A Thought on Parshas Teruma
A Thought on Parshas Teruma
"...v'asisa sh'ny'im keruvim..."
"...and you shall make two cherubs..." (25:18)
The ornamentation in the Sacred Shrine included some unique items. One of the more puzzling commandments was that of constructing two golden "angelic" forms called keruvim which adorned the cover of the ark. Many commentaries have offered a view, a theological perspective, on the meaning of including two creature-like forms in the midst of such a sacred place. What did these keruvim symbolize that they should belong in a spot which was consecrated to the service of HaShem? What message were they meant to convey to us?
Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel offers a perspective. HaShem is One. His unity is like no other One-ness and our faith is founded on His Omnipresence and absolute unity. It is a human reality, perhaps an embedded short-coming, that we are wired to think in dualities. We are creatures of reason and analysis, and we contrast that which we experience against all else that we know, and against each concept's opposite. We define bad as the opposite of good. We label light as light because it is not dark. We do the same with bad and good, with holy and profane, and virtually everything that we encounter is understood through the dialectic of what it is and what it is not.
Our perception or our understanding of HaShem is also filtered through this limitation. This is how we look at life events and even though our spiritual understanding learns to attribute events to HaShem, we nonetheless dissect our reality sense of Him through our binary perception of Justice versus Compassion. This is how we have learned to understand Divine mechanisms as representing middas din versus middas rachamim. (This was an area that our study of the Recanati helped clarify when I worked on his commentary some years ago in these weekly parsha thoughts.)
Two keruvim forms were appended to the ark cover. They symbolized not the "reality" of the Divine, but rather our human experience of Divinely ordained events. We humbled ourselves by portraying the epitome of human endeavor, the crafting of the mishkan, as still being a very human endeavor. The human view and reality is to apprehend the Divine as if there are two middos. One cherub symbolized the perceived quality of Justice. One was to symbolize the perceived quality of Compassion. HaShem is one and Elokim is the same One, yet we associate the midda of Justice with the latter name, and the midda of Compassion with the former name. That is the way we are driven to understand HaShem Echad. Two keruvim represented our exalted yet imperfect effort to appreciate the Tzur Tamim.
Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel then ponders: in the book of Kings (Melachim I 6:23) we find that Shlomo HaMelech had not two but four keruvim crafted in the Bais HaMikdash which he designed. It is hard enough for us to grasp the idea of having two of something in a place meant to represent Divine One-ness. But to construct four forms in such a place seems curious!
He explains that with the descent of humanity, the dissecting of experience expanded. Not only do we struggle to make sense of the Justice versus Compassion dialectic; we even struggle to make sense of each of those two concepts on its own, since at times we see the good suffer, and are confused with "tzadik v'ra lo" - why bad things happen to good people. We wonder how Justice seems to go awry. When we see good things happen to good people, we assume that this is just a pure manifestation of compassionate good. When we encounter rosha v'ra lo - bad things happening to wicked people - we assume that this is an obvious manifestation of abject Justice. Yet when good things happen to the wicked, we wonder why Compassion went awry.
There is a middas din which we can connect to, yet there seems to be another manifestation of din which we cannot relate to. There is a middas rachamim which we can appreciate yet another manifestation of rachamim which we have trouble with. That is the human reality and the wise King Shlomo had this depicted as a sign of the further humbling of man who remains in awe of HaShem's ways yet also struggles with awe-full fear of the One Above.
Good Shabbos. D Fox
"...v'asisa sh'ny'im keruvim..."
"...and you shall make two cherubs..." (25:18)
The ornamentation in the Sacred Shrine included some unique items. One of the more puzzling commandments was that of constructing two golden "angelic" forms called keruvim which adorned the cover of the ark. Many commentaries have offered a view, a theological perspective, on the meaning of including two creature-like forms in the midst of such a sacred place. What did these keruvim symbolize that they should belong in a spot which was consecrated to the service of HaShem? What message were they meant to convey to us?
Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel offers a perspective. HaShem is One. His unity is like no other One-ness and our faith is founded on His Omnipresence and absolute unity. It is a human reality, perhaps an embedded short-coming, that we are wired to think in dualities. We are creatures of reason and analysis, and we contrast that which we experience against all else that we know, and against each concept's opposite. We define bad as the opposite of good. We label light as light because it is not dark. We do the same with bad and good, with holy and profane, and virtually everything that we encounter is understood through the dialectic of what it is and what it is not.
Our perception or our understanding of HaShem is also filtered through this limitation. This is how we look at life events and even though our spiritual understanding learns to attribute events to HaShem, we nonetheless dissect our reality sense of Him through our binary perception of Justice versus Compassion. This is how we have learned to understand Divine mechanisms as representing middas din versus middas rachamim. (This was an area that our study of the Recanati helped clarify when I worked on his commentary some years ago in these weekly parsha thoughts.)
Two keruvim forms were appended to the ark cover. They symbolized not the "reality" of the Divine, but rather our human experience of Divinely ordained events. We humbled ourselves by portraying the epitome of human endeavor, the crafting of the mishkan, as still being a very human endeavor. The human view and reality is to apprehend the Divine as if there are two middos. One cherub symbolized the perceived quality of Justice. One was to symbolize the perceived quality of Compassion. HaShem is one and Elokim is the same One, yet we associate the midda of Justice with the latter name, and the midda of Compassion with the former name. That is the way we are driven to understand HaShem Echad. Two keruvim represented our exalted yet imperfect effort to appreciate the Tzur Tamim.
Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel then ponders: in the book of Kings (Melachim I 6:23) we find that Shlomo HaMelech had not two but four keruvim crafted in the Bais HaMikdash which he designed. It is hard enough for us to grasp the idea of having two of something in a place meant to represent Divine One-ness. But to construct four forms in such a place seems curious!
He explains that with the descent of humanity, the dissecting of experience expanded. Not only do we struggle to make sense of the Justice versus Compassion dialectic; we even struggle to make sense of each of those two concepts on its own, since at times we see the good suffer, and are confused with "tzadik v'ra lo" - why bad things happen to good people. We wonder how Justice seems to go awry. When we see good things happen to good people, we assume that this is just a pure manifestation of compassionate good. When we encounter rosha v'ra lo - bad things happening to wicked people - we assume that this is an obvious manifestation of abject Justice. Yet when good things happen to the wicked, we wonder why Compassion went awry.
There is a middas din which we can connect to, yet there seems to be another manifestation of din which we cannot relate to. There is a middas rachamim which we can appreciate yet another manifestation of rachamim which we have trouble with. That is the human reality and the wise King Shlomo had this depicted as a sign of the further humbling of man who remains in awe of HaShem's ways yet also struggles with awe-full fear of the One Above.
Good Shabbos. D Fox
posted by Rabbi Dr. Fox at 7:51 PM
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