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Notes:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xibfid72cybe88q/29.%20Behalotecha%205779%20-Light%20Your%20Fire%20-Kindling%20Our%20Souls.pdf?dl=0
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Both, in the Jewish world and in the secular world, we hear a lot about Tikkun Olam and Humanitarian Causes, which both focus on the existence of pain, darkness and suffering that needs to be fought. As a matter-a-fact, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Britain, said it as such, “The Jewish people had become excellent survivors from a place of persecution and evil, however, we are challenged in living with success.”
The blood line of primary Jewish organizations depends on evil for their very existence and source of income, as emergency campaign after emergency campaign become their motto. The Rebbe bemoaned again and again as the heroes of the Jewish underground came to America, the land of the free, and succumbed here in America, to the peaceful face of the very secularism that they fought under persecution in Russia.
And the same exists in our individual life, as we focus our energy to fighting our character defects and self-centered desires. The teachings of Mussar focuses on identifying our egocentric body and its drives as being dark and as needing to be broken. Even in Chassidus we speak much of Iskafya to break the ego of the Animalistic Soul.
However, is life just about battling evil? Is the existence of our G-dly Soul just in order to overcome our Animalistic Soul? And then what, when the evil will be banished and the darkness dispelled?
Let’s look at it from another perspective. When life is all about battling evil, then we eventually succumb to a phenomenon called Battle Fatigue, and especially when it is a 5779 yearlong battle, starting with Adam, Eve and the serpent!
Thus, the modern-day issue for this lecture is to learn how to take a break from battling our darkness, and to instead live within nourishing our light.
This lecture is based primarily on a maamor the Rebbe delivered on this Shabbat, in 1966, exploring the difference between Aaron’s kindling the lamps of the Menorah in the Mishkan -Tabernacle, and the princes of the Twelve Tribes of Israel bringing sacrifices and offerings for the inauguration of the Mishkan.
