Public menorahs are now a ubiquitous feature of the Chanukah season wherever Jews can freely celebrate their religious identity and commitment. This phenomenon was pioneered by Rabbi Avraham Shemtov—regional director of Chabad-Lubavitch in Philadelphia and chairman of the Chabad-Lubavitch umbrella organization, Agudas Chassidei Chabad—in 1974 at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. As Menachem Posner writes in his article, How the Chanukah Menorah Made Its Way to the Public Sphere:

The menorah was crude and made of wood; he had fashioned it with the help of some visiting yeshivah students. Almost no one was on Independence Mall in Philadelphia that night to witness the actual lighting, but that simple 4-foot menorah was the seed from which thousands of public menorahs have sprouted up on public and private places throughout the United States and around the world.

But note the design of this 1974 Menorah. It is all right-angles, verticals, and horizontals. Likely for completely practical considerations, its branches were neither curved nor diagonal.

Many—although by no means all—of the public menorahs on display today feature straight branches extending diagonally from each side of a central shaft. This trend began in the 1980s, but it is rooted in a debate that might stretch back to the Middle Ages and beyond.

Commenting on the construction of the original menorah as described in the Torah, the great Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, known as Rashi (1040-1105), wrote that the branches extended from the middle stem “in each direction diagonally (b’alachson).”1 Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra (1092-1167), by contrast, wrote that the branches of the menorah were arranged “like a semi-circle,” which at least introduces some curvature into the design.2 Later, in the 17th century, Rabbi Yosef Shalit ben Eliezer Riqueti in Chochmat haMishkan and Rabbi Emmanuel Ricci in Ma'aseh Choshev unequivocally stated that the menorah’s branches were not straight but curved.

But the key player in this debate is Maimonides. In his article, Why the Straight-Branched Menorah?, Yehuda Shurpin writes:

While Maimonides does not describe the shape of the branches in his Mishneh Torah, he does address the topic in a rare manuscript of his “Commentary to the Mishnah,” in which he hand-draws the design of the menorah. In this drawing, the branches are depicted as straight lines from the stem to the full height of the menorah.

Lest there be any confusion, Maimonides’ son, Rabbi Abraham ben Harambam, in his commentary to Exodus, writes that the branches “extend from the stem of the menorah to the top in a straight line (beyosher), as my father of blessed memory drew, not in arc-shape as others have drawn.

Maimonides’ autograph manuscript is held by Oxford’s Bodleian Library. But it was first published in 1967 by Rabbi Yosef Kapach (1917-200), a Torah scholar from the Yeminite Jewish community, who included it in a new edition of “Commentary to the Mishnah,” based on manuscripts. The Rebbe referred explicitly to this edition in a series of talks delivered in the summer of 1982. A few months later, these talks were edited into a single essay, which was published in the authoritative Likkutei Sichot series.3

In addition to an extensive treatment of the earlier sources mentioned above, the Rebbe argued that the ultimate source for depicting the menorah with curved branches is the Arch of Titus. “In addition to the fact that this depiction is not at all accurate,” he noted, “it was also created … to display the rulership and domination of Rome over the Jewish people.” This, he said, should certainly give people pause. “In addition to the main point that this [curved design] is counter to the opinion of Rashi and Maimonides … it also betrays a degree of approbation to the depiction of the Arch of Titus, which was created to cause distress to the Jewish people and humiliate them.”4

The Rebbe’s primary discussion was about the depiction of the original menorah, as described in the Torah and used in the Temple sanctuary. But a footnote to this essay suggested that in the case of Chanukah menorahs too, “there is room to say that it is appropriate to make their branches diagonal,” i.e. straight rather than curved.5

A public menorah, in the classic Maimonidean style, placed by Chabad-Lubavitch stands at Trafalgar Square, in London, England on Wednesday, Dec. 25, the 1st night of the eight-day holiday.
A public menorah, in the classic Maimonidean style, placed by Chabad-Lubavitch stands at Trafalgar Square, in London, England on Wednesday, Dec. 25, the 1st night of the eight-day holiday.

Menorahs come in all kinds of designs, many of which don’t have branches at all. But since 1982, disciples of the Rebbe have tended not to use those with curved branches, favoring designs that take their inspiration (however loosely) from Maimonides’ hand-drawn diagram.

Over the decades since, the debate about the original design of the menorah has often been renewed, especially around Chanukah. Scholars of both rabbinic and academic persuasions have drawn on new and old architectural findings, and on the history of menorah depictions in printed books, attempting to rescue the legitimacy of curved-branch menorahs.6

This year, Reviel Netz—the Patrick Suppes Professor of Greek Mathematics and Astronomy at Stanford University—weighed in with his article, Straightening Out the Menorah. “In mathematics as in all else,” writes Netz, Maimonides “was much more than a novice.” Accordingly, he argues, evaluation of his diagram of the Menorah should take into account the fact that twelfth century mathematicians sometimes used straight lines to depict curves. As such, the straight lines in Maimonides’ illustration “need not represent straight lines.”

On the substantive point, however, Netz admits that the Rebbe was correct: “There are other sources for the round-branched menorah as well but, ultimately, it all goes back to that Roman carving.” Moreover, “the artist in charge of Titus’s Arch transformed the menorah through his own visual language.” Accordingly, Netz writes, Maimonides’ manuscript drawing provides us with an alternative Jewish “prism” through which to “refract” the menorah. Netz then pivots to the example of the abstract expressionist school of art, which was “largely created by Jewish peers of the Rebbe” who “were heirs to a tradition deeply suspicious of the graven image.”

The “geometrical plainness” of the straight-branched Maimonidean menorah, accordingly stands as a supremely suitable gesture of defiant resistance to Rome’s destruction of G‑d’s Temple and humiliation of the Jewish people. The very simplicity of these triangular diagonals visually broadcasts rejection of pagan ornamentation and an embrace of the pure abstractions of the Jewish monotheistic tradition, which was championed by Maimonides in his time and by the Rebbe in our time.

An illustration of the Temple menorah drawn by Maimonides
An illustration of the Temple menorah drawn by Maimonides

In a response to Netz’s article, Eli Rubin noted that “even in medieval representations” one should surely assume that “straight lines … signified straight lines at least as often as they did curved ones.” Without contesting Netz’s point about the norms of medieval diagrams, a “straightforward reading” of Maimonidies’ design remains more convincing. As the Yiddish saying goes: “If you can go straight, why would you go crooked?” (Az men ken gein gleikh, farvos geit men krum?)

We could also add that Maimonides demonstrated his ability to draw neat schematic curves in his depiction of the menorah’s base in this very diagram.

Yet, Rubin continues, Netz was more right than he knew to draw a correlation between the Rebbe’s Torah-based aesthetic and the aesthetics of abstract expressionism:

In fact, the Rebbe’s engagement with contemporary questions of aesthetics and Jewish visual culture was surprisingly deep and continuous. He carried on extensive correspondences with many artists, including Jacques Lipchitz, who arrived in New York at precisely the moment that abstract expressionism was beginning to emerge.

In a letter to the Israeli artist Yaakov Agam, Rubin writes, the Rebbe took particular note of Agam’s “original use of elements that would ostensibly seem to have no connection to artistry, such as light and shade, lines, and all sorts of geometrical forms, whose combination . . . [make] a striking impression, even upon someone whose eye hasn’t been trained in this field.”7 For more on Agam’s relationship with the Rebbe and Chabad, including how he came to design Chabad’s iconic 5th Avenue menorah, see Dovid Margolin’s article, The Woman Behind the Fifth Avenue Menorah.

Eli Rubin concluded his response to Netz with the following anecdote, as told by Michoel Gourarie: In 1977, his grandfather, Rabbi Yirmiyahu Aloy, took him on a trip from South Africa to visit the Rebbe in New York for his bar mitzvah. They also visited the rebbetzin, Chaya Mushka Schneerson, at the home she shared with the Rebbe on President Street:

There they noticed a beautiful golden menorah, which had been given to the Rebbe by an admirer. Gourarie’s grandfather asked if the Rebbe actually lit it on Chanukah. The Rebbetzin replied with an epigram: “As I’m sure you know, my husband likes simple things.” (Veyst dokh, mayn man gleikht poshute zakhen.)

The personal menorah lit each year by the Rebbe himself, on display at the Library of Agudas Chasidei Chabad in New York. Rather than being mounted on curved or straight branches, its cups are set directly on its base, and it is forged of cheap pewter, rather than gold or silver. - Photo: Mottel Sudak
The personal menorah lit each year by the Rebbe himself, on display at the Library of Agudas Chasidei Chabad in New York. Rather than being mounted on curved or straight branches, its cups are set directly on its base, and it is forged of cheap pewter, rather than gold or silver.
Photo: Mottel Sudak