Fuel, Flames, and Burnout: A study in continuity

by Raphael Morris

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The English words ‘continual’ and ‘continuous’ mean different things. A continual process happens indefinitely, but at regular intervals. A continuous process occurs without interruption. If I continually drink water, I’m going to stay hydrated. But if I continuously drink water, I’m probably going to make myself sick from chugging it without pausing for breath.

According to the Torah, there are two different kinds of flames in the mishkan that one might think of as ‘eternal flames’. One is the ner tamid, the flame of the lamps. The other is the esh tamid, the flame of the altar.

The ner tamid was continual, not continuous - at least originally. Through the miracle of Chanukah and rabbinic interpretation, it was transformed into the perpetual light familiar from modern-day synagogues. But in the Biblical instruction (Exodus 27:20-21), the word tamid (‘eternal’) occurs to modify the verb l’haalot (‘to kindle’), not the noun ner (‘lamp’). We are instructed to kindle lamps continually, and that they should burn from evening to morning. The lights are to stay burning every night. But a straightforward reading of the text suggests that these lamps will burn out every day, and will be rekindled before each nightfall. There is no obligation to keep the lamps burning constantly.

The esh tamid, on the other hand, is a genuine eternal flame that must never go out. We learn this in this week’s parasha, Parashat Tzav: “A perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar, not to go out” (Leviticus 6:6). The fire must burn all through the night, consuming the burnt offering. And every morning, the priest feeds new wood to the fire to keep it going through the day, too.

Even if the ner tamid is better known in the contemporary synagogue, the esh tamid has a far more important job in the mishkan. It can’t just shine and look pretty - it has to physically consume flesh and bone, reducing it to ashes. And it must never die out, not even for a moment.

How does the esh tamid manage such a monumental task? By using different fuel.

The ner tamid requires clear-beaten, pure olive oil, manufactured to exacting standards. It burns cool and clean, and requires a time-consuming process to produce (especially accounting for purity laws). The time taken to produce such oil is a key plot point in the Chanukah story - the small vessel of pure oil needs to last eight days because it takes that long to make more.

The esh tamid, the altar flame, just burns wood. Wood is plentiful and burns hot (which is why it’s so good for wood-fired pizza). As an unprocessed natural resource, it can’t become impure. Of course, it doesn’t burn as cleanly as olive oil, it won’t work in an oil lamp. (Also, it can be extinguished with water, which is a very bad idea for dealing with an oil fire.)

When you need to shine, to beautify and sanctify a space, you might need to burn pure, expensive resources. But when you’re just trying to survive, to do the things you need to do on the level of flesh and bone, the things you can’t stop doing even for a moment? Then you burn what you can get.

Disability activist Christine Miserandino writes about how she once attempted to explain what living with chronic illness is like. She was eating with a friend at the time, and grabbed as many spoons as she could reach, and handed them to her friend. “Here you go,” she said, “you have Lupus.”

Christine then asked her friend to list her daily tasks, even simple ones, from basics to chores to leisure. As her friend began to list them, Christine took away a spoon for each task, sometimes interrupting to point out where her friend had glossed over tasks that actually did require resources.

Getting out of bed cost a spoon. Eating breakfast cost a spoon. Taking medication, a spoon. Showering, a spoon. Getting dressed, a spoon.

By the time she got to work, she had six spoons left - nowhere near enough to do everything she wanted, or even needed to do. She would have to make choices about where to spend her limited energy.

Born out of this powerful metaphor, the framework of Spoon Theory has given countless disabled people a new tool to explain their lived experiences over the past couple of decades. Amongst my social circle, where most of us are disabled, spoons are a ubiquitous shorthand for energy levels and cognitive and emotional capacities. “Do you have the spoons to provide support?” is a common text message.

Spoon Theory excels at expressing how limited our resources are, the trade-offs we have to make every day. But like all models, it’s an oversimplification.

Not all spoons are created equal. You have big spoons and small spoons, deep spoons and shallow spoons, even sporks that will do in a pinch. The differences are both qualitative and quantitative. And you can’t get change for spoons. If you use a big spoon for a small task, you don’t get a small spoon back.

As someone with ADHD, this normally manifests for me in terms of hyperfocus. I can summon tremendous reserves for tasks that interest me and command my attention, like studying Torah. But when I need to wrench my focus away and make dinner, I struggle. And as the sages remind us, physical sustenance is just as important as intellectual and spiritual fulfilment. “If there is no flour, there is no Torah” (Pirkei Avot 3:21).

Sometimes you need different fuels for different purposes. What gives you energy for spiritual pursuits might not help you through your daily chores. What lets you push through your work might keep you so switched on that you can’t relax and wind down. You burn olive oil for the ner tamid and wood for the esh tamid. But what happens when all your fuel reserves are running low?

You can put olive oil on the altar, if you need to. Use that last bit of energy you’d been saving to exercise to make dinner instead, because your leftovers went bad. It won’t do much, but it will do something. And if the altar fire must never go out, maybe you figure that it’s worth using the oil until the next bundle of wood arrives. And you pray that another miracle will happen, that you’ll get more oil in time.

You always hope for a miracle. But if you could rely on them, they wouldn’t be miracles.

Sometimes you run out. In the words of the Israeli singer-songwriter David Broza: “l’famim ani nishbar” - sometimes, I break down.

So what do we do when we don’t have the capacity to do everything we need to do? When we can’t get wood for the altar? What happens when the flame that must never go out goes out?

The author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel experienced firsthand in Auschwitz what it is like when a person is simply pushed past their limits. When there just isn’t enough fuel for the fire.

Wiesel tells an old Hasidic tale about what happens when we don’t have the resources to do the things we need to do. He tells about how when the Jews were threatened with disaster, the Baal Shem Tov would go into a certain part of the forest. He would light a fire, say a special prayer and - miraculously - the calamity would be averted.

Years later, his disciple, the Magid of Mezritch, had to pray for salvation under similar circumstances. He went to the same place in the forest and said the same prayer, but confessed to God that he did not know how to light the fire. But this was enough, and the danger was prevented.

A generation later, it fell to Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov to save his people. He went to the special place in the forest, and said “I do not know how to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient.” And it was sufficient.

Finally, evil rose up against the Jews in the time of Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn. The rabbi sat in his house, head in his hands. He spoke to God: “I cannot light the fire. I do not know the prayer. I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is tell the story, and this must be sufficient.” And it was.

So what do we do when the fire that must never go out goes out?

Well, in fact, it did.

The esh tamid hasn’t burned in the Temple altar for nearly two thousand years. We’ve replaced the sacrifices and offerings that it once consumed with other rituals. With prayers and chants and words. With stories.

When we can’t get the necessities, we redefine ‘necessities’. We mourn, we kvetch, we keep the dream alive. We microwave a bagel and have an apple instead of making dinner, because some food is better than no food.

When we can’t keep the fire burning, we find other sources of heat. We huddle together for warmth in community, supporting one another as we recover from burnout.

And we survive.

Survival looks different when you have to redefine ‘necessities’. But that doesn’t make it any less miraculous. If anything, it makes it more miraculous.

Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech HaOlam, shehechyanu, vekiyamanu, vehigiyanu lazman hazeh.

Blessed are you, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who has given us life, and sustained us, and brought us to this time.

May we survive another day, one day at a time.

Ken yehi ratzon.

Raphael Morris (he/they) is an AuDHD rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. He feels privileged to be part of an intellectual tradition where his preferred modes of cognition, learning, and communication are not just tolerated but actively valued. In his spare time, he enjoys wiki walking, Talmud, long rambling conversations and anything else tangential.