Sermon: Terumah – “What did the menorah look like?”
Written by Rabbi Colin Eimer — 21 February 2026
In the back corridor of this synagogue is the Chanukiyah we use at Chanukah. It was designed by the German-born sculptor, Benno Elkan, who came here when forced out by the Nazis. In 1956, he was commissioned by Parliament to design their gift to Israel – it’s the big menorah that now stands outside the Knesset. And what is that menorah based on? Is it the one that Harry read about to us from the Torah.
15 years ago (so Meir Soloveitchik Jewish Ideas Daily 8.9.2011) the two Chief Rabbis of Israel met with Pope John Paul II. Interviewed afterwards by Israeli radio, one of the rabbis said he couldn’t resist asking the Pope about the menorah. When the Romans conquered Jerusalem in the year 70 CE, they sacked the Temple and took its contents back to Rome. The Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum was built to celebrate that victory. The main panel shows Roman soldiers carrying off the Temple vessels and, prominently, the menorah. That Chief Rabbi was reflecting the legend-cum-urban myth (Avot d’Rabbi Natan 41) that the menorah is still somewhere in the cellars beneath the Vatican.
Historians argue that even had it been in the Vatican, the Goths would have removed it when they conquered Rome in the 5th century. So there’s some mystery about what happened to it and even more mystery when you compare the menorah on Titus’ Arch with the one in the Torah. All medieval commentators had to go on to picture the menorah was what they read in the Torah. So Rashi described it as looking like the Titus one, with curved arms; Maimonides, on the other hand, depicted it with straight arms – like the ones Chabad lights all over the place on Chanukah.
Harry’s reading gave great detail about the menorah but it didn’t say what the base was to look like. Mosaics and murals in Israel from the 1st century onwards show the menorah with a tripod as its base. Titus’s Arch, however, shows it with a large stepped pedestal with carvings of dragons on the risers. Hardly the sort of pagan symbols you would expect to see on an object from the Temple.
Equally curious is how the menorah became probably the oldest religious symbol in Western culture and not just in Judaism. Menorahs decorate buildings all over the world; churches have seven-branched candelabra. Menorahs flank the altar in the 1884 Catholic Brompton Oratory in Kensington; the town of Cosenza in Italy decorates its streets with illuminated menorahs. King Alaric of the Goths died there and legend has it that he is buried under the river with all the Temple treasures he supposedly took after having sacked Rome. The myth was powerful enough to have Heinrich Himmler send SS researchers to Cosenza in 1937 to see what they could find.
Arches all over the world were modelled on the one in Rome: the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, Washington Square in New York, the Union Arch in Brooklyn and so on. Bnai Brith, Jewish and non-Jewish Freemason groups and many Zionist groups adopted the menorah as their symbol.
In 1917, when the British conquered Palestine, and set up the Jewish Legion, the badge on the uniform was a menorah. There was a tradition that Jews didn’t walk through the Arch – until 1944, that is, when the Allies liberated Rome and the Jewish Brigade of the 8th Army marched ceremonially under it. “Take a look, Rome!” they were saying, “we’re here! Where are you?!”
A curious symbol – so Jewishly ubiquitous, yet at one level rooted in a moment of pain, defeat and destruction.
I asked Dee what she thought a symbol was. She said, “It’s an object or sign that indicates something without using language.” Not a bad definition, I thought. Some symbols hgave to be learned – a red triangle on a road sign is a warning, a red circle is a prohibition. Sometimes a symbol can mean very opposite things. When my previous community needed to find somewhere big enough for our Days of Awe services, we found a large hall, other facilities, good parking etc. It met all our needs, except that the hall where we would have the service had a frieze all the way around, with swastikas. It was a Hindu institution and in Hinduism, the swastika is a good-luck symbol. The Nazis misappropriated it and slightly changed it. But there was no way we could expect the community at any time, but especially on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, to pray in a space surrounded by swastikas!?
And now the Menorah is, of course, the official symbol of the State of Israel. In 1948, a “Committee on the State Symbol and Flag” was established. The specification said that the symbol had to be blue and white with one additional colour; there should be a seven-branched menorah and seven six-pointed stars. Hundreds of designs were submitted. The design chosen was a menorah with round arms, seven stars in a semi-circle over the top, flanked by a lulav and a shofar with shalom al yisrael, ‘peace on Israel’ underneath. The designer explained that the lulav and shofar were not meant to symbolise religiousness but rather the hope for the age of the messiah. Maybe the Committee recognised those symbols might be misunderstood. So the runner-up was chosen: the one we know: – the Arch of Titus menorah flanked by olive branches and the one word Yisrael, ‘Israel’ underneath.
That connection of menorah and messiah underlies, presumably, the 24-carat gold menorah made by the Temple Institute. It was established in Jerusalem in 1987 dedicated to rebuilding the Temple. They organised the construction of that menorah, now standing opposite the Western Wall. It’s made of 24-carat gold, is in a bulletproof glass cage. It’s not, apparently, a replica but will be the one to be used in the 3rd Temple, which the Institute wants to see built. The mere fact that it will involve bulldozing the Dome of the Rock seems of no consequence to these religious crazies.
So this Shabbat we began reading the last half of the book of Exodus – 15 chapters, 13 of which are devoted to the construction of the mishkan, this portable sanctuary that accompany the people on their journey to the Promised Land. Normally very terse, the Torah here goes into great detail about its construction, its fixtures and fittings, including the menorah. “Let them make Me a sanctuary,” God tells Moses, “that I might dwell” – not “in it,” the sanctuary, as we would expect, but “let them make Me a sanctuary v’sha’chanti b’tocham “that I might dwell among them” the people. (Exodus 25:8)
It’s often a problem when you are creating a religious space. I call it the religious ‘edifice complex’ where you think that making a beautiful building is all that’s needed. When that’s all you’ve done you’ve not made a symbol but rather something ‘symbolic’ – for that can mean something empty, meaningless, looking good on the outside but with little depth or inner meaning. V’sha’chanti b’tocham reminds us that the purpose of the construction is to create a space where God can, as it were, enter and dwell. What might ‘a space where God can dwell’ mean? One where everyone is welcome, can feel valued as a human being, a place where they might be challenged, but in the sense of being encouraged – by its ethos, learning, atmosphere and so on – to become better versions of who they are. And that, surely, is what every religious institution should strive to attain.