A Menorah of Fire - Parshah Power - Terumah

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A Menorah of Fire: Parshah Power - Terumah

In Exodus 25:31 G-d instructs Moses to construct, among the various vessels of the Temple, a Menorah of gold fashioned with intricate design work of cups, flowers and buttons. But Moses finds this too difficult….

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Topics:	Terumah

By Mendel Kaplan

Rabbi Mendel Kaplan is the Spiritual Leader and Executive Director of Chabad Flamingo in Thornhill, Ontario, serving one of Canada’s most dynamic Jewish communities. He also serves as Chaplain of the York Regional Police Service. He is an active member of Toronto’s Vaad HaRabbanim (Council of Orthodox Rabbis), and a voting member of the COR Kashruth Council of Canada’s executive rabbinical board. Rabbi Kaplan is featured regularly on many local television and radio shows. He is a sought after speaker, with hundreds of lectures on Chabad.org. He and his wife, Faygie, are blessed with eight children. Artistically endowed, the rabbi enjoys drawing, sketching and creating charcoal portraits.

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4 Comments

Chaya Montreal February 12, 2016

Thank you for your shiurim! Reply

ruth housman marshfield hllls, ma February 5, 2011

this world I want to make one other comment about the menorah, since the menorah is a powerful symbol for me. I do deeply perceive the shin, the menorah in Nature, and within ourselves wherever I look. The tree in its branchings is a menorah. Once you perceive this, it is inescapably beautiful, how the Hebrew letters do cover the universe, our universe, of being.

think candelabra and then look hard, at what you see in Nature, and tell me, don't you see that shining menorah, wherever you look? Samuel Bak the artist, though he painted very painful images of the Holocaust, of love denied, of anguish, and asked eternal questions through his amazing work, well, if you do look at his work, you will see, throughout, his use, in Nature of the Hebrew letters.

As it is said, G_d created a universe out of the letters. I know this is true. Meditate on this, and perhaps you will be granted that vision, of something that buds forth, that is beyond utterly beautiful. Reply

Dale February 3, 2011

Menorah Shalom. Did G-d actually tell Moshe to throw it in the fire or did he get a revelation from his own being to throw it in?

Thanks. Reply

ruth housman marshfield hills, ma January 31, 2011

look to the letter: SHIN/ in shine A rewarding discussion of something very deep, about the menorah, about oneself becoming a menorah, and how we bring ourselves to the light, to become the light. That the instructions were to hammer out the menorah from one block of gold, makes sense to me, as in Echod, One. There is of course, in English the word G_d in the word Gold itself, as Gold could be considered a container or vessel for that Divinity, as expressed in other ways in this talk.

It's relevant to this discussion that G_d appeared to Moses as the bush that was not consumed. The implications of fire are profound, and one is, of course, passion itself, as again explicated in this discussion.
To have a flame, to have a deep love or lover, to work with that fire. To act with love. To become love.

Look! Can you see the Hebrew letters arising out of the flame? The rose within?There are myriad beautiful connects with flame & fire. Surely sparks themselves as in mystic Judaism.

For me the Shin itself is a menorah. Reply