Our four lights: A Short Reflection
I reproduce here an extract adapted from a eulogy speech I delivered at a shiv’a minyan last night. Hopefully its sentiments will resonate particularly with those who have been impacted, directly or indirectly, with the unspeakable Bondi Beach massacre just over a week ago.
Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks zl in a series of short divrei Torah for the eight nights of Chanuka, draws attention to three different types of mitsva lights over which we say brachot. There are the Shabbat lights. There is the havdala flame. And there are the Chanuka lights.
Shabbat lights are lit to give light in the home. They represent shalom bayit,. They represent Judaism’s inner light, the light of the sanctity of marriage and the Jewish home.
Chanuka candles are ideally lit outside – outside the front door as they are in Israel today. It was only fear of persecution that brought the Chanuka candles inside in the Gola, and thanks to the Lubavitcher Rebbe they have been taken back outside in commemorative public lightings and will remain outside b’ezrat Hashem no matter what our enemies may say or do. The Chanuka lights are the lights Judaism brings to the world when we are unafraid to announce our identity in public, live by our moral principles and fight, if necessary, for our future.
As for the havdala flames, made up of two or more wicks woven together, it represents the fusion of the two, the inner light of Shabbat joined to the outer light of the six days of the working week when we go out into the world and live our faith in public.
Declares Rabbi Sacks: when we live as Jews in private, filling our homes with the light of Shabbat, when we live as Jews in public bringing the light of hope, determination and faith to others , and when we live both together, then we bring light to the world.
There is also a fourth light in Judaism , and that is the light of the ner zikaron, the memorial candle, lit during shiv’a and in some traditions for the whole year after the passing of a karov, of a loved one; and of course on a yahrzeit.
It struck me that the ner zikaron also represents the fusion of two worlds, namely olam ha-zeh, this world and olam ha-ba, the world to come.
A flame defies gravity,. It shoots upwards, Heavenwards. Like the ladder in Yaakov’s dream, its base is on the ground but its flame reaches up to shamayim.
One of the lessons we can learn from this is that olam ha-zeh and olam ha-ba are not two unconnected worlds. They are connected together, and b’acharit ha-yamim, at the end of days, we shall witness the actualisation of this connection in techiat ha-meitim, the resurrection of the dead when we shall be reunited with our loved ones.
But, as Pirkei Avot says, while there are three crowns, keter Torah, keter kahuna and keter malchut, the crowns of Torah, priesthood and kingship, which a person may wear in this world, there is also a fourth crown, namely keter shem tov sh’oleh al gabeihem. the crown of a good name which rises above the other three crowns inasmuch as it accords those individuals who possess that shem tov a semblance of immortality even in this world when their ma’asim tovim, good deeds are recalled and the noble example they set is emulated by the loved ones whom they leave behind. Again a fusion of olam ha-zeh and olam ha-ba.
As regards these worthy individuals, the fruits of that example will continue to flourish in the memory and the deeds of their loved ones in this world, as long as they live, ad me’a ve-esrim.
Yehi zichram barukh!