The Upside Down Menorah | Parshas Tetzaveh

to the optimist the cup is half full to the pessimist the cup is half empty to the engineer the cup is twice as big as it needs to be we're gonna talk about cups why are we gonna talk about cups you probably started to piece together the fact we handed out these papers you can look with your neighbor the papers are the class is free but the papers are $10 each I'll get to this in a second parsha stats of it begins with the Mitzvah - aha rain Misha's brother the Kohen Gadol to Kindle the lamps the monody of the candelabrum every day in the base hammock - also in our parsha we talk about the placement of them inator which we will talk about a little bit more in a bit last week in Patras terumah we spoke about the design of the manera and we're going to talk about that a little bit right now part of the design of the manera is that there are ornamental cups I don't mean on the top where the what where that whether they actually poured the oil where there was actual receptacles for burning the oil I mean ornamental on each arm or grant of the Manoa there there are what are described as vm vm literally mean chalices or cups or goblets and according to our sages in the gomorian manoah's offer has Aleph it took off his base of Kafka's almond base in menorahs he talks about Alexander II goblets which everybody of course knows about the Alexandrian goblets which are all the rage well 2000 years ago they were all the rage at any rate but if you went to Ikea in Babylonia and you know the 400s you would find Alexander Alexander and goblets are basically narrow at the base and wide at the mouth and sort of like a flared goblet yeah kind of almost like a martini glass but more narrow I guess like a champagne flute I don't know whatever you can ask I'm not into these things I don't know what do I know but this is a drawing that their album drew in his pedestal Mathias the Rambam wrote many fought in one of which is the commentary on the Mishnah and this particular drawing goes along with the third chapter of Manolis and this is a sketch which actually was in the it still is in the oxford university library at least for the past four four or five hundred years it's been there and that album drew this himself and as you see the game the goblets you see how they're depicted with the narrow end at the top and the flared end at the bottom now let me ask you a question picture a cup hold on to say I'm gonna hide my real cup so that you have to picture picture a cop in your mind's eye the archetypical Cup or imagine asking a five year old draw a picture of a cup if the little five-year-old draws a picture of a cup where's the open and and where is the closed end open under the top closed is on the bottom right that's a cop and yet you look here these Alexandrian goblets this VM I mean they're I understand they're not functional their ornamental nevertheless the bottom is on the top and the top is on the bottom now some say well it was just a sketch it wasn't meant to be that exact okay not it is a sketch it isn't that exactly what still something like that to actually literally make something upside down the opposite of how it's supposed to be and by the way that's that's it's a serious question not just like aesthetically in the base hamikdash and then in the michigan everything had to be right side up in fact we learned this from the fact that even the the planks of acacia wood which were the crushin the boards for the walls of the Michigan had to be placed in the direction in which they grew in which the tree originally grew because everything yeah everything has to be perfect everything has to be flawless impeccable and and therefore everything has to be right side up so how do we have this upside down Cup even if I understand it's it's not functional its ornamental nevertheless why would we have this symbol of an upside-down Cup and I'm an arrow which is supposed to be you know this perfect vessel representing this archetypical idea it's a funny concept okay so I'm gonna tell you a story the story actually I'm gonna tell you two stories one story is in order to be able to tell you the second story actually I could tell you the second story I don't need to tell you the first story the first story is in order that the second story should make more sense here's the first start first story is about an Israeli soldier in the Sinai back in the 70s before they gave it away and he was stationed there and one day a jeep full of Labov ature see them pull up and they jump out of the Jeep and they start handing out little food packages to all the soldiers and little did this young man know but the day was poor him didn't realize it was poor and they started handing out these these shallow kimonos and I said how happy poor me I'm from Samara from Nanami moolah Babak so he says you know I don't know who this Robbie mahabhava is but it's very nice of him to send me a present this started this started his return to Yiddish kite but not not all at once and definitely not even quickly it was a it was a slow process and but this started when he received that gift when he received that Shalom onus in that porn day in the Sinai long story short what happened is and this happens to many Israelis they leave Aerts as well they go to hood slaughters and that's where they have their real spiritual awakening so this young man his name was Moshe and his name still is Moshe a machete or he came to Chicago and there he met the Shriya rabbi Moskowitz all of a solemn and became very close to our mascots and he started to become close to this guy more observant and eventually rabbi massacres took a Reb machete to mockney slow development fund you heed this clawless there was a for certain donors there was an event where the deborah would sit downstairs not upstairs in his room but downstairs and they would have like a group meeting and people who were part of this group would would have a sort of one-on-one moment with the rabbit so his moment came and they never asked him a question that ever said you know in Judaism we emphasize the right side we start everything with the right even getting dressed we start with the right everything's emphasizing the right the right is kindness the right is is hasit so he that ever said it's funny when hush made the human being you have two main organs that the whole body depends any of the brain you have the heart now the brain is in the middle that makes sense because it's central so physically also it is placed in the center the heart though not only is it not central but if it's shifted off to one side of the other you would think it would be on the prom the prominent side on the right side but the heart instead is off on the left side so that that seems funny why did a Shem do that when he designed the human being so well sure I had no idea what to answer you'd never thought about this and there was no no no answer came to mind so he just sort of stood there you know in dumbfounded so that ever answered whatever said you know the heart is the seat of emotion and the primary emotion is love love is a feeling that I have in order to connect me with someone else so my heart isn't really for me my heart is for you therefore my heart is on the right side when one Jew faces another Jew in Ava's heathrow so your heart is on the right side not your right side but your heart's not for you anyways your heart is for the one who you're loving your heart is on the person who you're facing it's on their right side your right is their left your left is their right so your heart is on the right side the right side of the other Jew exactly where it belongs and at that moment Moshe realized that you know his journey to you this Cape began because he received the gift somebody remembered him somebody thought of him they sent himself - unplumbed when he didn't even know it was warm but now he realized it was all about giving the gift about being the one who would inspire others and he became a huge supporter he started you shivers and coals and it's wrong and and the idea is that giving isn't something that's extra giving is basic to life itself to the extent that when Hashem designed us when Hashem made the human body and and planned its Anatomy the human body itself would testify to the fact that we are most functional we are most alive we are most healthy when we are in a giving mode because we were built forgiving to the extent that our heart is not even on our right side it's on the recipients right side exactly where it belongs we're built forgiving so the whole model is counterintuitive until you realize no it's not about receiving it's about giving once you realize the whole thing is about giving now it makes perfect sense where the heart is placed but you just have to flip the paradigm okay that's my first story second story took place on simcha styler tough shin mem love that means the last few months of 1985 and customarily their Everwood fab rang you'd lead a gathering and then there would be a short intermission and then they would start Hawk office Hawk office would go all night long at the Fabri n' they never had his backer his silver kiddush cup and they never said Jaime drank 'la Jaime finished the wine that was in the cup and when he finished it then he turned it over turned over the cup upside down and held it up and showed everybody and there was an amazing uproar everybody started getting excited basically the the rabbit was motioning to everyone finish your cup you know drink the whole contents of the cup and in every and then everyone started turning over their cups and never explained what's the idea of the upside-down Cup by the way I should mention to you there was a mention there was a brief intermission between the fabrini in' and the hack office that ever remained in shul but the rabbits and was in the library in the building next door Leben that eveson lived on President Street a few blocks away but on yump if they were they would move in to the library and somebody else would go and make kiddush for the rabbits enduring that break because that ever would stay in shul except for one year actually 1988 the NEB himself went to the library and made kiddush in fact that ever went to the room where the Rebbetzin was and then made sure everybody else left the room and then privately that ever made kiddush for the rabbits in that was actually the last year before she passed away and he was one of those things that looking back is sort of uncanny in any way this was 1985 somebody else went to go make kiddush for the Rebbetzin and when they went it was a group of them the rabbits and asked about the fabrini in' and they told her all was very that was very exciting that ever finished the lehayim and he turned the cup upside down in motion to everybody they should finish their la hymen everyone should hold their cups upside down and it was very very exciting and the person I heard the story from was actually there he said the rabbits and was a very like mild mannered very modest very low-key woman she was she was sitting at her table and he was listening like she was always very attentive and very you know a very very gracious host but quietly while she was listening to this description of the faux Brennan they saw she took the teacup there was by her place setting and she discreetly just flipped over the teacup upside down so she she should also have an upside-down Cup so what's the upside down cup that ever explained at that at that fabric the rebus said that in the basin mikdash they have the menorah and the menorah has ornamental cups on it and the cups the way their album drew them are quote unquote upside down upside down however the term upside down is a relative term upside down is is relative it's all dependent upon context it depends what you're trying to do if you're trying to hold on to something so the open part on top is called right-side up but if you're trying to dispense if you're pouring then that would be called upside down and having the open part on the bottom would be called right-side up so it all depends on what the purpose of a cup is if you look at a cup as a receptacle then the open part has to be on the top but if you look at the cup as dispensing as pouring as giving than the open part has to be on the bottom well let's figure it out what was the purpose of the manator altogether we have it in this week's barcia pedicle Zion pasa cough Aleph 2721 it says Hashem is telling make sure that they should like the manator Aaron should like terminator the Cohanim and then he says where it should be by Al made in the tent of meeting Macoutes Lapera has outside of the curtain a share al ha a dose which is in front of the testimony what is the a dose what is the testimony so the Gemara Shabbos cough base almond base says that the testimony is that the light of the menorah was not for the base a McDonough actually the Komodo asks like this how why does Hashem need lighting fixtures 40 years in the wilderness the Jews were following her shams light so gems got the light what it was they need to get a light the light wasn't for the base of mikdash it wasn't for our shams house the light was to shine from a shams house it was for the rest of the world so that a does the testimony is that the light of the menorah is not to light up the interior where it was placed in the room were was placing every other light to the country the aides the testimony is that the light of the menorah is to shine outward in to light up the rest of the world and indeed you see that the way that Schlemmer amel built the base of mikdash one after the Michigan there was the mikdash the permanent house in Judah shall I'm the way Schlemmer Melek built the base HaMikdash would never pass an energy audit why because it lost all the heat and the warmth the way he built the windows it says the the lotion of PASOK and said from Elohim is they built the windows of the base I make the shoe firm out to me and what did she do for my to me means a funny etymology truth my tomb in the commentaries say means flared outward normal windows in the old days were flared inward so that whatever light and warmth and heat there was would sort of expand diffuse inward into the room sort of like a reverse funnel the way phlegm amount who built the base ohmic this was the exact opposite it was narrow in the inside and would flare outward so that whatever light and warmth was inside was diffusing outside why did he do that because of this idea of a dose that the Noida wasn't to light the room that it was in it was to light the rest of the world everything but the room that it was in so therefore it makes perfect sense this what it ever said on some Costera when he turned the cups upside down he said this is not an upside-down cup just like in the base ohmic dish and we see this is the way that their album drew it these are not upside down cups these are right-side up cups but because if the cup is for the purpose of holding on to something yeah then you put the open part at the top but if the cup is for pouring if it's for dispensing if it's forgiving then you want to have to open part at the bottom and since the whole idea of the manoda is a dosas testimony that there's light coming from the base of ignition to the world and that the role of the Jewish people again to be a light unto the nations is not to receive but to give then these are right-side up cups and we could apply this to ourselves like the story that ever told Moshe Sewer about why the heart is on your left side because your heart is not yours your heart is for others it's on the others right side you can apply this to everything everything we have whether arts are our talents can our resources opportunities we were given they don't exist for us and they're not functional when they're just there as receptacles to hold on to something everything we have and we've been given it exists for others and it is functional when it's in the mode of dispensing and of giving that's a right-side up cop so everything we have in our lives everything we have to take stock and make sure that our cups are truly right-side up what what we might have thought of as upside down that's not upside down that's right side up everything we have everything we've been given everything that we have an opportunity to to do resources talents everything that's in our life we have to take stock and make sure then it's in the giving mode it's in the dispensing mode and and and when it is so that's when we are truly healthiest and happiest and that's when we are in tune with our godly designed function