Aaron was entrusted with the task of arranging the outer six lamps of the menorah so that their lights project toward the seventh and central shaft. The Levites were consecrated to G-d as attendants to the Mishkan through a purification process. Only those males between the ages of thirty and fifty were selected for service. The Pesach after the exodus from Egypt was celebrated on the fourteenth of Nisan during the second year. Those who were impure, needed to wait one month (until the fourteenth of Iyar), to partake of the paschal offering. The cloud of the Lord guided the people’s path during the day. It changed to a pillar of fire at night. Moses asked his father in law, Jethro, to continue the journey with them, but he decides to remain with his own people. The Israelites begin to murmur against Moses and he complains to G-d that he cannot bear the burden alone. G-d commands Moses to assemble seventy elders who will be given the spirit of prophesy and help judge the people. Miriam is stricken with tza’aras for speaking out against Moses.
 
The parsha begins with a description of the menorah. The Torah states that it is to be “beaten” out of one piece of gold. Unlike the Chanukah menorah, this one had six branches and a seventh central shaft. This design resembled a fountain that begins with a solid base and sprouts upward. We can derive a valuable lesson from this concept. On one level, the menorah represents us. We can branch outward, in many directions, and retain a sense of stability, if we have a firm base of support (such as family, friends, the community, our religion and the Torah).
The education of our children does not begin and end with school. The recent episodes of school violence testify to the needs of family connectedness. Even with that support, the root cause of violent outburst is still poorly understood. As with any tragedy, the strength to survive the aftermath of any disaster, psychologically rests on the support of family and friends.
 
In Physics, stability comes from having a wide base and a low center of gravity. In Toronto, Canada, the CN Tower rests on a wide base and is one the tallest free standing structures in the world (it is not rooted in bedrock like a skyscraper). It may sway as winds buffet it, but its strength and endurance make it very stable. In much the same way, external forces and the yetzer hara, may cause us to sway from the path of righteousness. However, if we check our spiritual compass, have a strong spiritual base, we can be brought back on course.
 
The seven branches coming out of the single branch can also represent the different branches of Judaism. We are all Jews and together we can bring light to the world through the mitzvah of tikun olam, making the world a better place. The story si told about some people in a lifeboat. Suddenly, one of them starts to bore a whole underneath his seat. The other people scream at him saying, “What do you think your doing?” “Why should you care?”, says the man. “After all, it’s my seat and I can do whatever I want; its my decision.” “Fool!”, cry the others. “Don’t you see that we are all in the same boat! By putting a hole under your seat, you will sink us all!”
 
In the same way, we all have a responsibility to each other. We can all sink together or remain unified. Let us celebrate what we share in common and not fight over what disagreements we have over observance. The rest of the world looks at us as “Jews” and not as Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, or Reconstructionist. How we act, our performance of mitzvos, our moral values all reflect on the whole of Judaism and not just one branch. It says in the Talmud that if a Torah scholar acts rudely, he has committed a chillul Hashem (a desecration of the divine name). How is this so? The sages say, that when people see a scholar behaving in this way, they will mock the Torah and say “Woe to the person who taught him Torah; look what it produced!.” However, when someone acts honestly, deals graciously with people, and follows the ways of G-d to the best of their ability, people will say “How fortunate are the one’s who taught this person Torah”, and this is a kiddush Hashem (a sanctification of the divine name). In the same way, we all influence each other in the gentile world at large.

Rabbi Don Isaac Abarbanel said, “G-d takes no pleasure even in outwardly attractive deeds unless they are prompted by inward purity.” This means that we should try to act with proper motives. Performing a mitzvah with bad intentions in a sense takes away from the good that you are doing. The lights of the menorah were to rise to a higher level of spirituality. The menorah represents the “light of Torah” and divine wisdom. The word “ner”, which is usually translated as candle, has a gematria of 250 and a digit sum of seven. In Mishlei we read, “for mitzvos are a lamp, and Torah is the light”

(ner mitzvos, v’Torah ohr). Just as a lamp is the vessel that carries around the light, so too, mitzvos are the vessel that carries around the words of the Torah.
Moses provides an interesting lesson about rising to a higher spiritual level. Here is a man with all of the power in the world and he is not too proud to admit that he needs help. Moses was the humblest of all men. Even with the ability to meet with G-d face to face, he still remained humble. At the end of his life, Moses willingly asks G-d to appoint Joshua ben Nun as his successor. This is a lesson for us all about humility and the pursuit of honor. In Pirke Avot we read, “If a person chases honor, honor flees from him.”

The Midrash relates the following parable:

“A man hires someone to watch over an orchard. He agrees to pay the guardian a salary plus a certain percentage of the produce. Eventually, the task proves to be too much for the one person who asks for some assistance. The owner agrees but stipulates that under the circumstances, the salaries of the new workers will be taken out of all the money that he was willing to pay the single person. In the same way, G-d tells Moses to assemble seventy elders and some of the spirit of prophecy given to Moses will be given over to them.”

There are several questions concerning these seventy elders. First, the Torah uses the phrase “shevi’im ish” in which the word “ish” is singular for “man”. This teaches us that all of them were chosen so that they would follow G-d’s commands and not follow individual agendas. When a committee is designated to search for the truth, or govern an organization, it is expected that will act for the benefit of the whole organization and not themselves. This is an important lesson for us. The Torah mentions two men, Eldad and Meded by name. These two “remained behind”, but still were able to prophesize.

The sages explain that Moses originally could not decide how to select the seventy elders. He wanted equal representation from all of the twelve tribes. Five from each one would be too few (sixty) and six from each one would be too many (seventy-two). The Midrash says that Moses took seventy slips of paper and wrote the word “elder” on seventy of them. He then selected six from each tribe. The Midrash says that these were the overseers in Egypt who risked their lives to protect the people when Pharoah issued harsh decrees against the Israelites. The two who were not selected were Eldad and Meded. They did not complain and were rewarded by having their names recorded in the Torah and were allowed to retain their gift of prophesy for some time.

Why seventy elders? The Torah is silent on this issue but we can speculate. First, recall that there were seventy souls that originally went down into Egypt. Secondly, the number seventy alludes to the letter “ayin”, which has the numerical value of seventy, and means “eye”. These elders, who would judge the people with the gift of Torah knowledge, became the “eyes” of the people. Finally, the number seventy alludes to the word “ken”, which means “correct” as well as the word “b’chol” which means “according to all” (as in the phrase “b’chol dor v’dor”; “according to every generation”). The last topic to discuss concerns the punishment of Miriam for speaking loshen hara against Moses. The Torah states: “And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman.”

Why is there the repetition of the phrase “a Cushite woman”? Since the Torah is not supposed to contain any superfluous language, there must be a reason why the Torah refers to the wife of Moses, Zipporah, as a Cushite woman. In the Torah, the modern country of Ethiopia was known as “Cush”. But Zipporah was a Midianite, so what could be the reference? Rashi states that Zipporah’s inner beauty was reminiscent of the women from Cush, since the gematria of “cushite” is the same as the phrase “beautiful in appearance.” Rashi further states that the phrase is repeated since she was beautiful both inside and out.

The Midrash states that Miriam and Aaron were concerned that Moses had separated himself from his wife to devote himself totally to G-d’s work. This, they felt, was an excess burden on Zipporah since she needed Moses too. Thus after speaking out against Moses’ lack of attention to the needs of his wife, the Torah states that, “G-d’s anger was kindled against Miriam and Aaron.” Miriam was then stricken with tza’aras for speaking loshen hara.

From the narration, it would seem that both Miriam and Aaron spoke out against Moses. Yet the Torah states that only Miriam was stricken. After the punishment, it is Aaron who prays to G-d for forgiveness and pleads for Miriam to be healed (not Moses). While Aaron was not directly punished for his part in the matter, he became so upset seeing what happened to Miriam that he, in effect, was suffering also. Sometimes, watching someone else suffer for your mistake is harder to take than being punished yourself! Also, recall that Aaron was never really punished for allowing the people to build the golden calf, and yet a terrible punishment was meted out to the rebels.

Once again we see the evils of loshen hara. Thus, from the unity of the menorah, we see of easily we can be divided and undermined by a careless whisper. Just as a few drops of water can eventually wear down a rock, so too can the drops of loshen hara wear down the unity of the Jewish people!