Aharon's Broken Heart: The Lamps That Endure

122aMy holy father and teacher, zt"l, zy"a,¹ spoke in his holiness to explain these holy verses: Hashem's command to Moshe about Aharon's kindling of the lamps, and Aharon's doing so as Hashem had commanded Moshe. He built on what Chazal say there in the Midrash Rabbah. All the tribes brought offerings, but Aharon did not bring one with his tribe, and the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moshe, “Go, say to Aharon: Do not be afraid; you are prepared for something greater than this.”² Rashi there says that Aharon's spirit sank (chalshah da'ato), and Hashem told him, “By your life, yours is greater than theirs, for you stand and kindle the lamps and set them right.”³ Chazal also say there that when Aharon saw that eleven princes had brought offerings, and the tribe of Efraim had brought, but his own tribe of Levi had not, he said, “Woe is me! Perhaps it is because of me.”

122bAharon meant: I am not worthy of it, and the reason my tribe is held back from offering Hashem's korban among Bnei Yisrael lies with me. As Chazal say, “The body follows the head”:⁴ the main lack comes from me. His spirit sank over this, because he looked into himself and saw how small his own worth was, and he became exceedingly humbled and lowly. Then Hashem said to him, “By your life, yours is greater than theirs.” For Hashem dwells “with the crushed” and uses broken vessels.⁵ When He saw how deeply Aharon humbled himself and how broken his heart was, it was good in His eyes that Aharon should kindle the Menorah then, at that very time, in that great humility. So He told Moshe to command Aharon about it at once, and said to Moshe, “Go, say to him: By your life, yours is greater …”

122cOnce Aharon heard these words from Hashem through Moshe, they should at least have eased his pain a little, and his broken heart and humbled spirit. Yet he himself did not change, and he was not moved by it at all. That is why Rashi writes, “To tell Aharon's praise, that he did not change.”⁶ The words usually mean that he did not depart from what he was told, but here they mean that he himself did not change in the least: afterward he was just as lowly and humbled as he had been before he heard Hashem's words. This is “Aharon did so”: he did the mitzvah of kindling the Menorah so, with great humility and a broken heart, “as Hashem had commanded,” just as he had been at the time Hashem commanded Moshe, before Aharon heard from Moshe, “You are prepared for something greater than this.” He took no pride in it at all, not by a hairsbreadth. In this way the mitzvah of kindling the Menorah was done in the very best way, as Hashem desired. Those are his holy words.

123aPerhaps we can explain the verses through the Midrash there: “‘You are prepared for something greater than this.’ That is why it says, ‘When you kindle the lamps.’ The korbanos were practiced as long as the Beis HaMikdash stood, but the lamps are forever. And all the blessings I gave you to bless My children will never cease.”⁷ To understand the Midrash, we begin with the holy Zohar's well-known words: “All holiness is in Chochmah, wisdom, and Chochmah is the brain.”⁸ That is, by lighting the Chanukah lamp [in which those lamps endure] with pure oil, a person is privileged to purify himself, his mind and his da'as, his understanding. This is what we say when we light the Chanukah lamps: “These lights are holy, and we have no permission to make use of them, but only to look at them.”⁹ For when the mind is purified in holiness and in love, a person is privileged to think only pure thoughts: how, and with what, to give his Maker satisfaction. For on Shabbos the Torah forbade “meleches machsheves, work done with thought”:¹⁰ so what the Torah weighs is the thought.

123bIn the same way, one whom Hashem has graced with the light of da'as must know that all of it is only so that he will know how to do the holy service and bring Hashem satisfaction through his avodah. As the verse says, “Know the God of your father, and serve Him.”¹¹ We know that the sense of sight flows from the brain, since the source of a person's five senses is in one place, the brain. This is “and we have no permission to make use of them” with the sense of sight, as the holy Torah says, “Do not stray after your heart and after your eyes.”¹² Rather, “only to look at them”: to see how great Hashem is, that He alone is One and unique, filling all worlds and surrounding all worlds, and there is no place empty of Him.¹³

123cThe sure counsel for coming to wisdom is humility. As it is written, “Vehachochmah me'ayin timatzei”: plainly, “Where shall wisdom be found?”, but here it is read “Wisdom is found from ayin, nothing.”¹⁴ Through the attribute of ayin, when a person counts himself as nothing and naught in his own eyes, he comes to wisdom. The more he nullifies himself, making himself smaller and smaller, the more he comes to wisdom and to seeing Hashem's greatness. As Dovid HaMelech says, “For Hashem is exalted, veshafal yir'eh”:¹⁵ not only “He sees the lowly,” but “the lowly one sees” Hashem's greatness. And one who is privileged to see Hashem's greatness sees all the more his own lowliness, that he has not yet known or grasped even its smallest edge. “Can you find out the deep things of God?”¹⁶ For He is without end. And the light he has reached is black beside the higher light.¹⁷ As it says, “Cloud and thick darkness surround Him”:¹⁸ when a person stands on a level higher and higher, his light grows dark around him, and he sees that he has not yet known or grasped anything at all. Until now it only seemed to him that he knew and grasped something, because his understanding was lacking.

124aWhen Aharon HaKohen saw that the tribe of Levi had not brought an offering, he said, “Woe! Perhaps it is because of me.” For the Levites were joined to the Holy One, blessed be He, in wondrous deveikus, cleaving to Hashem. With all they knew and grasped of Hashem's greatness, they presumably nullified themselves completely, like something crushed and crushed again. So on their side, Aharon thought, they were fit to offer Hashem's korban, and the main lack was on his own side. It seemed to him as if he had fallen short in serving Hashem, above all in the attribute of humility, and that because of this he had not come to wisdom. From this he came to a broken heart, to still greater humbling, and to a deep sinking of spirit.

124bThis is what the Midrash there says: “‘Speak to Aharon … When you kindle the lamps’: this is what is written, ‘Fear Hashem, His holy ones, for there is no lack for those who fear Him.’”¹⁹ Those who fear and tremble at Hashem's word, and serve Him in holiness and purity, out of their soul's great yearning and longing for Hashem, imagined, by all they grasped and knew of His greatness, that they still lacked the attribute of ayin, nothingness. They felt they could not nullify themselves completely, “like dust to all.”²⁰ If only, they thought, we had come to true humility, we would also have been privileged to grasp great things, to understand Hashem's greatness and to draw near to the light of the face of the living King.²¹ So too Aharon. This is what Rashi means by chalshah da'ato. The words mean that his spirit sank, but here they are read “his mind grew weak”: it seemed to Aharon that his mind had weakened and his understanding was lacking. Since “there is no lack for those who fear Him,” and he felt that lack, he could not bring an offering. Then Hashem said to him, “By your life, yours is greater than theirs,” for yours endures [as the lamps endure forever]. This follows the sage's saying, brought in the Chovos HaLevavos and in Rabbeinu Yonah's Shaarei Teshuvah: “If your worry is worry over Hashem, it will grow and add worries to you.”²² This is “yours endures”: your worry endures, for your request can never be filled. The more a person grasps, the more he worries, longs and yearns, more and more, to know Hashem.

125aHashem said to Aharon, “By your life, for you stand and set right (meitiv) and kindle the lamps.” Meitiv means tending the lamps, but here it is read as making good: by the power of your great humility and broken heart, you make good, raise up and glorify the souls of Israel before their Father in Heaven, for the soul is hinted at by a lamp in the verse “The lamp of Hashem is the soul of man.”²³ All of this “was from Hashem,”²⁴ by intent and by the providence of the One Who causes all causes. For “the deeds of the Avos are a sign for the children,”²⁵ and Aharon's deed was to be a good sign for his descendants. In truth “there is none among us who knows how much,”²⁶ so how can we light the Chanukah lamp? Even so, we must have faith, to trust in Hashem and lean on our God, with great humility and a broken heart, as Aharon HaKohen did in kindling the Menorah. Then “a light shines in the darkness for the upright”; and as the Ramban writes on Parshas Beha'aloscha, the Menorah there hints at the Chanukah lamp.²⁷ Matisyahu HaKohen, too, for all his great righteousness and holiness, and his mesirus nefesh, the readiness to give one's life, in actual deed, kindled the Menorah with great humility and an exceedingly broken heart. By the power of his humility he made a light shine in the darkness for the upright, in their hearts, in the heart of the holy congregation, and kindled in their hearts the flame of Hashem.

125bThis is what Hashem promises Aharon: that the lamps are forever. And this is what the Midrash there says: “And so the blessings I gave you to bless My children will never cease.” For the blessing the Kohanim say before Birkas Kohanim, the Priestly Blessing, reads, “Who sanctified us with the holiness of Aharon.”²⁸ At that moment the Kohanim are clothed in the garment of Aharon's holiness: in great, true humility and a broken heart, like Aharon HaKohen in his great holiness. Through this they can awaken Ayin, the Nothing on high, which, as is known, is the higher mazal: not luck, but the flow of blessing from on high at its source. For whoever blesses with his mind on himself, so that he feels himself at that moment, cuts off the source of blessing above.

126Chanukah comes to rectify the attribute of Hod, one of the sefiros, the Divine attributes, as the Tikkunei Zohar writes.²⁹ And according to what the holy Arizal writes in the kavanos, the inner intentions he set for the siddur's prayers, today is the attribute of Hod within Hod. We know that Hod is humility; as Chazal say, all the bowing is at Modim, the blessing of thanksgiving. So today we can come to true humility, to nullify ourselves completely and to take to heart how low we stand. The tzaddikim [like Aharon and Matisyahu], in their great righteousness and their knowledge of Hashem's greatness, saw their own lowliness. But we, in truth, do not know how much; we are like the truly poor. Even so, Hashem in His great mercy and kindness “has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the poor,”³⁰ the truly poor. For He is abundant in kindness, and hears the prayer of every mouth, and “a broken and crushed heart, O God, You will not despise.”³¹ As Chazal say, and the holy Zohar too, the Holy One, blessed be He, uses broken vessels.³²