Rabbi Howard Morrison

Dear Congregational Family,

When one kindles Shabbat or Festival candles, one recites the words, "L'hadlik ner - to light the candle." At the outset of this week's parsha, the Kohain is instructed to light the Tabernacle Menorah. The Hebrew verb for lighting is not the familiar "l'hadlik," but rather, "B'ha'alotcha - When you make the lights rise."

In his commentary, Rashi explains, "Because the flame rises upward ("olah"), an expression denoting "ascending" is used for kindling the lights, implying that one must kindle them until the light ascends of itself."

Many of us are familiar with the term "aliyah - rising upward." When one is called up to the Torah, one is having an aliyah. When one immigrates to Israel, one is making aliyah.

After a person dies and leaves this world, many people will say, "May the neshama (soul) have an aliyah. There is even a religious textbook used for children called by that expression. In traditional Jewish belief, while the body dies, the soul leaves the body at the moment of death. Countless ideas have been proposed as to what happens to the soul, or to where it goes. Suffice to say, the neshama (soul) being spiritual and not physical contains eternal life and lives on forever. 

When we light a shiva candle, we are reminded of the Biblical verse from Proverbs, "Ner Hashem Nishmat Adam - The human soul is likened to a flame kindled unto God." Through the ritual of the shiva candle, we are petitioning that the neshama of a loved one should rise to spiritual lofty heights.

While a Kohain is not commanded to make the lights rise in an official menorah nowadays, we make the lights rise every time we kindle a flame. When we do so at times of shiva, yahrzeit, and yizkor, may the flame remind us of the eternity in the souls of our precious loved ones.

Rabbi Howard Morrison