שבת שלום

What is the meaning of ‘The Soul of a Person is a Candle for G-d’?
This sentence ‘The soul of a person is a candle for G-d’ likens the soul of a person to a lit candle. Just as a candle has a wick, oil, and a flame that catches on to it, so a person has a body, corresponding to the wick, a soul, corresponding to the flame, and good deeds (fulfillment of the commandments), corresponding to the oil, that keep the soul in its body.
The book of Tanya explains that we find something interesting in the nature of fire, namely, it always wants to go higher and higher and leave the wick, even though if it would succeed in separating from the wick and cleave to its supernal source, it would lose its existence! This contradicts logic, because each creation desires existence, nevertheless, fire has this characteristic. In the same way, a person’s soul naturally seeks to detach itself from the body and ascend to its spiritual root and source, the source of all vitality—the Holy One Blessed be He, even though if it becomes detached it will lose its separate existence and become enveloped in the source like a spark in a fiery torch. Nevertheless, this is its desire and nature.
This phenomenon is manifested in a simple way; each Jew is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of G d’s name, and to give up his personal existence as a separate entity, for the sake of the Creator. The Creator however, prefers that we sanctify His Name while we are in a state of life—soul in body—in the physical world, thus transforming it to a dwelling place for Him.