What do we lift up?

Parshat Behaalotekha  stayed with me, so I am writing about it even as we enter into the next parsha, Shelakh-Lekha. These are the connections that came to mind: let's see how interconnected it all is.

Behaalotekha talks about raising the menorah to give light in the sanctuary, the Mishkan. Sun symbolism; bright, bold, enlightening, clarity...Sun arriving in a chariot from the east; a bridegroom emerging from the chuppah, "mimizrach shemesh" : the sun is from the East, my heart is in the East ("libi b' mizrach") and I am in the West. Symbols in a Jewish home... Lifting up the light, menorah. Starting with Mems...hmmm...mishkan  mizrach, mezuzah, gematria for the letter mem is 40. 40  years in the wilderness Har ha Moria...Moria itself starts with mem (so does mitzrayim, the narrow place in which they were enslaved). Forty years until one is considered stable enough to study Kabbalah...Forty years to put "yir'ah" awe back into them and take fear (another translation of "yir'ah") out of them?