June 2, 2020 admin

Netivot Shalom Beha’alotecha

I came across a beautiful teaching by the Rebbe of Slonim, which we studied yesterday in my class on Hasidism. He refers to the hidden light, which, according to the mystics, God concealed close to the beginning of creation. In contrast to physical light, manifest in the rhythm of day and night, this secret illumination is the presence of the sacred in all things. He calls this Or Ha’elokut, the light of divinity, God’s light. It used to burn on the lamps of the Menorah in the Temple. But when the Temple was destroyed that Menorah was buried and concealed, a hidden vessel for hidden light.

Next week’s Torah portion (Shabbat week) opens with the injunction to Aaron beha’alotecha et hanerot, ‘when you make the flames ascend’ on the Menorah. He, the high priest, and his descendants after him had the responsibility of keeping the flame of spirit burning in the Jewish People and the world, of helping us find and be guided by the light of God’s presence.

Nowadays we all share the role delegated to Aaron; we are entrusted with nurturing each other’s spirit and helping one another find what is sacred in Torah and the world. The Rebbe of Slonim notes that this isn’t easy: only the person who labours in Torah merits discovering its hidden illumination.

If I can say so, I think the task is at once simple and extremely hard. It is not difficult to find the wonder in Torah and existence. There is a beauty which, in the worlds of Gerald Manley Hopkins, ‘Will shine out, like lightning from shook foil.’

But to nurture that sacred spirit in our ourselves, each other and the world is supremely challenging, especially at this time. It involves a deep and enduring commitment to the value of every human being and all of nature, to the sanctity at the core of life itself. We have only to witness what’s happening in America to realise how far we are from living, and from guiding our societies to live, by the hidden light of which the Rebbe of Slonim speaks. I am also deeply concerned about how we will stand as a society here as we move to face the next phase of the pandemic, and by how urgently we need, but may fail, to prioritise our environment.

We need to see and be guided by the hidden sacred light which burns concealed in all and every life.

 

 

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