The Menorah as a chart of the sefirot, a map of how God-energy moves inside everything.

The Jewish mystical tradition uses the map of the Sefirot to describe the intrinsic energy pattern of Creation on all levels, from the macro-cosmic to the microscopic. This "Tree of Life" is the Jewish description of the archetypal pattern – a dynamic unfolding of expressive, contracting, and balancing energies emerging from the Infinite Light of G!d. Through these pathways Creation unfolds anew every moment.

The divine flow moves through these sequential transformative stages so that as the flow morphs and "cools," the preconditions for material existence emerge gradually from the infinite and eternal "G!d-light," through progressive stages of emanation and manifestation. Everything we see is made of the cooled essence of the primordial "G!d-light."

The MENORAH is another way of illustrating how G!d-light moves. It is also a kind of map. The original Menorah was made out of one solid huge piece of gold with no separate parts. It was one flowing lamp made of gold, with bowls for pure olive oil on the top of each branch.

One way to understand the Menorah is as a kind of "receiver" – like a great satellite dish – receiving G!d-light and G!d-energy from beyond the universe and channeling that energy into the world and back to the Source. It was always kept lit, because when it was lit, it was activated, "on line."

The lights of the Menorah attracted and focused the Divine Light, and the energy-flow was very powerful.

When the Romans burned the Temple in Jerusalem they stole the Menorah. However, just as we understood that each human heart, and our collective hearts, are a Beyt HaMikdash to which we can bring the offerings of our prayers, we realized that each of us is also a menorah because the pattern of the Sefirot is in each one of us... so we can meditate, "yoga-style" - and experience our own souls as a menorah made in the pattern of the divine flow. 

The rabbis teach: Ner Elohim nishmat Adam - the human soul is a lamp of God."

When we light the candles on the Chanukah Menorah, it is true that there is a familiar historical component to this holiday that is easy to read about, but the more mystical meaning of lighting the menorah is that each night we light up the part of our souls which is one of the candles...

Lighting the Menorah was going "on-line" with the Divine flow, insuring that G!d-energy was flowing into the world.

When we each light the Chanukah Menorah, let us each BECOME a lamp for G!d .