Changing the Negative

“God spoke to Moshe, saying: Speak to Aharon and say to him: ‘When you light the lamps, the seven lamps shall cast their light toward the face of the menorah’. Aharon did so; he lit the lamps toward the face of the menorah, as God had commanded Moshe”
(Bamidbar 8:1-3).

About the words, “Aharon did so,” Rashi comments that this phrase is meant to tell us the praise of Aharon, that he did not change [any of the details of His instruction]. In Hebrew, “he did not change,” is sh’lo shina, שלא שינה.

The Rebbe from Alexander expounded upon this short comment of Rashi by placing the same words in a different grammatical construct, and reading it to mean that Aharon, due to his basic positive nature, was able to take the lo, the power of negativity, and change it (shina) into the positive. Therefore, it is not only that Aharon refrained from changing God’s instructions, it is that he changed his negative inclination into its opposite, pure positivity.