The Soul Is Hashem’s Candle

“The soul of a person is the candle of Hashem, searching all the inner rooms of the heart.” Opening “The soul of a person is the candle of Hashem.” It is a short verse, only a few words, but whole worlds are inside it. A simple Jew might ask: what does a candle have to do with a soul? A candle is a thing made of wax and a wick. The soul is truly divine. Why did King Solomon put the two together? There is another question. When a person gives charity, what exactly is he giving? A coin. A piece of paper. Numbers in a bank account. Something completely material. What does that have to do with the light of the soul? This is exactly where our explanation begins. Your Money Is Your Life Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya (the classic book of Hasidic thought), writes in one of his letters that when a person gives charity, he is not giving something outside himself. He is giving his own “blood and fat,” the very stuff of his life. The money you earned is the essence of the time you gave, the strength you put in, and the hours you stood and worked hard. Every coin is truly a piece of your life. Think about this for a moment. When a person works, he puts in his soul, his strength, and his days, which will never come back. The pay he brings home is not just “money.” It is himself, in different clothing. Money is, so to speak, the clothing of a person’s vitality. So when a person opens his hand and gives, he is not “spending money.” He is passing a part of his own vitality into another person’s world. Giving Is the Lighting This is where the meaning of the verse begins. “The soul of a person is the candle of Hashem.” The soul is Hashem’s candle. But a candle that is not lit gives no light at all. A candle needs someone to light it. So what lights the soul in this world? Charity. When a person gives, he takes his vitality, which is dressed in his money, and moves it out of his own hands into the world. He is, so to speak, lighting the candle of his soul inside the material world. One small candle, one tiny flame, can light up an entire dark room. In the same way, a little vitality passed from hand to hand can light up whole souls. Don’t say, “What good can my one small penny do?” Our Sages teach in the Talmud that every single penny adds up to a large sum. More than that, every act of giving, however small, is a complete lighting all by itself. One candle is a whole candle. The Maker’s Power Stays in What He Made: A Deed That Lasts Forever Now we come to the deep new idea here. A physical candle will go out. Physical money will run out. But the vitality passed on through an act of charity never runs out. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi explains this in the part of the Tanya called “The Gate of Unity and Faith.” He teaches that the power of the maker stays inside what he makes. The maker’s power does not disappear from what came into being through him. It remains inside it and keeps working in it all the time. When you give from your vitality, that vitality keeps moving forward. It keeps living inside the reality it helped create, long after the coin itself is gone. Picture a person whose charity made it possible to teach a child, to keep a family going, or to light a candle of hope in a dark place. His vitality keeps traveling through the world. It passes on further. It may reach places he never imagined. He doesn’t know it. But it is there. This is not a pretty figure of speech. It is a real spiritual fact.

Concepts: remembrance