Shabbat Parashat Tetzaveh - 5785

Shabbat Parashat Tetzaveh - 5785

Rabbi Hal Miller

  And you shall command the children of Israel that they shall take for you clear

  olive oil, crushed for illumination, to light a lamp continually. [Shemot 27:20] 

What is "light a lamp continuously", does it mean always burning or relit every day?

Does our electric light over the aron in a shul fulfill this mitzvah, and in fact is this

mitzvah required in our time? For that matter, is it even a mitzvah? For what purpose?

Kol Dodi (Rav Dovid Feinstein) notes that the verse reads v'atah tetzaveh, which we

read automatically as "and you shall command". But, he writes, "grammatically,

however, the word tetzaveh is not an imperative expressing a command, but rather a

future declarative making a statement about a future event, that at some future time

God will command this, but for the present Moshe is not required to do anything." He

points us to Vayikra 24:1, and notes that there "God instructs Moshe with the imperative

form tzav to order this." According to him, we should read here, you will be commanded.

In Vayikra, clearly Moshe is to command the use of oil for a continual lamp, so our

question about whether it is a commandment is answered, that while not commanded

in our verse, it does become a mitzvah later.

Rav Soloveitchik brings up the fact that this is the only parsha from the time of the

birth of Moshe until his death that Moshe's name is not mentioned. The Midrash

explains that this is due to Moshe telling God to remove him from His book if He

will not save the people. Vilna Gaon tells us that this parsha was chosen because it

is usually read around the time of the death of Moshe. Perhaps this light is what we

now call a yahrtzeit candle. If so, then "continuously" would mean every year forever.

The words "and you" are used instead of referring to Moshe by name, but Brisker Rav

notes that these words are not used before here, only now and in 28:1 and 3, about

things that do not require a king, only Moshe.

Rashi says that continuously refers to "each and every night", which would imply that

the lamp is to be relit every evening. The next verse, 27:21 says "from evening until

morning", thus it only burns at night. Rav Hirsch disagrees with Rashi's reading of 21,

saying that it only applies to six of the seven lamps of the Menorah. The seventh

stays lit all day as well, like our verse, although the lamp still needs relighting at night.

Tanchuma tells us that the lamp is lit on Rosh Hashanah and not extinguished until the

next Rosh Hashanah. Brisker Rav, noting that adding oil to a lamp on Shabbat is a

violation of kindling, says this means adding any amount of oil to the continual lamp

daily is what our verse refers to for "continuously". Most commentators understand

"continuously" to mean that it is never extinguished, or should it go out, it is relit.

Abarbanel, for example, says that this command is not only to Moshe but to all the

Kohanim who will follow him throughout the generations.

The purpose of the commandment according to Rav Hirsch is twofold. Use of the oil

brought from the congregation is to include all the people. And the lighting, from the

word "to raise" refers to Torah teachers, who train students to stand on their own. While

today we do not have the Temple service of the Kohanim, and do not have the Menorah,

this explanation gives relevance to the commandment in our generations.

Since the verse requires pure olive oil for the lighting, it would seem that an electric

lamp cannot satisfy the mitzvah, which would be suspended now but for Rav Hirsch.

The electric lights we use, therefore, are not a commandment themselves, but a

zecher l'mitzvah, a reminder of the commandment so that we will not forget to do it

once we have the Temple restored, may it be soon.