In an age that struggles with the paradox of pockets of fabulous abundance and global poverty and devastation, of power enough to alter the climate but a seeming inability to prevent the recurrence of slavery, in democracies that can’t inspire constituents to bother voting and totalitarians that won’t permit their people’s will to surface, today's Torah portion offers some insight. Instructing the Israelites on the laws of priestly conduct and the calendar cycle, God then speaks to Moses, saying "Command the Israelite people to bring you clear oil of beaten olives for lighting, for kindling lamps regularly." Here the Torah transmits the divine instruction for establishing the Ner Tamid, the eternal light still found in every synagogue just in front of the Aron Kodesh, the ark that contains the Torah scrolls.
The rabbis of Midrash Va-Yikra Rabbah were quick to note a paradox: Why would God need our light? They exclaim: "'Who is like You?'...You give light to the celestial and the terrestrial beings. You give light to all who come into the world and yet you crave Israel's light!"
What our tradition wrestles with here is how a paltry human individual can even hope to make a worthy contribution to the God who is the Source of all life, to the Creator of the Universe. What can we give to the God who has everything? Or, to look at it from another perspective, what is it that God expects of us? Given our finitude and our limits, what effort on our part matters in the larger scheme of things?
There the Rabbis see the Ner Tamid as an allusion to the centrality of the individual human soul, and to the effort that every one of us can make to transform our own little corner of the world. Bar Kappara explained, "The Holy Blessing One said to humankind: 'Your lamp is in My hand and shall My lamp be in your hands?'...The Holy Blessing One said, 'If you light My lamp, I shall light yours'."
There is a reciprocity to our relationship with God, a religious way of saying that ultimate meaning, ultimate justice require the constant exertions of the average man and woman. Our individual efforts, small though they may seem, are the indispensable building blocks of a society founded on righteousness and compassion. Without an ability to trust our fellow citizens, without a willingness to rely on each other for decency and assistance, no law, no military, and no government can hope to stand. Instead, expecting all the light to shine from above, we will each remain in our armed fortresses of ignorance, hatred, and violence. The draw-bridges are up, the swords are unsheathed.
Only if we each contribute our own little light can we hope to illumine the darkness that threatens to engulf our world. Your little candle of hope, of goodness, of decency may not be much by itself. But with mine, and with our neighbor, and the stranger down the road, we can build a blaze that will light our paths, incinerate our biases and our misunderstandings, and forge an unbreakable bond of brotherhood.
All we're waiting for is your light.
Shabbat Shalom.