The Menorah and Its Divine Harmony

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The Menorah and Its Divine Harmony 

By Lucius Cohen

    The menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum described in the Torah (Exodus 25:31-40), is one of the deepest symbols in Judaism. It represents the divine light that illuminates the world, evoking the creation in seven days, cosmic balance, and the emanation of God’s presence. But what if this sacred structure could be reinterpreted through musical and numerical lenses? Inspired by personal and poetic reflections, I explore a creative analogy between the menorah, the musical solfège system (do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si-do), and elements of Hebrew gematria. These ideas, though not part of classical Kabbalistic tradition, offer a perspective that unites light, sound, letters, and numbers in an infinite cycle of divine harmony.

    The menorah has a central candle that symbolizes unity and the divine presence, with three candles on each side radiating light into the manifest world. This configuration evokes the letter Gimel for each side, symbolizing mercy and rigor, expansion and balance, kindness and judgment—all attributes of the sefirot Gevurah and Chesed. It is the central light that spreads symmetrically toward its opposites—right and left—in Kabbalistic language.

    I like to imagine the seven notes of the diatonic scale of solfège mapped onto this structure. Solfège, a pedagogical musical system created in the 11th century by Guido d’Arezzo from a medieval Christian hymn, consists of seven distinct syllables: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, repeating do in the higher octave to close the cycle—somewhat like the worlds of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, which has four worlds: Atziluth, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Assiah, where each ascent through the gate of Keter leads to a return to the temple gate, but in this case, a higher temple. This repetition creates a musical “infinity,” where the scale can ascend or descend eternally, always returning to the tonic (do) as the point of resolution and harmony.

    The central candle is assigned the fundamental note do, the center of balance. Just as the central branch of the menorah represents the Shabbat or the sefirah Tiferet—which is beauty and harmony in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and the place where man performs the Great Work—do is the tonic that organizes the entire scale, the “One” from which everything emanates, the Aleph and the Yud of the Tetragrammaton. Therefore, the central candle is worth 1, but it can also be worth 10, or even 26 or 8—the number of infinity.

    The notes spread across the shoulders of the menorah: to the left (mi, sol, si) and to the right (re, fa, la). This symmetrical distribution reflects the irradiation of divine light toward the dual aspects of the world—the cosmic yin and yang, or the sefirot of Chesed (kindness) and Gevurah (severity). If I number the notes—do=1, re=2, mi=3, fa=4, sol=5, la=6, si=7—I obtain on the left 3+5+7=15=6, and on the right 2+4+6=12=3. The 6 is the penultimate of the seven lower sefirot, Gevurah, which opposes and is one step away from the final work, which is mercy represented by Chesed. On the right I have the 3 of the just, perfect, and divine triangle of the man who has reached the last sphere of the lower world, Chesed, and from there sheds all metals to reach the ethereal and higher world of the Shekhinah, the divine emanation, where 6+3+1=10—the all and the nothing that represents Him. And if do repeats infinitely, after si=7 we have do=8, giving 6+3+8=17=8. And if I take do=10, I still get 6+3+10=19=10=1, proving the perfection of the menorah’s melody.

    As we traverse the side candles, we reach the last note: si, which musically creates tension and a “desire” for resolution. Upon returning to the center, we come back to do, completing the cycle. This return symbolizes infinity: divine harmony that expands and returns, echoing the idea that everything comes from God and returns to Him. If I have 6 on the left, there I also have the letter Vav reminding us that there will always be work to be done, and Gimel on the right commanding the practice of charity.

    Jewish tradition recounts a miracle in which the Temple candelabrum remained lit for eight consecutive days with a tiny amount of oil—enough for only one day. This fusion of light and sound suggests that the menorah is not merely a ritual object, but a living diagram of cosmic harmony. Lighting the candles during Chanukah, for example, could be seen as “singing” this divine scale, elevating the soul through an eternal cycle of creation and redemption.