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Torah Portion -
Terumah
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Written by d fine
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Here’s one for the secret amateur grammarians out there. The pasuk (25:31) calls the Menorah a menoras zahav - a golden Menorah. The words the pasuk uses mean that the Menorah is called a ‘golden Menorah’ as opposed to a ‘Menorah made of gold’ (menorah shel zahav). This is out of the ordinary, for the Torah does not call the Shulchan, for example, a ‘wooden table,’ but rather ‘a table made of wood’ (25:23). Why is the Menorah different? The Netziv answers (gloriously) that the pasuk did so in order to put the word Menorah next to the word ‘tahor’ (pure) - hinting to us that the Menorah only gives off its light properly if the generation are pure in their deeds. Indeed, this is why in the Chanukah story there was no light shining from the Menorah (no oil, remember) - for the generation were not acting in a pure manner. As the Netziv writes, the same applies to the concept that the Menorah represents the power of learning Torah in depth - this ability also depends on our application to building this skill and holy discipline.
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