A Lamp of The Lord is the Soul of Man
This week’s Torah portion, Beha’alotcha, opens with God’s instructions to Aaron about how to light the lamps of the menorah in the Mishkan – which raises a difficult question: why does Aaron light the menorah only here, more than halfway through the Torah, instead of earlier – in parashat Pekudei, when the Mishkan was set up, or in parashat Shmini, when it was dedicated?We are familiar with the use of light as a metaphor for spiritual experience; the book of Proverbs tells us, For the mitzvah is a lamp, and the Torah is light (6:23). And light, as we know, has special qualities. Only light can travel vast distances, literally across the universe, without ever slowing down or weakening. And only light – specifically, candle light – can spread without diminishing the original light. If you take a cup of water and divide it into two cups, you have half as much water in each cup; but take a candle and light a second candle, and you have twice as much light as before.
The menorah is lit now, after the census of the Israelites at the beginning of the book of Numbers, to remind us – again, in the language of Proverbs – that A lamp of the Lord is the soul of man (20:27). Aaron is only able to light the lamps in the Mishkan after each and every Israelite has been accounted for, because each person is God’s lamp, bringing divine light into the world.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Abe Friedman
