Dear Friends:
When Harry Truman suddenly became President of the United States, he said, “I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me.”
I believe that we Jews feel something like that right now. We stand trembling at the Gate of Rosh Hashana. Our hearts are burdened. We have experienced a year of terrible stress: internal shocks like the murders of Leiby Kletzky and Rabbi Elazar Abuchatzeira, vicious physical and verbal attacks upon the Land of Israel, and “external” shocks like hurricanes and earthquakes. Globally, an economic and political order -- even a moral order -- seem increasingly out of control. In addition, many families and individuals are suffering unimaginable burdens, including sickness, financial worries and every other kind of trouble!
As we prepare to stand before our Creator on these momentous days, what thoughts and feelings can we muster to deal with the weight of the burdens pressing upon us?
Our son told us a beautiful thought he heard from the Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon, the famous Mashgiach of Bais Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey. We read last week in the Haftara for Parshas Vayeilech, “Assyria cannot help us…. Only in You will the orphan find compassion.” (Hoshea 14:4)
What is unique about the relationship of the orphan to G-d?
When most people pray, we tend to think we know what is right, and we ask G-d, so to speak, “please make sure everything turns out the way I want it to.” We have plans and priorities, hope and self-reliance.
But the orphan is alone and broken. All his “support systems” have been removed. He has nowhere to turn … except to his Father in Heaven. Nowhere else will he find that which will save him, and so he turns to the Master of the World with his tears, and cries out from the depths of his heart.
The Children of Israel today find ourselves in the position of the orphan. The entire world is lining up against us. Events around us are so overwhelming that it sometimes feels as if we are standing at the seashore as a tsunami, a hundred foot high wall of water, is about to inundate us. Where can we turn but to our Father and King?
At this time, we would do well to focus on the future, because it is imperative for us to have hope. Every day in the Shemoneh Esreh, we plead with G-d to “restore Your Shechina (Presence) to Tzion,” and I believe that we should enter the Ten Days of Repentance with the vision that someday, we hope very soon, the presently dark world will be filled with the radiance of the Shechina.
Where is the Place of the Shechina in this world?
“Moshe would come to the Tent of Meeting and there he would hear the voice which would come ‘from atop the lid’ from between the two Cruvim (the angelic figures made out of gold and placed over the Holy Ark). The voice would emerge from the heavens to the space between the two Cruvim and from there it would go out to the rest of the tent of meeting.”’ (Rashi on Numbers 7:89)
Why did the Voice of G-d emanate from between the two Cruvim? What are the Cruvim anyway? Are they supposed to be people? But people don’t have wings. Isn’t it sacrilegious to stand on the Holy Ark? And since when do we make representations of people. Does it not say “you shall not make a carved image nor any likeness ….” (Exodus 20:4)
I would like to offer a suggestion.
What are the Cruvim?
THEY ARE WHAT WE CAN BE!
We are creatures of flesh and blood. We stand on the ground, but we want to rise high. We want to conquer our yetzer hara and give nachas to G-d. How do we rise above ourselves? The answer is clear: we get so close to the Torah that it becomes part of us. When that happens we become literally elevated. That means our existence is not on the ground; we are not subject to the events of this world.
I used to climb mountains as a kid, and I would be amazed to look down at where we had started. How did we get so high? So it is, lehavdil, with Torah. We learn with fervor. We sacrifice. We set the alarm for 4 a.m., and – while the rest of the world is sleeping – we sit in the Bais Medrash thrashing out a Gemora with our chavrusa. An aishes chayil runs a Torah home on a tremendously high level; “strength and majesty are her raiment.” (Aishes
Chayil/Mishlei 31:25) We throw ourselves into a Torah life “with all [our] heart, with all [our] soul and with all [our] resources.” (Deuteronomy 6:5) Suddenly, we find that we are in a different place. G-d has lifted us above the world!
The Cruvim rose because the Torah Itself elevated them. They are elevated by Torah. They are what we can be! They have risen on wings of Torah.
A young girl and a young boy. Isn’t that strange? Not at all! How was mankind created? G-d created a perfect couple in the Garden of Eden, two halves of one whole, united in perfect Shalom, from whom all mankind was destined to flow. This is the basis of creation, “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth….” (Genesis 1:28)
What about the law that we are not permitted to make representations? But is it not clear? G-d has commanded us specifically, “You shall make two Cruvim of gold….” (Exodus 25:18) These are the exceptions.
We are the exceptions!
My friends, do you think that total purity is not possible in this world? Rosh Hashana is coming. “Achas Shoalti … one thing I asked of G-d, that I shall seek, to dwell in the House of G-d all the days of my life.” (Psalm 27)
G-d reigns in Heaven and Earth! “K’heref ayin,” suddenly, He will bring pristine purity back to our world, and – if we desire it -- we can live in that perfect world. We can ascend the heights. Nothing and no one can stop us.
May we all be blessed with a year of sanctity and simcha. May the Presence of G-d soon dwell once more beneath the wings of the Cruvim and His Voice emanate from the Holy Temple! May we all be inscribed and sealed in the Book of LIfe!
© Copyright 2011 by Roy S. Neuberger
