Suffering as a Source of Light
In this week’s Torah portion, T’tzaveh, we encounter an inspiring expression of a powerful symbol in Jewish life: The Ner Tamid. This continuously burning lamp has become a fixture in all Jewish worship spaces, symbolizing the illuminating and warming presence of God and Torah in our lives and in our midst.
But there is a deeper meaning in the fuel that sustained that lamp. The Israelites are commanded to use clear beaten olive oil. Again, a potent symbolism emerges. Having just read an article about the distinctions between types of olive oil and the necessity to care for its storage to preserve its full taste and health benefits, I am newly sensitive to its delicacy. And yet, our tradition saw a parallel between the beaten oil and Jewish suffering, as one rabbi taught:
“The people of Israel is likened to an olive, which yields up its oil only when it is crushed, for the people of Israel reveals its true virtues only when it is made to suffer.”
–Ya’akov Shmuel Khaquiz
While we are a minority people whose threatened status would seem to require special care and protection, it has been our historic fate to be crushed by fear and hatred. But far from an encouragement to suffering and martyrdom, this take on the olive oil metaphor inspires us to transcend our suffering, to utilize it as an opportunity to strive for a world in which our values and ideals endure beyond the murderous visions of our enemies, so that our survival, and that of Torah, will one day help to forge a world in which all will be free to live out the divinely-imbued potential with which we were created.