When our St. Louis JCRC Student to Student program brings visiting groups to United Hebrew, I often begin with an invitation to look up at our entryway windows, where there are three familiar Jewish images: the Magen David, a Torah scroll and a seven-branched menorah.

I ask the students a simple question, “which one do you think is the oldest symbol in Judaism?” Almost without fail, they choose the Star of David. It is the symbol they recognize most easily, the one that appears on the flag of Israel, on jewelry, on synagogue walls, on the objects of Jewish life that likely feel both ancient and contemporary at the same time.

And yet, historically speaking, it is not the oldest.

While one could argue that the Torah itself is our foundational symbol, the oldest enduring physical image connected to the Jewish people is the seven-branched menorah. We first encounter it in this week’s parashah, Terumah, when God instructs Moses, “Make a menorah of pure gold. The menorah shall be made of hammered work; its base and its shaft, its cups, calyxes, and petals shall be of one piece …” (Exodus 25:31–40). The description continues with intricate detail with branches, blossoms, almond-shaped cups, so detailed, in fact, that it is almost difficult to visualize.

The rabbis tell us that even Moses struggled with it. The Talmud (Menachot 29a) teaches that three things were difficult for Moses to understand until God pointed them out directly, and one of them was the menorah, as he could not quite grasp how the menorah was to be made from one piece of solid gold.

And yet, Bezalel, the artisan appointed in the building of the Mishkan, did understand. The Torah describes him as being “filled with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in every kind of craft,” and it was through the gifts of an artist that the divine design of the menorah became something real.

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The menorah began as part of the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary carried by the Israelites through the wilderness. Later, it stood in the First Temple and then the Second Temple in Jerusalem. After both Temples were destroyed and the physical menorah was lost, its image remained, becoming perhaps the most enduring symbol of Jewish peoplehood. It appears carved into the Arch of Titus in Rome, minted onto ancient coins, etched into synagogue mosaics and catacomb walls. Medieval manuscripts were illuminated with its form, and Kabbalists saw in its seven branches an echo of the sefirot, the emanations of the Divine. Today it stands as the emblem of the modern State of Israel.

The Magen David, by contrast, did not become widely recognized as a Jewish symbol until the Middle Ages. For most of Jewish history, and certainly in antiquity, it was the menorah that carried our story.

The menorah was hammered from a single piece of gold, and yet it branched into seven distinct lights, the branches were aligned, but they were not merged. Very much a physical symbol of both unity and individuality.

Perhaps that is why the menorah endured as our symbol. It reflects a vision of peoplehood that is neither uniform nor fragmented. We are formed from a shared source, shaped by a shared covenant, and yet we shine in distinct ways. The Book of Proverbs teaches, “Ner Adonai nishmat adam — the human soul is the lamp of God.” Each soul is a flame, and no two flames are identical.

When I stand in our entryway and ask those students which symbol is the oldest, I am hopefully sharing an important lesson, that Judaism has never depended upon one kind of Jew, one talent, one way of thinking or one way of serving. It has been sustained by teachers and artisans, visionaries and builders, scholars and quiet doers, each adding something irreplaceable to the whole.

The Menorah: Seven branches from one source; distinct lights, with a shared purpose.

Like the menorah of old, it is a beautiful reminder of who we are: one people, certainly not of one mind, shaped by a shared story and sustained by a shared covenant, and yet gloriously varied in how we understand, practice, question, build and serve.

May we learn to see our differences not as fractures but as branches, extending outward while remaining firmly rooted in the same sacred base. And may we have the wisdom to stay connected to one another even when we bend in different directions. For it has never been a single flame that carried the Jewish people forward, but the steady, collective glow of many lights burning together.

May we continue to stand close enough that our individual flames strengthen rather than compete with one another, and in doing so, illuminate and brighten the world.