"Speak to Aaron, and tell him, 'When you light the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light in front of the lampstand.'"
The Ohr Hachaim asks, why does the Torah repeat itself with ‘speak to Aaron’ and then ‘tell him’? What is the point of telling him twice? And why with two different verbs?
The Ohr Hachaim explains the answer using a Medrash Tanchuma. The Medrash says, why is the parsha of the Menorah juxtaposed to the Parsha of the Leaders? In last week’s parsha, we ended with the gifts and korbanos the leaders of each tribe brought in honor of the dedication of the new mishkan. Why is that parsha immediately followed with the parsha of how the cohanim should light the menorah? The Medrash answers that Aaron Hacohen was crestfallen when he realized that all of the other leaders and tribes had taken part in the dedication of the mishkan, when his hasn’t. He was not inspired like the rest of his colleagues to take part, and they indeed did not merit to do so. Hashem consoled him by telling him, ‘By your life – your portion is greater than theirs because you light and clean the lamps each evening and morning.
These words of the Tanchuma are puzzling. The Ohr Hachaim has multiple questions.
First, how is the mitzvah of lighting the menorah a consolation for not bringing the dedication korbanos? How are they even similar to each other?
Second, why was the menorah the consolation and not all of his other jobs in the mishkan, such as the korbanos tamid, the musaf korban on Yomtov, the daily Ketores, and more?
Third, even the korbanos that the Leaders of the tribes brought were actually dealt with by the cohanim. It was Aaron and his sons who took the blood and placed it on the mizbeach, they placed the meat on the fire arrangement on the top of the mizbeach, and they took charge of the new vessels that were donated. How can anyone say that they had no part in it? Why did he need the menorah to be consoled?
The Ohr Hachaim quotes the Gemara in Menachos (88a), ‘how did he clean the menorah? He would remove the branches and wipe them with a sponge and fill them with oil.’ The other opinion disagrees and holds that the branches were affixed to the menorah, but were thin enough that they could be bent down to a person’s height, where he would wipe them and return them to their place. See Rashi there for corroboration.
The Ohr Hachaim writes a surprising point here. He says that he can prove that the first opinion in the Gemara is correct, not the second. When the Torah describes the forming of the menorah, it goes into great detail. Yet, we are never told that the branches should point to the center of the menorah. Only when the commandment to light the menorah was given were we told this point. If the lamps and branches of the menorah were fixed, this would be relevant at the time of the forming of the menorah. The branches would have to be formed in a way that pointed the lights to the center of the menorah. Now that the Torah waited until the parsha of lighting the Menorah to tell us how the lamps should be situated in the menorah, we can be sure that this was only relevant to the actual lighting of the menorah, not the forming of the menorah. This is because the lamps were removable and were placed in such a way that the light would point to the center.
The Ohr Hachaim proves his point another way. The possuk in Parshas Bamidbar describes how they would organize the mishkan and its vessels to travel. We are told (Bamidbar 4:9), ‘They shall take a blue cloth, and cover the lampstand of the light, and its lamps, and its snuffers, and its snuff dishes, and all its oil vessels, with which they minister to it.’ The menorah must be covered with this blue cloth, as well as its lamps, scissors, shovels, and other oil vessels. Obviously, the lamps of the menorah were separate from the actual menorah. If it were not so, why would they have to be specified? Were they not covered along with the menorah?
These two proofs are sufficient to teach us that the lamps and branches of the menorah were separate from the menorah and removable to be cleaned. After being cleaned, they would be returned daily to their places. The Ohr Hachaim shows us that Rashi in Divrei Hayamim (II, 4:20) proves this, too.
After proving this point, the Ohr Hachaim can answer his questions. Aaron Hacohen was sad that he did not take part in the dedication of the mishkan. Hashem told him that his dedication of the mishkan was not once in a lifetime, it would be a daily affair. Each day, he would rebuild the menorah and be privileged to dedicate it again. Each lighting is a new dedication, with a new menorah. This was a true consolation for the one-time dedication ceremony that the other leaders participated in.
The medrash says that Aharon’s consolation was that he lights and cleans the menorah each evening and morning. We know that the Halacha is that they only lit the menorah in the evening. The mishna (Tamid 3:9) tells us that the western lamp needs to be lit day and night. The Toras Cohanim says that a Cohen who found that the western lamp had been extinguished would clean it and relight it from the fire of the mizbeach. The western lamp was lit every day, besides the night ceremony.
This is why the Torah repeated the command with the words דַּבֵּר... וְאָמַּרְ תָ , because there were two daily opportunities for Aaron to follow in the footsteps of the leaders of the tribes and dedicate the new menorah.
