Summary and Lessons in the Service of Hashem from the Maamar
The Alter Rebbe goes through the four stages of the spiritual service of transforming ourselves into a Menorah, based on the verse quoted in the maamar, as follows:
1- “מִקְשָה-beaten”
Just like the Menorah was made from a solid piece of gold that was beaten with a hammer into the shape of a Menorah, thereby shifting around the position of the gold, so too we need to shift around our priorities. We need to shift our physical needs and concerns to be lower on the priority list, and our service of Hashem to the top of the priority list. This is also expressed in how we eat and how we talk, etc. We have to pay attention that we don’t focus on these things as a priority and an end goal. Rather, they are useful as a means to accomplish our true goal and priority of serving Hashem.
2- “זָהָב-gold”
The nature of gold is to give off a reddish shine, similar to the color of fire. This represents a fiery, passionate feeling of fear and love for Hashem. How do we attain this fear and love? By concentrating on the praises of Hashem during prayers, especially in Pesukei Dezimra and the blessing before Shema, which describe at length how Hashem creates and runs every detail of the infinite details of creation with His awe-inspiring power and wisdom.
In particular, we attain this love and fear when we reflect on the fact that Hashem creates the entire world every day. We are reminded of this when we see that every night, the light of day disappears, and every morning Hashem creates new light and warmth for us. This is true for each person in particular. Hashem literally created him today, just like Adam, the first man, on the day he was created. When a person reflects on these facts, he will attain respect, awe, and shame before his Creator. He will not want to rebel against Him and will also be drawn with a fiery yearning to connect to Hashem, Who is so awesome.
3- “עַד יְרֵכָה עַד פִרְחָה”
“All of its details, from its top to its bottom, were from one solid piece of gold” - The Menorah had many components from its top to its bottom. All were essentially connected and unified, having been made from one single piece. Similarly, the entire Jewish People, from the greatest Tzadikim to the simplest Jews, are all essentially connected and one, unified entity. However, this connection is only apparent when a person is free from sin, since sin changes his appearance from his original state of “pure gold.” To restore his purity and revealed a connection to Tzadikim and everyone else, he needs to free himself from his connection to base, physical desires.
How can one who feels stuck in physical desires pull himself out? The answer is that the same Hashem who gave us the Yetzer Hara (physical desires) also gives us the power to leave the limitations (מִצְרַיִם) of those desires and reconnect to Hashem in an even stronger way than before. This is also accomplished during prayer, where a person has the ability to get rid of his unholy thoughts by focusing his mind on the true greatness of Hashem. By focusing on how Hashem creates everything every morning and himself in particular, he comes to a recognition of Hashem. Then, after Shemona Esrai, he compares his newfound awareness of Hashem to his usual thoughts of physical, mundane desires. He will come to truly regret that mode of thinking and will ask Hashem to help him. By doing this every day, he receives strength from Hashem to continue his proper thoughts throughout the day, thereby enabling him to free himself of the limitations of the Yetzer Hara. Thus, one can return to be “pure gold,” unblemished by any unholy conduct. Then, his connection to Tzadikim and the entire Jewish People becomes fully revealed again.
4- “עַד יְרֵכָה עַד פִרְחָה מִקְשָה הִוא”
“From its top to its bottom, the entire Menorah was made of one solid piece” - Besides for nullifying our ego before Hashem during prayer, we also need to nullify our ego towards other people. One way to do this is to reflect on the following concept:
Just as in the Menorah, the gold that started out on the top of the block shifted position towards the bottom when it was beaten with the hammer, and the gold that was originally positioned at the bottom of the block, through the blows of the hammer shifted position towards the top; so too, all the Jewish souls are interconnected and have a “shifting effect” on each other. This means that sometimes an average person becomes inspired to do more Mitzvos and learn more Torah, etc., not because of his own merits, but because he is receiving this inspiration from the soul of someone else that is connected to him. The opposite is also true; sometimes an average person becomes overwhelmed with negative desires and feelings, which drags him down to sin, not because of his own bad behavior, but because he was affected negatively by the soul of someone else that is connected to him. When we look at someone else, we should remind ourselves that the good things they do are from their own hard work, and the sins they do could be from my own bad behavior that had a negative effect on them. And when we look at ourselves, we should judge ourselves that the good things we do are because we receive inspiration from other peoples’ good behavior, and when we sin, it is our own fault that we chose not to listen to Hashem.
When we think this way, we can nullify our ego towards other people, seeing only the good in them and attributing their flaws to the fact that we need to work more on ourselves.
The maamar concludes by teaching that after we spiritually make ourselves into a Menorah by nullifying our ego and our physical desires and working to fear Hashem during prayer, then Aharon, the level of Hashem’s abundant kindnesses, will “light us up.” Meaning that Hashem will reveal a great, fiery and illuminated love for Hashem into us during prayer, on an infinitely deeper level than we could ever generate through our own efforts alone. (See Lesson in Torah Or for Parshas Ki Sisa for more on this).
