TorahParsha

Light is a responsibility

for Chanukah 

 

The Talmudsays:

after the Seventh day,

God taught the Man to make fire.

God said: Strike stones together to make sparks.

Fire will come.

 

God made the world saying, Let there be Light

and these words started Creation.

For seven days God made the world.

On the Eight, He told us:

Now you make our own light,

your own world.

 

So that God’s light is not only a presence

and not only a gift.

It is also a question:

What light,

what world,

will you make now?

 

____

Shabbat shalom and Chag Urim sameach,

Abe

 

Please pray for Yechiel ben Michal

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What makes us strong

for Chanukah

 

i

The nation of Amalek comes to attack.

Moses goes up to the hilltop, carrying his staff.

Aaron and Hur go up with him.

Moses lifts his hands up.

And as Moses would lift up his hand,

the people would succeed in battle.

But Moses’ hands grew heavy.

*

So Aaron and Hur helped Moses’ hands—

one holding from here

and one from here,

and Moses’ hands, holding the staff,

stayed steadfast until the sun set.

 

ii

Aaron’s two hands from here,

and Hur’s two hands from here,

and Moses’ two hands between them,

and Moses’ staff,

all steadfast:

it is like the Menorah,

the  seven-branched Candelabra in the Temple:

three branches of the Menorah from one side

and three from its second side,

and the seventh pole at the center,

all seven lit continually, 

for all generations.

 

iii

It is the source of our light,

our strength:

Many uniting together,

sharing together for the long work. 

 

 

___

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Urim Sameach,

Abe

____

Exodus 16:8-12; ; 25:32; 27:20-21
____

Note: Aaron and Hur holding with two hands is my presumption; the text only says they “helped Moses’ hands.” Also, the text does not say that Moses held his staff on the hill; only that he went up the hill holding his staff.

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How light is shed

 

for Chanukah 

 

i

God commands Noah

to build a window in the Ark

to let light in.

At the Flood’s end

Noah opens the window

and sends out a dove

and the dove brings back an olive leaf.  

(And olives are the source of lamp oil.)

 

ii

In the Desert God tells the people

to make him a Tent

a home for Him amidst them

and place a Lamp

—a Menorah—

within it

and to light the Menorah with olive oil.

 

iii

At the first level

at the Flood’s end

at the rebirth of things

we must be ready to receive light

from without—

from the window,

from the bird that flies to us.

*

But at the height of things

when we have come near God’s presence

we light God’s home

we offer a light to God.

 

 

___

Shabbat shalom & Chag Urim Sameach,

Abe

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For Parshat B'HaAlotcha

What is Light?

 

i

In the Beginning, God said: Let there be Light.

And there was Light.

And God separated the Light from the Darkness.

He separated the waters above from the waters below.

He gathered the waters to one place, so dry land would appear.

He saw that what He had made was very good.

*

Having made Light, God separates light from darkness, above from below, dry land from water.

And Light sheds light, clarifying differences.

In this clarification God creates.

 

ii

God commands how the High Priest will light the Menorah—the candelabra—in the Temple.

Then God says: you must separate the Levites from among the Children of Israel.

The Levites will serve in the Temple.

And the Levites will stand in place of the firstborn—whom God had sanctified to Himself, in Egypt, as He struck the firstborn of Egypt down but passed over the firstborn of Israel.

*
Here is light.

Here, too, is separation: firstborn from other children, Israel from Egypt, Levites from the rest of Israel.

*

God illuminates distinctions in the universe, creating a universe.

God says to us: you, too, will illuminate.

You must illuminate distinctions—uniqueness—amongst peoples, creating humanity.

 

 

___________

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

 

___________

See Gen 1:1 – 2:3; Num. 8:1-22

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Please continue to pray for Ahuvah Rachel bat Orah, and for Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther