Cherubim I and Thou

This week includes one of my favorite “God in the details” moments in the Torah. Attentiveness to minute, seemingly irrelevant details, reveals a deep and powerful message, helping us to see another possibility for holiness in our everyday lives.

This week we read two parasha’s from the book of Exodus, Vayakhel and Pekudei. These portions detail the design and creation of the Tabernacle (including its consecration) and the accompanying priestly vestments. The specificity of the description is impressive, though enough to lose the interest of anyone not involved in a field not related to design, engineering, or architecture. However, if we read this material keeping in mind that this is a blueprint for inviting holiness into our community’s presence the design elements all take on a powerful resonance. I want to share one such detail as an example of how these elements, read as a template for inviting holiness into our lives become powerfully, and even practically, relevant.

The Torah describes the ark which contained the tablets of the Ten Commandments whose cover was adorned with ceruvim (cherubim) as we read in Exodus 37:7-9. The ceruvim face each other on either end of the cover and “had their wings spread out above, shielding the cover with their wings.” (37:9 - you don’t necessarily need to open a Bible for this image, simply think of the ark in Raiders of the Lost Ark and you will have the image in your head!). We are told later in the Torah that God would speak to Moses from “. . . above the cover. . . between the two cherubim”(Numbers 7:89). I find this to be an inspiring and beautiful image. Here we have two humanoid figures facing each other, reaching out to each other. They do not connect physically; it is their shared purpose, the connection through relation that welcomes God into their presence. I am hard-pressed to think of a more moving image of the possibility for holiness through relation. The ceruvim therefore serve as a model for inviting holiness into our lives. I’m sure many of your have experienced those moments when you have connected with someone and you were able to be fully present, unguarded, available, authentic, listening and sharing. In those moments you saw deep into yourself and into the other person to witness and experience something divine. It may have happened with a family member, an old friend, or it could have even been a relative stranger. The point is that there is a way to be in the world that opens you to this kind of connection. The Torah is showing us that holiness isn’t only found in ritual, in practice, or in prayer. If you seek out holiness in your relations with others, you can find God, I would say you may even “stumble upon” God through a normal everyday conversation. The key is to be open to those moments, to recognize them and to appreciate them when they happen. In those moments, just as Moses in the Tent of Meeting, you are hearing the voice of God projected through yourself and through the other.