Musar for Menachot 57:2
אלא פרחים תשעה מנלן פרחים תרי דידה וששה דקנים תמניא הוו אמר רב שלמן כתיב (במדבר ח, ד) עד ירכה עד פרחה מקשה היא
But how do we arrive at nine flowers? Its own two and the six of the [six] branches make only eight? - R'Salmon said, It is written, Unto the base thereof, and unto the flowers thereof, it was beaten work.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Num. VIII, 4. The flower (in the Heb. , in the sing.) in this verse is in addition to those mentioned in Ex. XXV, 31ff; hence there were nine. This extra flower was placed at the foot of the candlestick close to the pedestal.');"><sup>1</sup></span>
Shenei Luchot HaBerit
The מנורה, candlestick in the Tabernacle alluded to all this. Rekanati comments on the מנורה in the following words: "The wisdom concealed in the knobs, flowers and cups which formed part of the candlestick is very exalted and inaccessible. This is why our sages (Menachot 29) described Moses as having had difficulty understanding the way the candlestick was to be constructed. G–d showed him a model made of fire (based on Numbers 8,4 which states: זה מעשה המנורה). The candlestick consisted of six arms, three on either side of the centre-shaft. The lamps on top of the six arms all faced in the direction of the centre-shaft. This was an allusion to the overall unity of the concepts they represented, though each of the seven lamps represented its own concept of holiness and had its own holy site. Moses could not understand how these two apparently contradictory concepts functioned." Thus far the Rekanati.
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