Unbroken Light | Parshat Beha’alotcha

Parshah Summary – P’shat (literal level)

Aaron is instructed to kindle the lamps of the menorah, and the tribe of Levi is initiated into their duties in the Mishkan (Sanctuary). Those who were unable to bring the Pesakh (Passover) offering on the festival, due to being tamei (ritually impure), approach Moses and petition him to be permitted to bring their offerings later. In response, a Pesakh Sheini, a “Second Passover,” is instituted. Israel’s journeys and encampments are then described – they would be guided by the ascending and descending movements of a cloud by day and fire by night over the mishkan.

Moses is instructed to make two silver trumpets through which the community would be signaled for journeying, for battle and for festivals. The people then begin moving in formation from Mt. Sinai, where they had been camped for nearly a year. Next, the people complain to Moses about their dissatisfaction with the man (“manna,” the “bread from heaven,”) with which they were miraculously fed in the wilderness, and they demand that Moses provide them with meat. In response, Moses appoints seventy elders to assist him in the burden of governing, and the people are all fed by numerous quail which descend upon the camp. 

Miriam speaks judgmentally to Aaron about Moses’ wife and questions his leadership. As a consequence, she contracts tzara’at, the skin affliction associated lashon hara (gossip, slander). Moses prays for her healing with the words, El na refa na la, and the entire community waits seven days for her recovery.

    Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching

דַּבֵּר אֶל־אַהֲרֹן וְאָמַרְתָּ אֵלָיו בְּהַעֲלֹתְךָ אֶת־הַנֵּרֹת...
Speak to Aaron and say to him: “When you kindle the (Menorah) lamps…”
— Bamidbar (Numbers) 8:2

The word בְּהַעֲלֹתְךָ beha’alotkha is normally understood to mean “when you kindle,” but the root of the word is עלה alah, which literally means “to rise,” “to ascend,” or “to elevate.”
Why? On a simple level, it’s a description of the flame that naturally rises upward. But on a deeper level, if we see flame as a metaphor for consciousness, then the “kindling of the lamp” hints at the capacity for consciousness to become “elevated” and transcend the ordinary concerns and preoccupations of the mind.
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Consciousness is the one essential ingredient behind all experience, but ordinarily it remains in the background. We are hardly aware that we are aware; we are barely conscious of being conscious. But when we witness whatever is present in consciousness on purpose, something remarkable happens: not only are we awakening from our unconscious slumber and recognizing this miracle of being conscious, but we can also realize: we are consciousness.
And in this recognition, there is a profound freedom from emotional resistance and drama. Experiences come and go, but we are the unbroken light of awareness within which it all unfolds.

Rashi notices something else: he asks why the passage about lighting the Menorah appears immediately after the account of the tribal princes dedicating the Mishkan. His answer comes from Midrash Tanchumah:

.כְּשֶׁרָאָה אַהֲרֹן חֲנֻכַּת הַנְּשִׂיאִים חָלְשָׁה אָז דַּעְתּוֹ
When Aaron saw the dedication of the princes, his mind weakened.
In other words, Aaron became discouraged. The leaders of all the tribes had brought gifts for the inauguration of the Mishkan, but neither he nor his tribe was invited to participate. He felt deflated, left out. But Hashem consoles him: 

חַיֶּיךָ, שֶׁלְּךָ גְדוֹלָה מִשֶּׁלָּהֶם – “By your life! Yours is greater than theirs.”
On the surface, Hashem is simply reassuring Aaron that is his role of tending the sacred lamps is more important than the gifts of the princes. But there is a deeper hint in the phrase: shelkha gedolah mishelahem — literally, “yours is greater from theirs.” Meaning that the gedolah, the greatness that is “yours,” becomes visible when you remove yourself from looking externally at what is “theirs.” In the Midrash, Aaron suffers as a result of comparing himself to the princes. But Hashem points him back toward shelkha — “that which is yours” – the lighting of the menorah, representing the unbroken light of consciousness behind the judging mind and the troubled heart. 

And this is the message to all of us: when we stop looking over our shoulder at someone else and instead return to what is here, now, the Inner Vastness can reveal itself. 

There is another layer to Hashem’s response in the Midrash. The princes participated in a one-time dedication ceremony. It was beautiful, meaningful, and perhaps necessary—but it was a single event. Aaron’s task was different: 

לְהַעֲלֹ֥ת נֵ֖ר תָּמִֽיד׃  …for kindling lamps continuously. - Sh’mot (Exodus) 8:2
Earlier, the Torah describes the lighting of the Menorah as something to be done tamid—continuously. The inauguration happened once, but the lamps had to be tended again and again, day after day; this is the nature of spiritual life.
People sometimes long for a dramatic experience: a breakthrough, a revelation, a peak moment of awakening. Yet the deepest transformation is usually found not in a single event but in a continual returning. Again and again we forget; we become lost in thought, comparison, worry, and judgment. But again and again we can return to our Essence as the awareness that reads these words right now. This is the “raising up the lamps” – the bringing of awareness to awareness. We can then shift from being absorbed in the contents of experience to becoming conscious of the experiencing itself; this is meditation.

.שֶׁאַתָּה מַדְלִיק וּמֵטִיב אֶת הַנֵּרוֹת – “… for you kindle and ‘make good’ the lamps.” 
Rashi adds one more detail. Aaron’s greatness lies not only in lighting the lamps but in making them good. The consciousness we seek is not something we create. It is already present. But when we intentionally bring awareness to awareness, when we become truly present to what is arising in this moment, an innate “goodness” reveals itself. This goodness has no opposite, because it that which perceives all opposites – the goodness of wakefulness, of the simple radiance of Being.

This is why inner freedom is not found in trying to control our circumstances; it is found in reclaiming our attention. To be free is to discover our sovereignty of awareness, to tend the “lamps” of perception, moment by moment. The flame is already there; as long as we are alive, we are already conscious. Our task is simply to raise it up.