Secret of the Cherubin - Chapter Two

Secret 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 to be an angel, to be a pure Cherubin, one must be strongly supported by a true understanding of Torah. 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.

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 to 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 directions. 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 beg 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 they 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.