Book Secret of the Cherubin first 3 chapters

Book on Cherubin

Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

Secret of the Cherubin -  Chapter One

In the Holy Temple and the Tabernacle of Sinai there were various rooms and courtyards, some holier than others. The highest sanctity was in the inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies. In the Holy of Holies was the Holy Ark. Inside the Holy Ark were the Tablets Moses brought down from Mount Sinai and a Torah scroll. On top of the Holy Ark were decorative images of winged angels in the guise of a boy and girl, called the Cherubin.

The Ark contained a Torah scroll and the Tablets of Moses. Why did the Cherubin stand atop the Ark and its holy treasures?

The holy work Tano Divei Eliyohu or The Yeshiva of Eliyohu HaNovi begins with the idea that the Cherubin preceded all of the Creation of Genesis. It continues to say that Derech Erets, meaning proper character traits, precedes the Tree of Life and the Torah. This is essentially the famous saying, “Derech Erets precedes the Torah.” Derech Erets is how we relate to others and to ourselves, and how our personality and human processes operate. Thus, the Cherubin represented the purity of humanity ready to learn and obey the Torah. A Jew devoted to Torah but whose personality is flawed cannot achieve a proper level of Torah.

But there is another aspect of the Cherubin mentioned there. The book Tano Divei Eliyohu begins with “And He drove the man out” of the Garden of Eden after the sin of Adam and Eve. “And He established the Cherubin in front of the Garden of Eden” to prevent people from entering the Garden. With the Cherubin was “a sharply bladed sword that twisted.” Thus, the Cherubin are avenging angels.

The Cherubin are avenging angels who appear in the guise of children, a boy and a girl. This is amazing. Do children become avenging angels? But a purity of heart that merits a purity of Torah cannot tolerate evil. It struggles to maintain the purity of the Holy of Holies and whatever Torah level is has achieved. This battle is a constant and mighty battle, requiring great efforts and wisdom. Those who seek the Garden of Eden and higher holiness battle with an angelic evil force, the Satan, and inner biological and ego issues that require much planning and patience. The great rabbis warn us that if we seek to go too high we can fall. The weapon we use is a “blade of a twisting sword.” We must know when to go higher and when to accept our present level. To err is to be in danger. And we must constantly pray for divine assistance, because how can a mortal filled with evil forces succeed?

The highest level of Derech Erets is in proper and loving marital intimacy. Thus the Cherubin, representing Derech Erets, are boy and girl. This symbolizes marital relations, the highest level of Derech Erets, as a pure and innocent love.

The Torah and the Cherubin represent Torah and Derech Erets, or how to observe the Torah in human relations. But the Cherubin are more than simply the idea of relating to other people. The Cherubin represent the incredible concept of G‑d, alone in His Self, who sought to relate to others. We cannot approach the depth of this properly without the wisdom of G‑d which we lack. But we must appreciate it.

We must emulate G‑d. We must seek to relate to others. We must connect to others, and respect them, even if by so doing we may denigrate our own honor and glory. The world is filled with denial of the Truth and Torah. Yet it is G‑d's wish to make such a world in order that people can accept challenge and merit reward. Relating to others is more important than we can imagine. We, each of us, are more important than we can imagine. So we must remind ourselves of our importance, and yet, we must work on modesty. The sword is sharp but it turns and twists, up and down. Truly, life is a “ladder standing on the ground, and its top is in the heavens.” But if we don’t do things properly we can fall off of the ladder. And when we fall, the higher we were, the greater is the damage from the fall.

Thus, the Cherubin, boy and girl together, represent several important teachings. Through them we understand somewhat why HaShem created people. First of all, the Cherubin were innocent and pure, and therefore Cherubin in Aramaic, means “children.” Thus, we must strive for purity. Purity means many things, but it surely means we must relate to others without envy and hate. It is possible that relating to others without envy or hate is the hardest command in the Torah. The Second Temple was destroyed because of vain hatred.

Another lesson in the idea of Cherubin being “children” male and female is that Adam was created alone until he discovered, “it is not good for a man to be alone.” Then HaShem created Eve. Adam and Eve then had children and the world is their progeny. But marriage is a “twisting sword.” On the one hand marriage may be the highest level of humanity. It requires a supreme Derech Erets for two different people to marry. And the biological passions associated with childbirth threaten us constantly with evil thoughts that easily lead to sin. We are always struggling with these opposite poles of humanity. But the Cherubin, boy and girl, represent the idea that humans can struggle towards the ideal and the goal of purity in a world of the opposite. For this was a person created. And when a person tries to be pure, heavenly forces embrace and encourage him. If he fails and sin, evil forces embrace and destroy him.

The Holy of Holies teaches us that despite the evil in the world and in all of us, we must recall the possibility of the highest purity as indicated with the Cherubin astride the Ark.

Reb Yisroel Salanter founded the Musar Movement to emphasize Derech Erets and proper social and personal behavior. He said that it is easier to master the Talmud than to purify one bad character trait. Great is our burden. But the Torah and the heavenly realm are there to empower us to succeed.

King Saul, the tallest of the Jews in his time, was a mighty warrior and the king of Israel, the first king. And yet, we are told, “Saul was as a one year old child” in his purity. How could this be? Because the Cherubin teach us that life is to have temptations of ego and illicit desire and to fight them. Saul merited being as pure as a child without the hate and illicit desires that deprive people of holiness.

The great challenges of life are not in the Torah and its commands, because one twisted with hate will twist the Torah. One who has a pure heart and a pure mind and only such a person can learn Torah properly. Thus, Torah without Cherubin is a mortal danger. But when we seek Torah and Derech Erets, the Torah that we learn is pure.

The Zohar accepts that marriage and having children are done using the Evil Inclination within us. But it must be a servant and not the manager. As a servant, it creates lovely children with lofty souls. As a manager it destroys.

Thus, the Cherubin, boy and girl, represent human relations at its purest level. This includes marital relations that elevate a person as perhaps nothing else.

All of us outside of the Garden of Eden struggle to find goodness. But our world is saturated with biological and spiritual forces that threaten Torah values. When we struggle with darkness a light comes from the highest heavens to help us. The supreme achievement is to achieve purity similar to that of young children. This is the teaching of the Cherubin.

Chapter Two

Cherubins Stand on the Ark in the Temple

Why did the Cherubin stand on the Ark containing the Holy Torah and the Sacred Tablets? But Cherubins were baby-faced angels of kindness but could also be avenging angels. Anyone who entered the Holy of Holies and did not belong there would deal with the Cherubins. To know how to behave with kindness or attack requires a knowledge of Torah. Thus, the Cherubin stood upon the Torah to be guided.

It is very easy, and happens frequently, that somebody does something very wrong because he thinks  he is doing a good deed. This is especially prevalent in family as we will discuss.

Light and Darkness

 “And it was evening and it was morning, one day.” G‑d created the world with both light and darkness. The physical world has light and darkness, day and night. And the spiritual world has light and darkness, goodness and evil.

The physical world after sunset and before sunrise has periods of confusion. It is in between day and night but seems to be neither. This “between the sun’s rising or setting” has no clear status as day or night. The spiritual world also has light and obvious goodness, and it has darkness and obvious evil. It also has things that are confusing. We are not sure if it is good or bad, or both, or what.

Thus, the Cherubin, angels, stand on the Holy Ark in the Holy of Holies. Sometimes the Cherubin are as baby-faced loving children. And sometimes they are avenging angels. Rooted in Torah, the Cherubin know what to do, when do be kind and when destructive.

How do we apply this to our lives?

The Cherubin, boy and girl, represented purity in marriage, perhaps the greatest mortal level. Marriage is a very special and holy level, but it also requires elements that can go in the other direction. It is very difficult to know what to do, even to know what is right and what is wrong. Let us take some examples.

Much of marriage goes in opposite directions. For instance, Rambam tells  us that the husband must honor his wife more than himself, and that the wife must treat her husband as if he was a great officer. That is very nice. But what about when the husband feels that he is the one who makes Kiddush and learns Torah and explains halacha, not the wife. And what if the wife feels that she is the one who is entrusted with holding a baby until birth and raising it, while the husband is outside of the home, doing things that may be less important in the long run than creating good people.

What if the husband points out to his wife that he is the one who learns and teaches Torah. And the wife rejoins that the Zohar teaches that the first word in the Torah is בראשית whose letters are בית ראש meaning “the house is primary.” Who is right? Who is wrong?

In my work Secret of the Scale we talk about this at length, and we want to discuss these matters again and add some more material. But our point here is simply that marriage is a time of confusion. And the Cherubin remind us that we must be rooted in Torah, “standing on the Ark” in order to proceed.

The Gaon Reb Shlomo Zalman Aurebach lost his wife in his old age. He came to the funeral and refused to ask his wife publicly for forgiveness. People came to him and questioned this. It is the Jewish custom to be forgiveness at that time. Reb Shlomo Zalman answered, “I never did anything to displease her. So why should I ask her forgiveness.” Here is a great Gaon and a great Tsadik. But to be married fifty years and never aggravate your wife? That is something special. It might also be very unusual.

The great conflict in marriage is not the conflict of Torah and the house. It is the conflict of two people who are very different in many ways. How can the live together for fifty years with never a wrong word? That is the power of Torah. And even those who do have Torah rarely achieve it. As Reb Yisroel Salanter said, “It is easier to master the Talmud than to master one bad character trait.”

One thing I learn from the Cherubin is that to stand astride the Ark and do the right thing you have to be an angel. What does that do for me? I don’t know if it does anything for me. But it does tell me to get to work. And “one who comes to purify himself merits heavenly help.” Yes, there is heavenly help. And yes, there are angels. And we need help constantly.

But I have a more practical path. We will discuss this in chapter Three. It is called, “Shalom Bayis Beth Din,” an idea approved by Gedolei HaDor that could really make a dent in the broken marriages we see today.

Chapter Three - Shalom Bayis Beth Din

The Gaon Rav Mayer Mintz zt”l once told me the following. A Jew did such a terrible sin that nobody ever heard of a Jew doing such a thing. They went to a rabbi who told them, “I don’t know why the Jew did such a thing, but this I know. He did it to serve HaShem.” That is, we are limited in our evil-doing when we know we are doing wrong. Perhaps we were overwhelmed by anger or desire and do something we know is wrong. But if we know it is wrong, we have to limit the scope of the evil. If, however, we are convinced that the evil deed is not evil but a good deed, a mitzvah, why should we refrain from doing it completely?

We have in family the best and the worst. The best is when people marry and try their best to succeed. But as time goes on, and the problems multiply, there may be a different atmosphere in the home. Eventually, somebody says something and the other spouse is very offended. Words are exchanged. A coldness pervades the home. Relatives sense it and are told the complaints. From then, it is downhill. As the bitterness becomes public knowledge, certain types intervene and encourage the worst. And the worst does happen. Finally, somebody may want a divorce. And the other spouse refuses. This leads to war. Hate and destruction rain down on the house and the children and cause terrible pain to the couple. It may never end and it may constantly get worse and worse. Why? Because the warring people are sure that they are the righteous one, and the other one is the evil one. So why not destroy an evil person?

Enter Shalom Bayis Beth Din.

Shalom Bayis Beth Din is not a Beth Din to deal with divorce and giving a GET. Shalom Bayis Beth Din never deals with a GET as it is only there to assure Shalom Bayis. How does it work?

The task of Shalom Bayis Beth Din is one, to educate about how to behave in a marriage. This education can begin before the wedding, even long before it. I once told a prominent therapist that education for marriage should begin at the age of three, he countered that the latest scientific evidence is that the education should begin much earlier than that, before gestation! At any rate, the earlier the better.

Shalom Bayis Beth Din is there to deal with any arguments or differences of opinion in the marriage, to extinguish the sparks of war before they really ignite. How is this done?

First of all, Shalom Bayis Beth very strongly urges a couple never to discuss their complaints with relatives and friends. Those personally inclined towards relatives and friends and can make a bad marriage worse. We even have idealistic people who seek opportunities to “enlighten” married people about the “benefit” of a war against the other spouse.

Secondly, when told of a complaint, Shalom Bayis Beth Din listens carefully, but deals with the complaint to limit it so that it doesn’t become the great excuse to make war and hideous horrors in the house.

Third of all, when it seems that somebody wants a divorce, we follow the advice of the great Gaon and expert in personal matters, Rebbe Yaacov Kaminetsky, who told a Rov: “Ask her if her husband would be good enough for a zivuge shaynee.”

Until now Shalom Bayis Beth Din is only voluntary. But if the family has no great worry about disobeying the Shalom Bayis Beth Din, there are times when the pain and passion overcome all reason. Therefore, the couple when it approaches Shalom Bayis Beth Din, is given an option of pledging in writing, in a document valid in American law, that the couple will obey the ruling of the Shalom Bayis Beth Din not to do this or to do that. And if they Beth Din is not obeyed, the Beth Din has a right to fine the spouse who defies it.

In such a situation, if the spouse continues, say, to beat his wife, and the fines multiply, the person may realize that he cannot control himself (which is common) and he realizes that he will lose a lot of money, because the Beth Din has a legal document that requires the fine to be paid. At that point, he may decide to agree on a GET, to save himself the fines. This is not a GET Meuoso, a forced GET. I have discussed this with great authorities. The fine is not to give as GET. The opposite is true. The fine is to make Shalom Bayis and sustain the marriage. But the only escape for one who cannot control himself is a GET. This hopefully will limit the amount of women who are refused a GET.

A prominent Gaon of the past generation told me that he never saw a husband who beat his wife stop beating his wife. He said it is a sickness. If so, the fine could convince the husband to divorce. But this is not the purpose of the Beth Din nor does it want to deal with divorces. Better that another Beth Din deal with divorce. But if there is nobody else to take care of it, someone worthy will decide whether the Shalom Bayis Beth Din should get involved with a GET. But again, the Shalom Bayis Beth Din is only there to make Shalom Bayis and does not talk about GET in any way to encourage it. Of course, it could mention that if the fights keep getting worse every day that who knows, it may end up a divorce. But the Beth Din does not in any way shape or form encourage a GET. If the husband or wife want a GET, again, it is better that another Beth Din deal with it. And if only the Beth Din should be able to succeed with the GET, a worthy person must decide what to do.

An important part of Shalom Bayis Din’s activities is teaching about intimacy. There are hideous problems from marriages that are destroyed by frumkeit regarding intimacy. There are unbelievable sins when there is not a happy functioning intimacy in the house. We hope to discuss this in more detail later on.

A man had been fighting terribly with his wife and were separated many years without a GET. I read him a few lines in the Shulchan Aruch. He jumped up and said, “I need a wife.” If people could read the Shulchan Aruch, if they realized the true halacha of how to behave in marriage, so many marriages would succeed. But today, there is great ignorance across the board about the laws of marriage and divorce.

The Cherubin stand asride the Torah, because everything depends on the halacha. Every marriage should also stand astride the Shulchan Aruch, because only when people know the halacha and obey it can we really hope for a successful marriage.

Shalom Bayis Beth Din is a project of the Jewish Outreach Congregation, which is heavily involved in education about marriage and divorce. We will deal with this in the coming chapter, Chapter Four Teaching the Laws of Marriage, Family and Divorce.

Chapter Four – Laws of Marriage, Family and Divorce

We have mentioned above that the Cherubin had faces of children, to symbolize purity. They were boy and girl to indicate the holiness of marriage and family. And they stood astride the Holy Ark with the Torah of Moshe inside along with the Tablets from HaShem and Sinai, to show that we must root ourselves always in halacha as taught in the Torah. When people know the laws of marriage, family and divorce, there is hope. When people don’t know the laws of marriage, family and divorce, there are problems.

Today there are terrible problems. Jewish Outreach Congregation has been working hard the past years to rectify the terrible ignorance about these sacred laws. I spoke at length to the posek hador HaGaon Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashev of Jerusalem zt”l about these problems, and he encouraged me to struggle against the ignorance and worse that is going on today. (not completed)