Pent. Num 8:1-12:16
This week’s Torah reading begins with instructions to Aaron, the High Priest, regarding the lighting of the menorah. The instruction begins with the word that names the portion: B’ha-alotcha. It literally means: ‘when you rise towards’ or ‘when you go up.’ There are technical explanations for this: the menorah was very high and Aaron had to stretch upwards to reach the kindling point. But there are spiritual interpretations as well: whenever we are about to engage in an act that is imbued with holiness we elevate ourselves. To light the menorah, to go to Jerusalem, to visit Israel or to be called to the Torah… all these acts involve the word Alyiah, to go up. In a flat world, where God dwelled on high, reaching toward God was reaching upward.
Later in the Torah portion, in chapter 11, Moses is commanded to bring together 70 elders -recognized by the community -to assist Moses in his tasks. He is told to bring them to the tent of meeting where God “will come down and speak with you there, and I will draw upon the spirit that is in you, and put it upon them. They shall share the burden of the people with you and you shall not bear it alone...” (11:16-17) In this instance it is not the elders who are called to go up but God is willing to come down. A 19th Century commentator observed “God tells Moses, ‘Given the mood of the people, I don’t expect them to rise toward Me. I will come down to shorten the distance between us.’”
Let’s forget for a moment the upward or downward motion - a reminder of a flat world with a god above. There are many ways in which the divine can be sensed in our lives. Sometimes it seems to require our human effort and at others it seems to overwhelm us with ease. Experiencing God in our lives is not something that just ‘happens.’ We need to be open to it, and when we are, at times it will feel as if we were striving toward God and there will be times when we feel that God comes towards us. There are moments God is experienced as an indwelling Presence, an intimate Partner in our struggles and accomplishments while at other times God will seem distant: How can this God of the Universe be aware of the pintele yid, the little ‘me’?
There is, in Judaism, this clear notion that if we move toward God, God moves toward us. It may not always be symmetrically apparent but we take it on faith that if and when we make the ‘stretch’ effort we have the spiritual capacity to feel God’s presence.
Rituals, like the lighting of the menorah in our Torah portion or the lighting of Shabbat candles in our home, help us keep the spiritual channels that connect us with the divine presence open. Moments of radical amazement, in A. J. Heschel’s words, allow us to experience God’s nearness. Discipline and spontaneity are both necessary elements for a truly Jewish spiritual experience. With discipline we reach toward the holy, in moments of wonder we come to feel God’s presence.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Roberto D. Graetz
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