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Achieving Your Best

"When you kindle the lamps...." (Numbers 8:2)

The Talmud (Menachot 86a) says that when the oil was made for use in the service in the Holy Temple, the olives were squeezed three times. The oil of each pressing was divided into three quality levels. The first level of the first pressing was supreme, and it was used for the kindling of the menorah. The second oil of the first pressing and the first oil of the second pressing were of equal grade, and could be used for the meal-offerings (the Menachot). But only the first oil of the second pressing could be used for the menorah, and not the second oil of the first pressing. The third oil of the first pressing and the second oil of the second pressing and the first oil of the third pressing were all equal for meal-offerings, but only the first oil of the third pressing could be used for the menorah.

Why should the first oil of the third pressing have priority for the kindling of the menorah over the second and third oil of the first pressing?

All men are not alike. Some have better faculties and some poorer. King Solomon says, "A man's soul is the candle of G-d,"1 and all the details connected with the menorah contain teachings which apply to man's life. The teaching of the different levels of oil is that G-d does not expect one person to be like another person, but He does expect him to achieve his utmost. Therefore if he is capable of being on the highest level, he may not suffice with being second. On the other hand, if he has the capabilities of only being of the second level and he excels in that, his achievement equals that of the one who is uppermost in the first level.

It is related that the famous pious Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli once said, "When I come before the heavenly tribunal, I am not afraid they will demand of me, 'Why wasn't Zusha like the patriarch Abraham?' But I am afraid lest they ask me, 'Why wasn't Zusha as Zusha could have been?'"