This week's Torah portion, Parashat T'tzaveh, continues the detailed instructions for the building and decoration of the Tabernacle, our ancestors' portable sanctuary during the years of wandering in the desert. Most of the details discussed in T'tzaveh, like bejeweled vestments to be worn by the priests, are exotically unfamiliar to Jews today. But the parashah opens with a description that seems much more familiar to anyone who has spent time inside a synagogue sanctuary. "You shall further instruct the Israelites to bring you clear oil of beaten olives for lighting, for kindling lamps regularly," God tells Moses (Exodus 27:20). But the last two words — ner tamid — can also be translated as "eternal light."
In our contemporary synagogues, the ner tamid is most often seen as symbolizing God's Presence in the sanctuary. Even if we know the light keeps shining because of a compact fluorescent lightbulb and a dedicated custodian, most Jews I know find a simple spiritual power in that light that never goes out. It answers the question that hovers below the surface of all of our prayers: God, are you really there? The steady, constant glow of the ner tamid answers in the affirmative.
But it's not clear that the ner tamid of our Torah portion serves the same purpose. While the entire Tabernacle is a dwelling place for God, the first verse of T'tzaveh describes the ner tamid not as an answer that God gives us, but rather, as something we give to God, "a due from the Israelites for all time." The light is less a symbol for God's Presence than a requisite for that Presence.
A person with a disability, the story illustrates, should not look down on himself as dependent on other people, but should recognize that all of us have dependencies — some for guidance while walking outside, others for light to see inside — and also that all of us are capable of helping others. Similarly, the midrash suggests, we should not see our relationship with God only in one way, as meek humanity asking God for what we need. Instead, we should recognize that we have the power and the responsibility to meet God's needs as well.
The theology behind this midrash was famously articulated by the philosopher Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Rabbi Heschel taught that Judaism is based most deeply not in our human question — "God, are you there?" — but rather in God's question, first posed to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and to all of us since: "Where are you?"
We are asked, every day, to find the faith to answer God's eternal question. We are asked, every day, to build a world fit for God to dwell in. We are asked to light the ner tamid, to kindle it eternally.
When we don't have the strength, when we don't have the faith, we might look up at the ner tamid in the sanctuary. Even as we waver, it does not dim. "Yes," it answers God. "Today, yet again, we are kindling the light."
Light serves as such an important element of our religious practice. Many adults brought up in the Jewish faith have special memories of lighting the Shabbat candles every Friday night. The radiance of the flame emits a distinctive warmth that brings us closer to one another and reminds us that the week is over.
A kindled flame is mysterious. Perhaps the reason we light candles before each holiday is to remind us that we are welcoming a grander sense of God's Presence into our lives at that particular moment, and the ner tamid, "eternal light," serves as a constant reminder of that presence. A single flame awakens many senses within us. We can feel its warmth. We can see its glow. We can even hear the strike of the match and the sizzle of the wick.
The great 10th century commentator Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra notes that the Hebrew word used in Torah for "kindling" the ner tamid — l'ha-alot — literally means "raising" (see ibn Ezra on Exodus 27:20). Rabbi Kalisch accurately points out that the ner tamid serves the purpose of giving light to God. I like this analogy. A flame naturally rises, and so the blessing of lighting Shabbat candles can not only be seen as a way to bring God down to us, but also to raise ourselves to God.
The great Chasidic master, Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, said "God may be found, wherever we invite God in." The ner tamid, Shabbat candles, and conjoined flames of the Havdalah candle are all reminders to us that as the flame rises and the light is received by God, we have also accepted God's invitation to enhance the Presence of the Creator within our own lives.
Rabbi Andrew L. Rosenkranz is the rabbi at Temple Beth Torah in Wellington, FL.