TETZAVEH 1992

In the Torah portion Tetzaveh we learn how the Jewish people are to take pure olive oil beaten for the light.  This Torah portion begins, "And you shall command the children of Israel and they shall take pure olive oil beaten for the light to cause the lamp to burn continually in the Olomoid outside the Perochas which is by the testimony Aaron and his children shall prepare it from evening to morning before G‑d a law forever for their generations from the sons of Israel."  We all know about the lighting of the eternal light.  In fact, there was a radio program called "The Eternal Light" which used to every Sunday quote from this portion of the Torah.  But there are several questions that we can ask from this section.  First of all, why does it say it should be "a law throughout your generations for the children of Israel"?  After all, we know that the Temple only stood for a short period of time.  For 2000 years we have not been lighting this light.  Secondly, why does it say "and you should command the children of Israel"?  Usually when a command is given by G‑d to Moshe it says, "And G‑d spoke to Moshe and He said..."  but here it says "you shall command the children of Israel".  Moshe's name is not even mentioned in this whole Torah portion, and what does it mean when it says you should take pure olive oil beaten for the light to cause the light to burn continually?  The rabbis say that this pure olive oil refers to the olives that are on the very top of the tree, that you could not take the olives from below the tree and you could not beat the tree in order to cause the olives to fall and use those olives.  In fact, that is usually the way they harvest an olive tree by beating the tree.  Today we have machines that shake the tree and the olives fall off.  They had to go up to the very top of the tree to get the olives.  Not only did they have to get up to the very top of the tree but when they brought the olives down they had to do it by hand and not by machine.  In those days, too, they had machines not driven by electricity but by hand power which would pulverize the olives and allow the oil to come out.  In this case they had to beat them individually and only the first drop of oil could be used for the olive oil which was to be used to light the menorah, the eternal light.  What's more, the rest of the olive oil could be used for the other sacrifices, for the meal offerings, but the first drop of oil only could be used to light the light.

Then it says here that Aaron and his sons would light it from evening to morning.  Aaron every morning had to prepare the wick.  He had to remove the burned wick and replace it with a fresh one and fill the lamp with oil but he did not actually light it until the evening.  Only the central shaft of the menorah in the Tabernacle, according to most opinions, was kept lit continually day and night.  So we see from here that there are many questions.  Why was it that Moshe was commanded to tell the Jewish people himself, and why was it that this was a "law throughout all your generations"?  What does it mean that it had to be pure olive oil?
The rabbis tell us that Moshe Rabbeinu was willing to sacrifice his life for the Jewish people.  He went from security in Egypt to save the Jewish people and risked his life there.  Later on when the Jewish people sinned at the golden calf Moshe said, "Wipe me out from the book but just save the people".  Moshe would do anything for the people, and he was given the opportunity to give the Jewish people this command because of his own fearlessness in standing up for them and because of his own fearlessness in the search for truth.

I am reminded of a story that was just told to me by Rabbi Gedalya Rabinowitz who was visiting our community during the past week.  He was chosen by Adin Steinsaltz to open the first yeshiva in Moscow since the Revolution in 1989.  He tells the story about his great-grandfather's great-grandfather.  In the Ukraine there were two brothers who owned a very successful publishing company that was in Salutva, Ukraine.  They published especially Chassidic works, and they were known throughout all the Jewish world for their fine publications.  They published pamphlets, books, everything that people need to have an intellectual life.  They employed many, many workers.  They were the mainstay of this small town.  As their prosperity increased, of course, jealousy of them also increased, and the Ukraine is known even to this day as an anti-Semitic place, and it has always been the hotbed of anti-Semitism, especially since Kalminitzky in 1648 destroyed a third of the Jews of the Ukraine.  In that year right before Pesach one of the employees of the printing house, a non-Jew, a gentile, was found murdered on the premises.  Apparently he had gotten into a fight with another gentile worker and was stabbed to death, but the authorities did not want to accept the facts in the case and instead they turned on the two brothers who ran this very successful book publishing concern and they claimed that they had killed this gentile man in order to use his blood to make matzahs, the famous blood libel, which probably started in England in the early Middle Ages.  Throughout the Middle Ages until the 20th century Jews have been accused of having to kill gentiles and use their blood to make matzah.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  We know how Jews abhor blood.  We know how our religion does not allow us to eat blood.  We have to drain the blood from any meat that we eat.  We even, when it comes to the period, a woman and man cannot have sexual intercourse because of blood.  We know, too, that Jews stay away from blood as much as possible, but, yet, this blood libel spread.  Many Jews lost their lives because of it.  The two brothers, Shmuel Abba Shapiro, who was the ancestor of Rabbi Gedalya Rabinowitz, and his brother were brought to trial.  They were sort of found guilty or sort of found innocent.  What does that mean?  The court could not make up its mind so they decided that they would punish them by ordeal, by having them run a gauntlet, but there was enough evidence in their mind that they were really guilty and so, therefore, they were given a two-part punishment.  One, that they would have to run naked between two rows of soldiers who were wielding whips, which means that by the time they finished running this gauntlet they would have received 1,500 whippings, and if they survived they would then be sent to Siberia.  They were taken to run through this gauntlet.  They were stripped naked, but they had one request to make of the officer in charge and that is that they be allowed to wear their yarmulkas.  Their request was granted, and then they ran through the gauntlet.  One of them, unfortunately, lost his yarmulka and ran back to get it.  He ran through the gauntlet and both of them miraculously survived.  The first one who lost his yarmulka it was estimated he got 50 extra stipes because of it.  Here were two middle aged men, not particularly robust, who managed in some miraculous way to survive this ordeal.  The second part of their punishment was uncalled for.  They were to be sent to Siberia.  In those days when people were sent to Siberia very few of them returned.  In fact, in Stalin's day very few of them returned.  When they were sent to a gulag most of them perished there.  They were first sent to Moscow to be transshipped to Siberia, but because of the intervention of the Jewish community and others, their sentence was rescinded so that they were allowed to live in Moscow.  This mercy was shown to them probably because of a big bribe that was given to certain Russian officials, but in Moscow there were no Jews.  Russia never allowed Jews to live in Russia proper.  It was illegal for Jews to live in Russia.  If a Jew was caught in Russia that Jew would be killed, just like in England from 1290 until Cromwell's time in the 1640's no Jew was allowed to live in England either.  In fact, even the personal physician of Queen Elizabeth, when it found out that he was a Jew, was killed.  Queen Elizabeth, herself, even could not save him.  Perhaps she did not want to.  Jews only lived in those parts of Russia that Russia had conquered from Poland and Lithuania.  At one time Poland ruled the Ukraine, so, therefore, it was illegal for Jews to live in Moscow except Jews who had served 30 years in the Russian army were allowed to live in Moscow.  They were Nicolaistait Soldaiten.  Tzar Nicolar hit upon a fiendish plan to take Jewish boys 7 and 8 years old and induct them in the army and then while they were in the army subject them to all sorts of Christian missionarizing hoping that they would convert.  Many of them did.  Those boys who survived 30 years in the Russian army and who did not convert were allowed to live in Moscow, but they were just a handful.  When these two brothers came there, who were also rabbis although they had not practiced being rabbis up to then, they quickly organized a small community of these Nicolaistait Soldaiten and the first synagogue to open in hundreds of years in Moscow opened in 1839.  Almost 150 years to the day Rabbi Gedalya Rabinowitz opened the first yeshiva in Moscow since the Revolution, or perhaps legally ever.  It was interesting also that of the two other faculty members that he brought with him the other two were also descendants of either one of these two Shapiro brothers.  Yes, miracles seem to happen in our day, too.

This is what perhaps lighting the eternal light meant, and that is why it was continually for every generation.  The rabbis explain that the olive oil in the menorah stood for the light of Torah, for the light of Judaism.  We are called upon to light it continually throughout generations because there are many who would seek to quench it.  Many times Jews have been misled and they, themselves, think that they no longer need Torah, and then Aaron and his sons, the priest, the leadership, must once again light the menorah, and they must do it in the evening and in the morning.  When things are dark, when it does not seem possible that these things could ever come about then we must light the menorah.  It was a miracle, too, that the reforms in Russia occurred when they did because there were still.  a few old people who could teach the young.  When the Refuseniks were kicked out of their jobs and they wanted to learn more of their heritage they could still go to some old people and learn a little bit about Judaism.  If these reforms would have happened 10 years, 20 years later they would probably not have been anybody to teach the younger generation.  This spark always has to be lit.  The Pinkele Yid is there to be set aflame.  What we Jews must always do is to seek the truth, and that is what Moshe was telling the people.  Judaism will always survive if you will look for the pure olive oil.  Don't be fooled by the dregs which come along with many theories.  Many Jews in the beginning were fooled by communism.  Many Jews became Communists originally, but that is why Stalin was so tough on us because in the late 1920's and 1930's most Jews realized communism would not work.  It took the other Russians another 50, 60 years to figure that out, that communism just would not work.  When Moshe told the people, and he was the one who was supposed to tell the people because he was a man who searched for truth, who believed in truth, that when you search out for a light to live by make sure that it is true.  It has to be the finest oil.  There cannot be any dregs in it.  After the first bang on the olive the rest of the oil comes out with dregs with some pulp, with some skin.  That you cannot use.  It has to be pure olive oil.  We all know how many times people will say, "I know it is not true, but look how much good it is doing."  That is what the German industrialists said.  "Oh, yes, we know Hitler's theories are false, but look there is full employment in Germany now.  There is pride in Germany now.  We are respected as a world power now.  So what if there are a few crazy theories?  Who cares?" It will never work.  You cannot say you believe in things that are false because these false things will lead to great terror and great destruction.  In the United States, too, in Judaism we have to believe in those things which are true.  We cannot add to Judaism a lot of things that we think are nice or that we have to add things to Judaism because they please the goyim or they please our gentile neighbors or because they are good economically or because they are good public relations or because they give us a good feeling inside.  We know that they are fake.  We know that they are not true.  Judaism is true.  That's what we must believe, and that is what we must look for: the truth in it.  The truth will shine out, and that is what we learn here in this Torah portion about the lighting of the menorah.  Yes, it is beaten for the light.  It is not easy to arrive at the truth.  Sometimes it is difficult, but we can only use the olives upon which the sun shines most.  We cannot be content with olives that are below on the tree.  Moshe commanded the Jewish people that they should demand of their religious leaders that they give them the truth, that they do not give them things that just sound good and look good but that it be the truth.  Sometimes that puts a great challenge on the religious leaders as well.  Sometimes the religious leaders do things for political reasons, etc.  It was the responsibility of Aaron and his children to especially light the menorah when things are dark, but they will get better.  The dawn will come, and we see now in Russia that because of those few Jews who held the light aloft even in the darkest hours the menorah is starting to burn bright again.  There are already four yeshivas in Moscow, two in Leningrad, a yeshiva in Kiev, 400 students in a day school in Kiev, day schools in Moscow, Leningrad, throughout all Russia.  The light is starting to burn again bright.  None of us should ever give up.  We should always realize that we have to continually light the light even in the darkest times.

I am reminded of the story they tell about the chief rabbi who was supposed to have gone to Russia.  It is an apophriphal story and met the Minister of Religion.  The Minister of Religion had just come back from a walk on the streets of Moscow when a little girl came up to him and said, "Oh, Minister of Religion, would you like to pet my communist puppies?" The Minister of Religion thought that was such a nice thing to say and to do.  When he met the chief rabbi of Israel he said, "Come, I want to have you meet a little girl."  When he took him to meet the little girl he asked the little girl, "Do you still have your puppies?" She said, "Yes, I do," and she brought them over to the rabbi and she said, "Would you like to pet my Jewish puppies?" The Minister of Religion said, "Little girl, I thought these were communist puppies.  You told me just a few hours ago they were communist puppies."  The little girl said, "I did, but that was before they opened their eyes."  Let us all hope and pray that we will always light the candle bright, that the candle that we light, the menorah that we light will be based upon the truth, the truth of Judaism so that the Maschiach will come quickly in our day.  Amen.