunday before, the world felt not only incomplete, but continued to be rather dark and ominous. On the other hand, the joy, hope, and optimism that was felt the previous Sunday, was greater than most people experienced in their lifetime. May we bring the blessings that accompany each week’s Shabbat’s entrance by lighting the candles that reflect the original ‘ohr ha’ganuz- the hidden light, with a sense on one hand, that we are ‘already there,’ with what the Israeli comedian Modi would call, ‘Mashiach energy.’ On the other hand, we have a way to go till we get to the point where, as in the verse from Isaiah, ‘the world will be filled with the knowledge of G-d, as water fills the sea.’