This week we're in parashat Tetzaveh, which begins with an instruction that the children of Israel shall burn purest olive oil in lamps above/outside the ark of the covenant, as a reminder of God's presence.

Thinking of those lamps reminded me of a summer storm, and a power outage, and different kinds of light. That's what sparked this week's post at Radical Torah:

The physical light is a kind of mnemonic device, a reminder to us that on the deepest and highest levels divinity is always pouring into and animating the world in which we live. Torah too is light, a source of beauty that is never-ending. I like thinking in these terms, and considering the nature of the divine light in all of us. And as for our physical lights: given the delicious interpretations we can place on light and learning, whether we garner our physical light via oil and wick, or via electricity and filament, hardly seems to matter.

Except that it does matter. In the industrialized global North we're burning through fossil fuels at an alarming rate, which obligates us to consider what we consume...

Read the whole thing here: Eternal light.

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