Terumah: Hearing God enthusiastically as children

Rav Johnny's original thoughts on the weekly parsha

In addition to its detailed instructions about how to construct the Mishkan, Parshat Terumah also identifies where in the Mishkan God’s commands could best be heard. Specifically, we are told that: ‘from above the cover, between the two keruvim (cherubim), above the Ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you, and speak with you, and give you all My commands to the Israelites’ (Shemot 25:22). What this tells us is that the voice of God emerged from ‘between the two keruvim’. The question is: why?

Interestingly, we should note the words of our Sages (Sukkah 5b) that the word ‘keruvim’ is made up of the prefix ‘ke’ (meaning ‘like’), and the word ‘ruvim’ (meaning ‘children’). From here we learn that the keruvim had child-like features. Still, once again, what is the significance of God speaking to the people from between the two child-like keruvim atop the Aron?

Quoting the Ba’al HaTurim (on Shemot 25:20) and Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, Rabbi Natan Tzvi Finkel (as recorded in Sefer Zichron Shmuel pp. 541-546) suggests an answer while referencing Hoshea 11:1 where we read that, ‘when Israel was a child, I (God) already loved him; from Egypt I (God) called him to Me to be My son’. According to Rabbi Finkel, what this verse means is that the Jewish people have always maintained a youthful spirit and a desire to learn, and this is why God spoke from between the keruvim in order to teach us that we should hear the word of God as inquisitive children who wish to listen and learn.

But in addition to this exquisite explanation, there is – I believe - a further way to understand the above-mentioned verse from Hoshea and what it tells us in terms of why God chose the space between the keruvim as the location from where He would speak.

As we know, children are naturally less cynical than adults, and as a result, they are often much more prepared to believe in various spiritual encounters than many adults in whom a certain level of cynicism has already set in (in fact, it was this youthful spiritual quality, to be as receptive to the word of God as a child, which the Baal Shem Tov sought for himself in his final years - see Biurei HaChassidut L’Nach on Hoshea 11:1).

Thus, by choosing to speak from between the keruvim, I believe that God is teaching us an important message, that in order to be attuned to hear the words of God, we need to maintain a child-like, or what some may call ‘temimusdik’ (innocent), approach to spirituality, because if we don’t, God may well speak to us directly, but our cynical adult heart and mind will dismiss it as just being background noise.

Shabbat Shalom!

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