Raising The Light - Tzvi Moshe Kantor On The Parsha

This week’s Parsha begins with the commandment from Hashem to Aharon HaKohento light the Menorah. Sadly candles and flames have been transformed by pop-culture to be symbols of either cheesy-romantic themes or the occult witchcraft motif. Hopefully through a deeper analysis of the Torah’s approach to the concepts, we will come away with more profound understanding of a Jew’s role in the world.

Our goal is to address a very simple textual question present it the second Passuk of the Parsha. The Passuk says …Beha’aloscha Es HaNeiros. Hashem commands Aharon HaKohen - “When you kindle the lamps etc” Beha’aloscha’s translation in context is ‘to kindle’ but literally finds its root in Liha’alot to raise up. What does Hashem mean when He tells Aharon HaKohen to raise up the candles? And to make things more relevant: The Torah is supposed to be applicable to me – where I am now! What do I gain out of learning about Aharon HaKohen’s role, when it was just for him, and that time. He’s not here and neither is the Menorah, so what do I gain from this?
In order to answer this we need to present a very fundamental concept in Jewish thought: words and the various themes that they represent are all interconnected throughout all of their appearances in Torah-literature. So let’s address the very abused image of the candle and see what Hashem says about the subject. We have two Psukim, both in Mishlei:
“Ki Neir Mitzva V’Torah Ohr” – Mitzvos are the candle and Torah is the light. (6:23)
And also: “Neir Hashem Nishmas Adam” – Hashem’s candle is the soul of man. (20:23)
Out of these Psukim we gain new insight into the two aspects of the candle: The essence of a candle is deeply connected to Mitzvos and the soul of man. Ok, great, but what’s the connection?! We can begin with a beautiful Midrash that connects the two.
“Hashem says to Am Yisrael: Your candle is in my hand, and My candle is in yours. I hold your candle, “Neir Hashem Nishmas Adam” and you hold Mine, “Ki Neir Mitzva V’Torah Ohr”.
So these two Psukim are clearly connected to one another. Thus at this point we have arrived at the conclusion that whatever theme it is that a candle manifests, that concepts applies to both the Jewish soul and to Mitzvos – connecting their roles as well.
(The following are concepts from various places in the Sfas Emes found in this week’s Parsha with personal embellishments.)

To begin our analysis let’s being by conceptualizing the common denominator – the candle. What exactly is a candle? We can say a few things for certain. First a flame is always reaching upward. The flame itself, and the path of its growth is an ascending journey. Flames rise. That’s first. Second, a candle lifts up the quality of existence of its fuel, in that it takes wax or oil, very crude, raw material and steps up its whole being by transforming it into something much more lofty – heat and light: energy. In reality there is light present inside of the fuel, it just needs the candle to extract and reveal it. In essence a candle is a vessel in which dense physicality is cast upward and outward in a new form of something far loftier.

The world consists of endless dense, physical objects. Contained within all matter is the will of Hashem: how HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants it to be used or what He wants to come out of it. How? Says the Zohar, Istakel Be’Oraisa V’Bara Alma - Hashem peered into the Torah and created the world. This means that the Torah is inner-frame on which all things are formed. Inside any given object is its Penimius, its internal value – its interior component of Ratzon Hashem. This is the other half of the Passuk we mentioned before. This is the V’Torah Ohr - Torah is the light.

This is the job of Mitzvos. Just like we said that the light is present in the fuel but it needs the candle to expose it, so too the Ohr Torah, the spiritual light enclosed within physicality is revealed through the Neir Mitzva the candle of the Mitzvos.

Man serves the same purpose. The Vilna Gaon in his commentary to Mishlei makes the following parallel: In the same way that we explained that Mitzvos connect Torah down to earth, so too man connects heaven and earth. The soul is a manifestation of the heavens; (Neshama in Gematria equals HaShamayim) its source is from the highest place. The body is a manifestation of earth; the whole body boils down to natural minerals. Man as a unit is both body and soul - heaven and earth meet where body and soul do. Thus man is the connection between heaven and earth, the unification of divine and corporeal.

To begin to things together we can say that Man and Mitzva are the tools that harmonize the relationship between Ruchaniyus and Gashmius. They escalate the spirituality within the physicality. In Chassidus this concept is called being Ma’aleh the Gashmius - raising up the physicality. We could’ve said being Mekadesh, making the physicality holy. We could’ve said being Megaleh, revealing the holiness. But we say being Ma’aleh the Gashmius. Through the ‘Candle’ of Mitzvos we cause ascension to the raw physicality of this world revealing its light of Torah.

So now things should be becoming clearer. Beha’aloscha Es HaNeiros is teaching us how we as Jews function! Every single thing in the vast expanse of universe is brimming over with its Ohr Torah. Just like a candle, it’s the Mitzvos that the Jewish people carry out that elevates all of existence!

This all sounds very esoteric, but we can make it all really practical. I can live my life totally caught up in this world. I can walk around because ‘that’s just what I do’, or we can go about life with spiritually inclined minds that no matter how mundane the action is, my soul flickers upward. My intentions in everything I do, my headspace (irrelevant as to what my ‘body-space’ is) is in a higher place.

There are very concrete ways of doing this. Any Mitzva takes a mundane object and reveals its Ohr Torah, but the concept extends past the Mitzvos that I do, I can revealRatzon Hashem in every aspect of my life. While I eat dinner, it’s not jut about filling my stomach but rather what I can utilize that energy for. When I walk through the street I can repaint reality by the thoughts I choose to think. When I befriend another we can forge the relationship over the smallest irrelevancies or we can bond over something higher. Ultimately is way we elevate – in a very literal sense – the entire world around us.

With all of this in mind we can each begin to lift up our personal candles. We each can begin a life of Beha’aloscha Es HaNeiros. When we tap into the unique power of the soul and utilize the exclusive influence of Mitzvos we can change the world. B’Ezras Hashem we’ll be Zoche to realize this potential. Through this we will live lives ofmeaning and happiness, moving closer to the Creator and ultimately the redemption!