Shine Your Light
Chaya Mushka & Nechama Krimmer
Parshas Emor ends with a frequently quoted verse, “And you (Moshe) should command the children of Israel to take to you pure olive oil that was crushed for a luminary, to light as a 'ner tamid', a candle always”.
The Torah is very concise. Each individual word has meaning. No word is extraneous. So why is it necessary to add that the olive oil is crushed? Isn't it obvious that an olive must be crushed to release its oil?
This is a lesson to us that in order to create light, a painful process sometimes must occur. A crushing of the spirit may be needed in order to bring light out of the darkness.
Currently, we are living in exile. We are consumed with the daily burdens of physical, financial, mental, and societal stresses. Mortgages to pay. Unfulfilling and stressful jobs. Long hours. Children to raise. Relationships to nurture. Meals to cook. Mother in laws to deal with!
Although we can and do experience great joy in our lives, none of us are immune to pain, loss, loneliness, sickness, disappointment, rejection, depression, and failure, to being crushed, perhaps, to the core.
But as the Torah explains, it is exactly in these times of darkness, when we are fully crushed, that we are able to truly manifest our light.
We are currently in the period of time of the Counting of the Omer between Passover and Shavuot. In Jewish history, this became a time of mourning when a plague that inexplicably killed 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva's students. 24,0000 students! An almost incomprehensible number.
Rabbi Akiva, however, did not fall into despair or hopelessness. He did not let this tragedy paralyze him. He used the crushed oil of his spirit to bring new light into the world. He worked to build up new students.
One of these students was none other than the famed mystic, philosopher, and luminary Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who wrote one of most famed works of Jewish mysticism of all times, frequently known by both Jews and Gentiles alike: The holy Zohar.
On Lag B'Omer, the joyous day we celebrate this week, the plague that devastated Rabbi Akiva's students miraculously ceased. Coincidentally, it is also the yahrzeit of the aforementioned mystic, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.
This Lag B'Omer, let us reflect on the trials we are experiencing in our lives and stretch ourselves to see the potential lessons, the light, we have gained from our suffering, our crushings. The compassion, for example, that we can only achieve through experience. And let us strive to always share our light and understanding with others.
Happy Lag B'Omer
