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The enduring Light
Topic Started: Feb 10 2011, 06:02 AM (150 Views)
MarkStaneart
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And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always. (Exodus 27:20 KJV)

To fail to understand this verse is to miss the beauty and power of the Hanukkah story. It became part of Jewish lore that the light of the candle represented the presence of the Shekinah glory (the Holy Spirit of God among the people). The light was to burn always. When the legions of Antiochus desecrated the Temple and pillaged the Holy Sanctuary, he did more than just break the cultural will of the people. He testified that the Presence of the Most High had left.

Yet, the response was not what he might have expected. The sages, rather than admit defeat and assimilate into the new order, sought to understand why the Shekinah had abandoned them. They sought to make restitution for their sins, replacing the despondency with which they had once observed the biblical services with passion toward restoration of relationship with God.

Just as the olive yields light only when it is pounded, so are man's greatest potentials realized only under the pressure of adversity.
(The Talmud)
Visit Mark Staneart at www.renewourdays.com
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MarkStaneart
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God's Light endures forever, but it always endure the same?

In the tabernacle of the congregation without the veil, which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall order it from evening to morning before the LORD: it shall be a statute forever unto their generations on the behalf of the children of Israel. (Exodus 27:21 KJV)

These verses contain a paradox: "everlasting flame" implies a state of perptuality and changelessness; "from evening to morning" implies fluctuating conditions of lesser and greater luminance.

For such is our mission in life: to impart the eternity and perfection of the Divine to a temporal world, and to do so not by annihilating or overwhelming the world's temporality and diversity, but by illuminating its every state and condition--
from "evening" to "morning"--with the divine light.
(The Lubavitcher Rebbe)
Visit Mark Staneart at www.renewourdays.com
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