Lights XX: Searching For The Cracks

“Your word is a candle for my feet and a light for my path”. King David compares the Torah both to the light of a candle and to the flame of the sun. The sun is the largest visible light. Yet, sometimes, the benefit of candlelight is more direct than that of the sun. With a candle, for example, one can search in holes and cracks, but one can not do so with the flame of the sun (Kad HaKemach, The Chanukah Light).

A person can use Torah as a light in the dark when he cannot move forward and needs his path illuminated (see Lights I).

Sometimes, we need to be directed ahead. Sometimes, we need the Torah to be our fluorescent sign blinking and showing us the way, as “a light for my path”.

But there are times when we feel a subtle imbalance, a faint aching, a slight hollow. This is when we can use the Torah as a “candle for my feet”; we can retrace our steps and as Rabbeinu Bachya describes, search in holes and cracks (think of Bedikat Chametz). The light of Torah will help us identify the source of those spiritual faults and fill them with its healing power.