Word: כרובים, keruvim, “cherubs,” “angels”
Root: Not known. Rabbi Abahu in the gemara (Sukkah 5b) connects the word to the Aramaic כרביא, ke-ravya, “like a ravya, a child,” a tradition that leads to the depiction of these angels as child-like figures, “cherubs.”
Context: On top of the ark in the Mishkan, there was a cover with two keruvim standing each on one side, facing each other, their wings spread out, creating a canopy over the ark. God spoke from between these two angels.
Elsewhere in the Torah: Other than with reference to the Mishkan, the only other place in the Torah that the word keruvim is used is in Genesis, in the Garden of Eden story, right after Adam and Eve are banished. Amazingly, this verse also uses the root shakhen, to dwell, the same root as the word Mishkan of our context:
ויגרש את האדם וישכן מקדם לגן עדן את הכרובים ואת להט המתהפכת לשמור את דרך עץ החיים
“He [God] drove Adam out, and stationed [vayashken] east of the Garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24).”
Interpretation: Something is lost in the Garden of Eden, the ability to connect to Divine Presence (shekhinah) and to access the source of our basic life essence, the Tree of Life. This is what happens to us in this world: as children, we disobey and are disciplined, and in the process of socialization and succumbing to authority and external criticism, we lose something basic to ourselves; we lose access to some piece of our life essence, our soul. We are banished, or maybe our soul is banished, put away for safekeeping, to preserve it so that we can return at a later time.
In the meantime, we are held at bay by “the fiery ever-turning sword,” by a relentless stream of ever-changing fiery emotions – anxiety and fear and anger and panic and restlessness – a stream of emotions all held in place by the hands of small children who keep the fiery emotions going to hide and protect the great woundedness that lies inside them
But something can shift. We can eventually regain access to our life source, to intimacy and presence with the divine in and out of ourselves. And that is what is happening in this week’s parsha, in the description of the ark in the Mishkan. We are being allowed back into the Garden of Eden, or maybe not to the Garden, but at least to the key element we lost – our soul, our life source, the Tree of Life. For what is hidden inside the ark, in the dwelling place of the Divine Presence? The tablets, the Torah, otherwise known as etz hayim, the Tree of Life. We are being offered a chance to reconnect to our source, to the sacred piece of ourselves we lost in childhood.
The whole process centers around the little children, the keruvim, who stand guard at the entrance. While in the Garden of Eden they stood with swords aflame blocking entry, here they stand across from each other, wings – so much softer than swords – outstretched and open, creating a gate, a doorway of entry to our life source. We are given a chance to retrieve our lost souls by entering through the keruviim, through our childhood selves with all their woundedness and innocence, to pass through whatever pain they experienced that led to the original banishment, to hear them and honor them as the gateways to our true divinely connected selves.
Such a passage is not without danger. These little ones are still guards in addition to being a doorway, and they will not let us pass without being willing to feel and acknowledge their pain. Nor is the way clearly marked. On the contrary, this way of return through childhood injury will often seem and feel like a way paved with swords. Note that the root כרב for keruvim spells out the root for blessing, ברכ, backwards, and that if we switch the first letter kaf for the cognate kuf, we end up with closeness, קרב. Yes, there are blessings of intimacy on this route through the keruvim, but they are masked, hidden, camouflaged.
God is calling us, calling us in this week’s parsha to presence and intimacy and blessing, calling us to step forward with courage and faith through the portal of these young ones and to return to the innocent pure life essence we lost so long ago.
Photo by Bess Hamiti from Pexels
