The poet Mary Oliver once wrote:
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
It’s hard to recognize the gift of darkness while it’s in our hands. It’s quite a poetic human condition: One moment we are experiencing the sheer joy of the gift of God’s love and, in the very next moment, we are given a box of darkness. A total collapse, the overwhelm of suffering, moments where we are only left with questions of why?
But sometime later, sometimes years later, when we’ve survived, we can look back and realize that only from the place of darkness did something grow. We can see that an awakening occurred. Not because the darkness was good, but because what emerged within the darkness was good.
In Parshat Beha’alotekha we have two powerful examples of boxes full of darkness. First, we see Moshe, our fearless leader, collapse under pressure. He cries out “I cannot carry all these people by myself, for it is too much for me” (Bamidbar 11:14). A man facing extreme burnout, vulnerability and a burden too heavy to carry.
And the gift that emerges? God responds by creating community. Seventy elders get called up who will diversify the leadership and create a shared role to help Moshe carry the weight.
Soon after, the Torah tells us that Miriam is afflicted with tzara’at, a disease of the skin, and quarantined and shut out of camp for days. She becomes a woman in a place of illness, loneliness and isolation.
And what comes from this isolation? “The people did not move on…”
The entire nation stops. They wait for her and her darkness becomes a shared pause. A nation standing still to not leave behind one person.
In the beginning of the parsha, God tells Moshe that Aaron needs to “make the lights go up” (Bamidbar 8:2). Rashi explains this: “one must kindle them (the lights) until the light ascends of its own accord.” The Lubavitcher Rebbe takes this teaching even deeper and says that each soul is like a candle, and it is our job to be lamplighters (chabad.org). When the light is dim in a person, we need to be like Aaron and hold a light for this person, closely and patiently until their own light catches fire and begins to rise on its own. Sometimes, in the darkness, we cannot see that a sanctuary is still surrounding us. But the ultimate truth that the parsha comes to teach is that the darkness is not the end.
Moshe’s darkness served as an invitation for the community to carry the load. And Miriam’s darkness caused the nation to pause. Both times, their flames were ignited when they themselves no longer saw the spark.
Sometimes in life we are the lamp, and sometimes the lamplighter. And the Rebbe reminds us that no matter how dim the light is, the spark isn’t gone. It is only our duty to remember, when we are in the dark, that it is not ours alone to carry. There is a lamplighter somewhere in the world meant for us. And conversely, when we see someone in the dark, our duty is to be like Aaron and hold the flame close, lovingly and steady until they can rise again on their own.
May we all be blessed that the boxes of darkness in our lives are revealed as gifts, speedily and in good time. And may we each merit to be and receive lamplighters along the way.
