Pure LIght
The kohanim had the duty of making sure that the sanctuary lights burned properly (Lev. 24). The kohen gadol was in charge and had to “arrange the lamps upon the pure candlestick” (Lev. 24:4; see also Ex. 31:8). A pure candlestick? One can understand pure water, pure food, pure love, pure devotion… but a pure candlestick?
The view of Rashi is that it is described like this because the metal of the candlestick was pure gold, not a strange jumble of other substances; or perhaps the word “pure” means that it had been cleaned and any residue removed. Another commentator explains that the lamps had to rest upon the candlestick itself, unsupported by chips of wood or pebbles.
A good practical explanation, but if we regard the sanctuary appurtenances as symbols we notice something precious in this interpretation which we might otherwise have missed.
A flame cannot burn by itself: it has to be attached to something. That “something” has to be stable in and of itself, not propped up by chips of wood or pebbles. If we remember that the Bible often tells us that Torah is light, we see that Torah, like the lights, must have a firm foundation.
Once we prop the Torah up by means of, for example, superstition, it loses its intrinsic capacity to guide the minds of people who think. Maimonides is the supreme example of a Jewish philosopher who had no time for folk superstitions but was certain that there was pure (that word again!) reasonability in religious belief.
Don't Talk So Much
Translated into English, the name of the parashah is “Speak!” Certain things had to be spoken to the priests. Being able to speak is the privilege of humanness. When the early chapters of B’reshit say that the first man became nefesh chayyah, a living being (Gen. 2:7), Onkelos in his Aramaic paraphrase renders the word chayyah as m’mal’la, speaking. Man became a speaking being.
Actually man is not the only speaking being in the Bible. Animals and birds also speak. Even the trees and plants utter God’s praises. And inanimate objects like the stones and mountains also make themselves heard.
So – despite “As You Like It” – it wasn’t Shakespeare who first discovered that there were “tongues in trees” and “sermons in stones”. Nor was it Doctor Dolittle who found that all the animals have their own tongue. Language of various kinds is a universal phenomenon.
Yet it is the human race that is especially favoured with the ability to speak, though many human beings speak too much. There is a wisdom in silence; as the rabbis say, “If speech is worth a dollar, silence is worth two” (Lev. R. 16:5). Martin Buber points out that there is also speech in silence. When two good friends walk along in silence, the unspoken chemistry between them tells you a great deal.