Bhaalotecha

Aaron is commanded to raise light in the lamps of the menorah, and the tribe of Levi is initiated into the service in the Sanctuary.   

A "Second Passover" is instituted in response to the petition "Why should we be deprived?" by a group of Jews who were unable to bring the Passover offering in its appointed time because they were ritually impure. G-d instructs Moses on the procedures for Israel's journeys and encampments in the desert, and the people journey in formation from Mount Sinai, where they had been camped for nearly a year.

The people are dissatisfied with their "bread from heaven" (the manna) and demand that Moses supply them with meat. Moses appoints 70 elders, to whom he emanates of his spirit, to assist him in the burden of governing the people. Miriam speaks negatively of Moses and is pun­ished with leprosy; Moses prays for her healing and the entire
community waits seven days for her recovery.
 

FROM THE WORDS OF OUR SAGES ON THE PARSHAH:

--When you raise light in the [menorah's] lamps... (Leviticus 8:2) 

When the Kohen came to kindle the menorah's lamps each afternoon in the Holy Temple, he found them fully prepared for lighting: earlier in the day, the lamps had been cleaned and filled with oil, and fresh wicks had been inserted. All he had to do was bring near the flame he carried, so that its proximity to the waiting lamp would unleash the potential for illumination which the lamp already holds. 

Therein lies an important lesson to the spiritual lamplighter: do not think that you are achieving anything that your fellow could not, in truth, achieve on his own; do not think that you are giving him something he does not already possess. The soul of your fellow is a ready lamp, filled with the purest oil and equipped with all that is required to convert its fuel into a blazing flame. It only lacks the proximity of another lamp to ignite it. If your own soul is alight, its contact with another's soul will awaken its potential for light, so that it may illuminate its surroundings and kindle other souls, in turn.   (The Lubavitcher Rebbe) 

--But now our soul is dried away; there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes (Leviticus 11:6) 

A person derives pleasure from material things only in comparing what he has to what his neighbors have. So although they could enjoy every taste in the world in the manna, they derived no pleasure from it, since everyone had it...   (Rabbi Yonatan Eibshitz) 

--Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel (Leviticus 11:16) 

The seventy elders correspond to the seventy biblically-ordained holy days of the year: 52 Sabbaths, seven days of Passover, eight days of Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Shavuot.    (Yalkut Shimoni)