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Until The Flame Will Rise By Itself - בהעלותך

Friday, 21 June, 2024 - 3:30 pm

Until The Flame Will Rise By Itself 

"When you raise". What a beautiful name for a Parsha. Reading the opening verses of the Parsha, however, it is hard to see what exactly is being raised. The Torah states: 

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and say to him: "When you raise the lamps, the seven lamps shall cast their light toward the face of the menorah." (Numbers 8:2)

The opening commandment is to light the candles of the Menorah; why, then, does the Torah employ the verb "when you raise", instead of the straightforward "when you ignite"? Rashi explains that "when you raise", refers to the flame which rises upward, and the verse indicates that the priest who lights the candles must ensure that the wick takes hold of the flame to the extent that "the flame rises by itself": 

When you light: Hebrew בְּהַעֲלֹתְךָ, lit., when you cause to ascend. Since the flame rises, Scripture describes kindling in terms of ascending. He is required to kindle the lamp until the flame rises by itself.

In his last talk on this Parsha, the Rebbe focused on the spiritual message of three of the words in Rashi's commentary: "the flame", "rises", "by itself".  

The flame: A person, like a candle, possesses the ingredients for light: a vessel, a wick, and oil. G-d provides us with the personality, skill and talent we need to bring light to our surroundings. But we alone can ignite the flame. We alone can create the warmth and the passion that will illuminate our own life and the lives of those around us.

Rises: The command "raise the lamps" is a continuous calling. We must continuously strive to grow and ascend. We must not be satisfied with the light we have already generated. "Raise the lamps" is the Torah's calling to continuously seek to intensify our commitment and to raise ourselves to ever greater heights, thereby increasing the potency and the extent of the light we produce.  

By itself: we must provide encouragement, inspiration, and light to the people around us until they internalize the inspiration and they too begin to shine on their own. This represents Judaism's insistence on a positive and optimistic view of reality. The insistence that ultimately, the Divine light will become internalized within ourselves, within the people in our circle of influence, and within the reality of the entire world. Ultimately, the world itself will "raise a flame by itself". The struggle to bring light to the world will ultimately transform the nature of the world itself, and the physical reality will itself be infused with holiness and light.  

Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe, Behhaloscha 5751 (1991)




 

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