Parashat Terumah 5771 - English Version
(Translated from the German -- original version here.)
OK – perhaps all of these points aren’t really to be found in Torah. But there nonetheless seems to be a spark of truth behind the Beis Hollywood drama. We read in Parashat Terumah about the construction of the Ark of the Covenant—its material, its size and so forth, and then we come upon:
(Exodus) 25:18 You are to make two cherubim of gold; you are to make them of hammered metal on the two ends of the atonement lid. 25:19 Make one cherub on one end and one cherub on the other end; from the atonement lid you are to make the cherubim on the two ends. 25:20 The cherubim are to be spreading their wings upward, overshadowing the atonement lid with their wings, and the cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the atonement lid. 25:21 You are to put the atonement lid on top of the ark, and in the ark you are to put the testimony I am giving you. 25:22 I will meet with you there, and from above the atonement lid, from between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will command you for the Israelites.
Wait a minute . . . isn’t this just a bit problematic? Didn’t we just two weeks ago in Parashat Yitro read “You shall make not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water below” (Exodus 20:4)? And now it is suddenly OK to carve some angels? And even more bizarre, the voice of G-d is going to be coming out of the space in between the wings of the Cherubim—these special sorts of heavenly guardians?
I am not really sure if the Ark can destroy entire armies—and I doubt, at least for the most part, that the Ark is lying today in some secret CIA warehouse. But truly—one must admit it seems a little mysterious and awesome – perhaps even powerful. What is happening here?
The first thing I want to point out is the pretty clear “relationship” reference. There are two Cherubim that are set across from each other – facing each other. The wings form a sort of covering above the cover of the ark itself. Two beings—or representations of beings—that eternally exist across from and facing the other reaching towards each other and looking at each other– both an interesting metaphor and image.
Yet perhaps even more interesting in this picture is the other description of the Ark of the Covenant in the Tanakh from 2nd Chronicles 3:13. Depending on how you want to translate it, it says that “They stood upright, facing inward—“ or with their faces to the house – or facing the main hall of the Temple. Either way, this means not facing each other.
Naturally this drove our sages crazy—yet their attempt to explain this apparent contradiction acknowledges the “relationship” aspect of the Cherubim. We read in Baba Batra (99a) that when Israel fulfilled the mitzvot, that the Cherubim would face each other. When Israel rebelled against G-d, they would turn “towards the house.”
So what about this empty space? What should we make out of this nothingness between the wings out of which the voice of G-d is supposed to address the Israelites? Let me try two different pictures to try and explain this:
First – those that can read and play music understand that a “rest” has nothing to do with “nothing,” as it were. It looks like a “nothing,” certainly. Here we have notes and here we have none. But in truth, playing this “nothing” is every bit as important – sometimes even more so – than playing the notes. This rest – this pause – this absence of notes is a thing in and of itself. Not a nothing – rather a “something.” But what?
Second – how does one say Ex Nihilo – “out of nothing” – in Hebrew?
Yesh m’Ayin.
But Yesh m’Ayin has specifically intriguing implications in Hebrew and in Judaism. When I want to say, “Here is something” or “I have something” I say “yesh.” Yesh Shulkan? (Is there a table here?) Yesh! Yesh Siddurim? (Are there prayerbooks?) Yesh! Yesh maspik Siddurim? (Are there enough prayerbooks?) Lo! Ayn maspik! (No – there are not enough.) Ayin. It is rather interesting that the word for “there isn’t any” is also a part of a name of G-d. Eyn. Ayin. Eyn Sof. Without end. No possibility to see, hear, touch, understand. Nothing. Ayin. The G-d that exists on the other side of our consciousness—on the other side of our ability to imagine—the “nihilo” out of which everything that we can see and experience is an “ex.”
So . . . the Cherubim are perhaps a metaphor for relationship and the space in between then somehow represents and aspect of G-d. It is an interesting perspective that we can perhaps take further.
Risking utter absurdity and irony for the sake of analogy, let’s imagine for a second that “Eyn Sof” can be represented as something or someone that is observable. From our perspective, Eyn Sof is “Ayin” and we are “Yesh.” But from the perspective of Eyn Sof, Eyn Sof is “Yesh” and we are “Ayin.”
Ok, that is intensely complicated and perhaps too philosophical. Let’s try to formulate this differently . . .
Is there anyone in this congregation that believes that they know the deepest inner thoughts of all the others present here? No? What about just a single person – remember – all the innermost thoughts . . . once again “no?” What about my own thoughts and self – do I have the fantasy that I actually understand all of my own deepest thoughts and motivations? Truly? Also . . . no.
Yet despite this clear answer, we stand almost always directly in the middle point of our own personal perspectives and fight almost always that our perspectives are the ones that are correct—that our yesh is in fact the yesh. In a relationship it is always easier to shout loudly when the other cannot or refuses to acknowledge our yesh. My yesh is yesh and yours is ayin – eyn – nothing.
Why two Cherubim?
Even when the creation of an image is not allowed, Torah nonetheless understands – our tradition nonetheless understands—that we can never begin with “nothing.” We need guidelines and Wikipedia and mentoring and sometimes even wings and cherubs to point us to where we actually need to look—to point us to what is really “yesh.”
Is this really so abstract? We all know – or believe we know – what a relationship is. Yet we cannot see or touch or taste or hear a relationship, only the manifestations of it. The manifestations – how we treat each other – ideally serve to point us to come ever closer to understanding that abstraction called “relationship,” when in fact we almost always become fixated on the details of the manifestations rather that the truth of the relationship – the intangible core that is the reality.
G-d speaks from the emptiness between the wings because this nothingness represents nothing less than reality in its highest and purest form. Our challenge is to unfailingly remember that the opinions and thoughts and struggles with the divine of the “other” in any relationship are just as valid as ours, and to act upon that reality rather than the usual reality – that ours is the only. My yesh is truly not yesh and I need to respect yours—I need to try to hear the voice from the place between the wings that I cannot see—or else we very quickly see the wings turning away from each other until the cherubim can no longer face each other at all.
A relationship – love, friendship, that between teacher and student or even stranger and stranger in a moment of mystical meeting is powerful and mysterious and awesome – and therefore there is so much in Torah that shows us and challenges us to pay attention to the yesh of the other – that is to say, the voice of G-d.
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