Parshah Commentary

In this week’s parshah, Tetzaveh, God instructs Moses in the Tabernacle’s priestly rituals, including intricate descriptions of the priests’ clothing and detailed explanations of various forms of animal sacrifice. After the Israelites completed their 40 years of wandering and entered the Land of Israel, the laws prescribed in Tetzaveh continued to be observed in the Temple in Jerusalem. But following the destruction of both the First and Second Temples, in 586 BCE by the Babylonians and 70 CE by the Romans, the laws and rites set out in this parshah ceased to be operable—with one exception. The parshah opens with the commandment to establish a “ner tamid,” or “eternal light,” which “Aaron and his sons shall set up in the Tent of Meeting, to burn from evening to morning before the Lord.” God explicitly states that the obligation to keep this light burning is not only in effect in the Tabernacle but “shall be a due from the Israelites for all time, throughout the ages.” In keeping with this injunction, synagogues the world over still keep a ner tamid perpetually lit above the ark.

Why is the eternal light different from every other ritual in this parshah, such that it alone should be binding “for all time”? Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, the 19th-century mystical commentator known as the Sefat Emet, answers this question by way of metaphor, reinterpreting the eternal light in order to offer a comprehensive understanding of Jewish observance. The Sefat Emet cites a classical midrash about the ner tamid, which plays off of two separate verses from Proverbs: “The human soul is a candle of God” and “a commandment is a candle.” The midrash places these two verses alongside each other, using a kind of spiritual transitive property to equate the human soul with commandments, because both are likened to divine flames. Following this logic, the midrash states that “anyone who fulfills a mitzvah, it is as though they kindle a lamp before God, and thereby sustain their soul.” The eternal light that we are commanded to maintain is, according to the Sefat Emet’s extension of this interpretation, our own spiritual life. We must ensure that this inner vitality is never extinguished, an objective that can be guaranteed through the regular performance of mitzvot, which keeps the flame of our soul burning.

But mitzvot, for the Sefat Emet, are not merely laws or rituals we are obligated to observe. He reinterprets the Hebrew name of this parshah, Tetzaveh—literally “you shall command”—as “you shall become commandments.” Through this reading, the Sefat Emet urges us not just to practice mitzvot but to transform our lives into them. In this, the Sefat Emet invokes a broader understanding of mitzvot than the standard definition of “commandments.” Drawing on a rich tradition, including the 16th-century kabbalist Moshe Chaim Luzzatto’s understanding of mitzvot as voluntary expressions of love and the early Hasidic view of mitzvot as means of connection with God, the Sefat Emet sees mitzvot not as particular activities or obligations, but as expressions of a comprehensive relational attitude toward the world and toward divinity. In a life shaped by this attitude, every action becomes a possible site for embodying the compassionate divine presence. Each intentionally caring act, however seemingly mundane, thus takes on the sacred status of a mitzvah.

The Torah’s description of the ner tamid, then, does not just materially obligate us to maintain a light in our places of worship. It also obligates us, in the Sefat Emet’s understanding, to perpetually strive to fashion ourselves into sacred vessels of divinity. Rather than understanding mitzvot from a legalistic perspective—as discrete, compulsory behaviors prescribed by the Torah—the Sefat Emet takes a notably expansive view, extending the category of mitzvot to include all those actions that nourish us spiritually and radiate the divine presence outward. This, he explains, is the significance of the Hebrew word ”tamid,” or “eternal”: The ner tamid, and the theology of Jewish commandedness it represents, is eternal not just because it is incumbent on us for all time, but because it encompasses every moment and every action of our lives.

Daniel Kraft is a writer, translator, and educator living in Richmond, Virginia.