Burnout has been a popular word as of late. Total exhaustion that so many are experiencing. The notion that folks have just been pushed to the limit, tested beyond belief. Ultimately, I think this feeling is connected to the question of what sustains us. To engage with the metaphor of burnout, we then ask: what can keep our flame going? How does the light stay lit, without fear of it being extinguished?
This week, in our Torah reading of Tetzaveh, we read about the ner tamid that burned in the Ohel Mo’ed, the Tent of Meeting. It was part of the Mishkan, the portable tabernacle that the Israelites carried with them as they journeyed towards the Promised Land. (Of course, the light that we have in our synagogues over the Ark harkens back to this same light.) This light in the Mishkan had to be lit at all times, and it was fed by the priests in order to ensure that God’s presence was always with the people, wherever their travels took them.
The Torah and the commentaries discuss the purpose of this light: to represent God always being with the people. To remind the people that God’s never-ending light can give way, can be a shamash, so to speak, to our own light. All of that is to say that we cannot be expected to sustain our own power. None of us can continue to light our own fires on our own; we each need to have others - God and other humans that are embodiments of the Divine - that help keep our light going.
Our world is one that can so easily convince us that we are alone. That if we don’t tend to our light and sustain it no one else will. But the ner tamid of the Temple was never just sustained by one individual. All of the Israelites were commanded to beat the olives that would provide the clear oil. The light that represents God’s presence, the ultimate light that nourishes the light inside of each of us, that is created collectively. That is created by all of us, to sustain each of us.
Sometimes, the hardest part is to allow the oil and light to feed us, to open ourselves up to lights that can nourish and sustain our own. We can be reluctant to hold our wicks close to the flames of others in our community, of dear friends, of therapists. But when our light becomes dim, it is these lights, these reflections of the Divine - they are the only way that we can keep our flame alive.
None of us has to power alone. As we light candles tonight to welcome in Shabbat, I hope that the Divine light brings each of us closer to the flames of others, igniting and powering the fire deep within.
