The parsha begins by telling us that the menorah lights should be lit el mul penei hamenorah, facing inwards towards the menorah (Numbers 8:2). Rashi explains that the word “menorah” here refers to the middle branch, the central trunk of the menorah, and that the other lights were all lit facing inwards towards this central light, three on one side facing in, and three on the other side facing in, all the wicks pointed towards the middle.
Our Central Shaft
We, too, have a trunk like the central shaft of the menorah, both physically and spiritually, the middle place inside us that is not leaning to either side, but straight and solid in itself, in ourselves, facing upwards towards heaven, aligned with our own divine spirit and with God. We can sense its strength, its power, its stability, its clarity about who we are and what matters. In this place of centeredness, we feel rooted in the ground, like the strong stable base of the menorah, like the trunk of a tree.
Our Outer Branches
And, like a tree and like the menorah, we also have branches that come out of this center trunk, physically, our outer limbs, and emotionally, our emotional branches, the parts of us that are active in the world and manage our lives, that act and work and take care of our affairs and of other people.
The Tendency to Look Outward
These branches tend habitually to face outward, sometimes in a helpful way and sometimes in an overextended fretful way. Much of the time our parts are looking out into the world, trying to make things right, trying to get what we need from outside, worrying over what will happen to us and to those we care about, ever alert to signs of external danger or judgment and to how people are viewing us. This outward orientation can feel like a turning away from ourselves or like a desperate reaching outward, long arms like tree branches flailing about trying to draw in what they need or reaching out to try to control something.
Invitation to Turn Inward
The menorah had three branches on either side of its center shaft, and all of the lights on both sides faced in toward the middle. We can invite our own outer branches to reorient from their outward focus inward, towards our solid center, to feel our stability and strength and clarity about who we are, to sense our alignment with the divine. And from this central place, we can radiate warmth and light to those outer branches, draw them in close, and fill them with whatever they need from our connection to the Source. What we are doing is filling our own vessels. The arms that were reaching so desperately to the outside can come to rest and relax at our sides. All those parts were looking outside of us, but everything we need is right here inside. “Be a lamp unto yourself,” were the Buddha’s last words. Be a lamp unto yourself, unto your own inner parts. Let them know you have everything they need right here inside you. You are complete in and of yourself, whole and self-sufficient.
What About Helping Other People?
But maybe there are still some worried parts of you that want to face outward. Maybe they are concerned about other people in your life and they feel they need to fix things for these other people, to make everything right. There is an urgent insistence to this outward focus. “We can’t turn inward. People need us to fix things!” Invite these parts to try an experiment. What if they look at these other people or problems they are worried about, not from this outer branch they are sitting on, but from the place of your inner center, to feel your steadiness and wholeness, and from that place, to look out at the situation they are concerned about? From this place inside you, perhaps they can see that, yes, these other people are struggling and need your assistance, but they, too, have this centered place inside them. They, too, are whole, in and of themselves. They, too, have everything they need inside, even if they don’t know it. They, too, are capable of being a lamp unto themselves. Yes, maybe there are things we can do to help these other people, but it has to be from this place of seeing and honoring their wholeness. Otherwise it diminishes their light, otherwise it says to them – you are not whole.
Don’t Forget God’s Light
If we act to help others from the outer branch, if we reach out in a way that overextends in an urgent desperate way, leaning over from this outer place so that we almost fall off the branch ourselves, then there is something else that we are saying into the world as well – that we don’t trust God to take care of things, that we think things will not work out unless we take control, unless we go beyond our own limitations. Perhaps this is what Rashi means when he says that the menorah’s lights were all oriented towards the middle “in order that people not say” – le’orah hu tzarikh – in order that people not say that “God needs the menorah’s light.” God doesn’t need our light in order to take care of the world. God is nero shel olam, the light of the world, and this light of the world shines in each and every person. We can trust that. Our job is first and foremost to orient all of our parts towards our center, to be an integrated, complete lamp unto ourselves, and to go out into the world as such a complete, rounded lamp and shine and act from this central shaft, from this alignment, from this integrity within ourselves. When we reach out into the world from a desperate overextended place, we are acting as if we don’t trust God’s light, as if God needs us to do this because God’s own light in the world is insufficient.
Kinding Others In a Way that Honors Their Own Light
The lighting of the menorah is famously described as a process that happens by kindling the flame ad shetehe shalhevet olah me’eleha, “until the flame goes up on its own (Rashi on Num 4:2),” of its own accord, me’eleha, from within itself, out of its own power. We do need to help kindle each other’s flames sometimes, but we need to be careful to do so in a way that honors their wholeness, their agency, their own light capacity, and so we do it only until their own flame goes up on its own, from its own source. We trust that they, too, have this inner source, and we help them find it and trust it, too.
Kindling someone else’s flame in a way that honors their wholeness and their own light source means doing it with gentleness and with humility, not being too sure we know what is right for them, trusting them and trusting the divine light within them to emerge, their own divine light, me’eleha, from inside them, not from us, but from them.
Vision: Each of Us a Menorah
I am imagining a sea of people wandering about, each one a menorah, each one with a bright light on the inside. We walk about and shine our lights on one another. Each person, by shining their own light, reminds the others of their inner lights. Occasionally, someone’s light flickers and appears to go out for a moment, until a friend walks over, and from her centered aligned place, leans over to rekindle the other’s diminished light, just staying long enough until she finds her own light again.
And sometimes, the Friend is not a human but the original Source of light who whispers softly to us when our lights go out, kumi, ori, “Arise and shine” (Isaiah 60:1). Kumi ori. “Arise and shine,” nudging us gently to return to our radiance.
All Part of One Menorah
In those moments when we rekindle each other’s lights or are graced by being rekindled from beyond, we remember something. We remember that we are each our own complete menorah, and at the same time we are each a branch of a joint menorah, all joined in receiving light from the ultimate central source, each also like the branch of a tree, part of something larger, connected and belonging. The menorah was made from one solid piece of gold. We are that much a part of the universe, all separate but also somehow made of the same piece of gold, joined in receiving light and nourishment from the central trunk of the tree..
Photo by Matheus Bertelli at Pexels
