I have a friend who was ordained two weeks ago. She’s been chronically ill all her life, and she’s been confined to a wheelchair as long as I’ve known her. Her doctors didn’t expect her to live past forty. But there she was two weeks ago – a woman in her 60’s, becoming a rabbi.

Ordinations are joyous events. But the highlight is always the speeches. Each ordinee is invited to make a speech – about their hopes, about their journeys, about the people who helped them. And when my friend spoke, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Somehow, she managed to move from her wheelchair to her walker, to stand on the bemah, and to thank the Holy One – for supporting her, for sustaining her, for giving her teachers, friends, and family who helped her on her journey. And in words from her heart, she described what being a rabbi meant to her – the chance to serve, the chance to bring people together, the chance to help others.

I’ve been to many ordinations, and I’ve heard many speeches, but this was the first one that got a standing ovation. And as I write this, I stand in awe. How could anyone find the strength? How could anyone find the courage? How could anyone with so many challenges find the gratitude?

This week, the Torah tells the story of the menorah. “When you light the menorah,” the Torah says, “seven lamps shall give light.” The commentators looked at this verse, and they asked, “Why does God need our light?” How could it be, they wonder, that the God who created heaven and earth would need us to create light?

And that’s exactly the point. God asks all of us to be his partner, to find our own ways of bringing light into the world. God asks us to be examples for each other – to speak from the heart, to care for each other, to teach each other what it means to be strong. And that’s what my friend did for us at her ordination.

But this is not just about being a rabbi. As one of my friends said at an ordination more than twenty years ago:

Bringing God’s presence into the world is not about being a rabbi; it’s about being a Jew. A rabbi is just a Jew who, because of his or her opportunity to have had more sustained Jewish learning and training and because of modern culture’s insistence on professional specialization is, perhaps, a bit further down the path—but that path is meant for all of us.

May all of us bring God’s light into the world.