You wake up, check your phone and get ready for the day. Along the way, each of us has learned to put up a version of ourselves “a template” that feels safe to show the world. Most of the time it runs quietly in the background. However, here’s the thing: a template isn’t really you. It’s an edited version of you.
The Talmud says that before you were born, a candle was lit above your head. By its light, you were taught the entire Torah, every letter. Then, right before you entered the world, you forgot all of it.
Why teach a baby the whole Torah only to erase it?
This week’s portion opens with “Reeh Anochi”, “See, I place before you today a blessing.” Anochi, “I,” is the same word that opens the Ten Commandments: “Anochi”, “I am the L-rd your G-d.” What G-d gave at Sinai wasn’t only Torah, it was His essence, a piece of Himself inside each of us.
That’s what the candle really is. Not information, an imprint. The forgetting is real; you don’t consciously remember any of it, and yet it never left. It sits underneath every template and deeper than all of them: the part of you already connected to G-d before you’ve done a single thing to earn it.
This changes how we treat each other. That candle lit in every person, is the very same light. The Chassidic masters stress this again and again. The light of the person who seems to have wandered from Judaism is no dimmer then the regular Shul goer who eats only Kosher. It’s the same candle, perhaps just more hidden.
When we size someone up by their curated “template” self; how observant they look, how they dress, how put together they seem, we’re mistaking them for their external. We’re looking at the outside of the lantern and forgetting there’s a flame inside.
When we make someone feel they have to perform to belong, we’re unknowingly asking them to keep their candle hidden. When we accept people as they are, without commenting either verbally or with body language, without the quiet running scorecard, something opens up. We become the kind of place where a person’s inner light finally feels safe to come out.
This is exactly how G-d relates to us. “Yisrael alu b’machshava”, we arose in His thought. He doesn’t relate to our external, he sees the candle. When He looks at any one of us, He sees the flame He lit before we drew our first breath.
To make others feel welcome, let them be themselves. Hold their differences without judgment, it isn’t just being nice, it’s seeing people the way Heaven sees them.
Maybe, in learning to see the light in everyone else, we will finally trust that it’s burning in us too.
Good Shabbos and may you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.
Rabbi Kushi Schusterman