B"H

The holidays are behind us and the long, ordinary weeks of Cheshvan are here. So where does the fire come from now? When the light of Tishrei fades, how do we keep burning?

The letter Shin answers with its very shape. Three branches rise from one root, like a flame rising from its coal. Sefer Yetzirah names Shin as one of the three mother letters. Aleph is air, Mem is water, and Shin is fire. And Sefer Yetzirah describes the flame as bound to the coal. The flame does not produce its own strength. It draws it from the coal beneath it.

King Solomon calls the soul the candle of G-d, ner Hashem nishmat adam. The word neshama itself holds a Shin. Like a flame, the soul longs to rise back to its source, and like a flame, it never stops being fed by that source. This changes the question. We do not need to go looking for power somewhere outside of us. We already have it. We only need to remember to draw from it.

The three branches are not the same. The right branch is Chesed, the kindness of Avraham. The left is Gevurah, the strength and judgment of Yitzchak. That is why the same letter is read Shin with the dot on the right and Sin with the dot on the left. Every good fire needs balance, and anyone who has tended a bonfire knows it. Too many logs at once and it burns out. Too few and it fades. In our own lives we flicker between over-giving and holding back, between overextending ourselves and harsh judgment of ourselves and others. The middle branch is Yaakov, Tiferet, rachamim, compassion. That is where the flame burns steady.

How do we get there? Shin is also sheket, quiet. Our sages teach that silence is a fence for wisdom. Sometimes the way to stoke the fire is to stop feeding it the same reaction. Someone says the thing that always triggers us, and instead of answering the way we always answer, we pause. In that quiet we can hear our own flame again.

Shin is also shinui, change. In Malachi, G-d says, "I am G-d, I have not changed." G-d is constant, so we are the ones who change in order to meet Him. Shin is 300, the value of the name Elokim in its full spelling, the name of G-d hidden within nature. Nature is a mask. The mask is real, but it is not the end. Behind it is the deepest knowing, that G-d is all.

Then there is joy. Simcha is written with a Sin, the letter of the left side. Joy does not always arrive on its own. Rabbi Nachman teaches that sometimes we must make ourselves joyful, get up and dance or even do something silly, before we feel it. And simcha shares its letters with machshava, thought. Joy begins with where we place our mind. We ignite it, and then it ignites us.

Shin is also shen, a tooth. A tooth breaks food down so the body can receive it. A teaching needs the same. We have to chew on it and let it settle before it becomes part of how we live.

This is why the Shin belongs to the Light Warrior. Your fire is not only for you. When your flame burns steady, it lights the fire of someone else, and their fire lights yours. You may never know whose day you illuminated. This is how we dispel darkness, one day at a time.

So this week, choose one thing that stokes your fire. It may be learning, prayer, giving, or movement. It may even be something you stop doing. Notice one moment where silence would protect your fire from turning into anger or argument. And begin to make yourself joyful, even before you feel it.

To carry this into practice, I recorded a guided meditation on the Shin. We breathe with the image of the flame and its coal, enter sheket, and stoke our own fire. You can listen right here, or on Spotify:

Members can also find it in Kavana Academy: The Letter Shin: The Flame That Never Goes Out. The full class, EOM #117, is in the Light Warrior Circle.

May your flame stay steady, and may you remember that the eternal fire within you, the esh tamid, can never go out.

With love,
Rabbi Amichai

Want to walk the full path? The Light Warrior Path is a complete initiation into Kabbalah and Chassidut.