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Shiurim & Adult Education
THOUGHTS ON BEHA’ALOTECHA BY SAMUEL KOSLOVER
The Sfas Emes notes a contrast between the commands given to Aharon and the tribal princes. The nesi’im gave their inauguration gifts once, whereas Aharon fulfilled his command to light the Menorah daily. His greatness lay not in a single act, but in the sanctity he sustained day after day.
As we enter Sefer Bamidbar, we shift from the exalted sanctity of Vayikra to the lived experience of a people. Bamidbar is the book foretelling the challenges of a national history. Being part of the tapestry of millennia means being blinded to the twists and turns ahead. The principle of the daily service of the menorah given at the outset of this journey is that our duty is to raise the torch of Sinai, the light of the Menorah, and to be the proverbial kohanim wherever and whenever we find ourselves.
The Gemara in Megillah (24b) tells of a blind man walking at night with a torch in his hand. Someone asks him: “If you cannot see, why do you carry a torch?” He replies, “So that others can see me and prevent me from stumbling.”
What a piercing image. There is a darkness within, the blindness of the individual, the impossibility of knowing what lies ahead. But there is also a second darkness, even if our eyes were open, we would still see only a shadowed world. The full sweep of history belongs to its Director, not yet to us.
We cannot chase away that night. God Himself has shaped it for the unfolding of history. But by carrying the torch of Torah, represented by the menorah, we have direction. Like Aharon, we must retain that daily service, because in doing so we illuminate the path for others who in turn guide us. As the Rambam writes, the nature of the messianic age is something “no one knows how it will be, until it will be.”
The verse describing the redemption says, “In its time, I will hasten it.” The Gemara explains: if we are worthy, it will come swiftly; if not, it will come slowly. There is something curious, perhaps even disquieting, about living in a generation that is itself the subject of those conditions. I offer no prediction either way. But there is another expression of redemption that stays with me: that it will come in the blink of an eye. Another source speaks of it happening in a lapse of daas, a moment of suspended awareness. The message is not about speed but perspective: that no matter how long or winding the path may seem, the culmination may arrive in a single breath, in a turning of the head, in the blink of an eye to a world transformed.
May we merit the salvation of Israel in the blink of an eye.
Shabbat Shalom
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