Tetzaveh

The menorah has been lit.  The Torah says that it must burn continually, a ner tamid.  You recognize that phrase because that object adorns every synagogue throughout the world.  There is a ner tamid, an eternal lamp that burns when all the other candles or lights have been extinguished. It is often said that this is a reminder that God never sleeps.  His Presence is always with us, watching, observing and hopefully taking joy from our most noble thoughts and actions.  

 

But one of the foremost sages of modernity, the Sefet Emet, reveals that there are two kinds of flames.  One is the flame that we need to foster in order to ignite the more permanent fire.  The second is the one that we want to burn. The first flame, he teaches, sometimes is hard to light but once lighted the second one catches quickly and burns easily.  That is like faith.  It is hard starting, building the knowledge and commitment to do mitzvot but once we have started on that path we burn with a brilliance unrivalled.  

 

The hardest part is the first spark, the first step.  And there are times when we are called to be the fire that shares our embers with another soul so that they too can become what only God knows they can be.  Who knows for what purposes we have been cast into the world?  Maybe to be the one who shares our flame.

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