The Ramban in the beginning of this week's parsha, writes that the mishkan, the tabernacle, was to serve as a means of extending the public experience of God's divine presence at Mt.Sinai into a more private setting. The book of Shemos is really the 'Sefer ha-Geulah' - the Book of Redemption - and it ends when the divine presence finally rested in the mishkan, thus marking the culmination of the redemption process, for the nation as a whole was now on the level of its forefathers, in whose tents the divine presence rested. The central component of the mishkan, the Ramban says, was the aron, or the ark, the seat of the divine presence. Interestingly, Rabbeinu Bachya says that the word 'aron' is related to the word 'ohr,' light, because it contained within it the tablets of the Torah - the luchos. Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik has said that it was the aron together with the luchos that really constituted the essence of the mishkan. Without the luchos, the ark was just a box. Since the central part of the events at Mt. Sinai was the giving of the Torah, its extension into the everyday life of the people through the mishkan was concentrated in the aron with the luchos. The mishkan was, for this reason, called the 'mishkan ha-eidus' - the mishkan of testimony - because it housed the aron with the luchos, which are called the luchos ha-eidus. Without the aron with the luchos in it, the mishkan did not serve as an abode for God's presence, and was, in fact, not a mishkan (see Rabbi Tsevi Shachter's ' Erets ha-Tsevi', p. 91). Because the aron, as the place of the luchos, was the defining vessel of the entire mishkan, it is important to understand the symbolism of its structure. I would like to focus on the message of the two cherubs that sat atop the aron. Although there are midrashim that explain that one of the two cherubs was male and the other one was female, to represent the relationship between God and His people, I would like to explain the symbolism based on the view that it was two male children who were represented there, suggesting the image of two youths studying Torah (see Ba'al ha-Turim and Keli Yakar). This explanation is more in keeping with the idea we have presented that the aron's function was defined by the fact that it contained the lushos within it. Why, however, were young boys represented through the cherubs, rather than mature men? Isn't their Torah study on a more sophisticated level, and, more fitting for representation atop the aron?

The Talmud in Sukkah relates that the men of Jerusalem had the beautiful practice of carrying their lulav with them all day long on Sukkos, and would only put it down when they read from the Torah or raised their hand in the priestly blessing. Why did they put the lulav down when they read from the Torah? Rashi explains that when reads from a Torah scroll, he must hold the Torah's handles, and, to do this, he must put the lulav down. Rav Aharon Soloveitchick, however, gave a different reason. He said that according to the Sefer ha-Chinuch, the lulav represents the backbone of a person. Rav Aharon took this to mean the central nervous system, with culminates with the brain stem (via the spine). In effect, the lulav represents the mind. When one learns Torah, he explained, he cannot approach it with whatever understanding he reached of it in the past. Each time he learns a particular part of Torah, he needs to approach it anew, as if he had never learned it before. In this way, one constantly finds additional nuances of meaning in what he is learning. One thus needs to approach Torah, each time he learns it, as a young child who has never learned it before, retaining the youthful attitude of inquisitiveness in his study. I believe that this is why the cherubs were represented as young children, facing each other and learning Torah with the youthful attitude necessary for continued growth.

The Torah tells us that the cherubs had wings that were spread over the aron and were pointed upwards. Rabbi Raphael Boruch Sorotzkin, in his ha-Binah veha-Beracha, writes that the idea here is the need for continued growth in learning, no matter how high a level one has achieved. There is no end to the depths one can reach when delving into Torah. By adapting the approach of youthful inquisitiveness in his studies, a person is able to grow constantly, flying upward in his grasp of God's word as embodied in the luchos. Perhaps this is also part of the reasoning behind the account in the Talmud of a rabbi who would begin his lesson with a joke. Rabbi Yehoshua Falk, in his commentary Pnei Yehoshua, writes that the rabbi didn't really joke before the lesson starts, but taught lighter material, such as aggadah, as the opening part of his Torah lesson. However, I believe that this Talmudic statement can be taken literally, as well. A sense of humor actually helps one remain young in spirit. By beginning the lesson with a bit of humor, the teacher is awakening the youthful spirit in his students, which can then be applied to their Torah study proper, and assist them in the process of continual development within Torah, as symbolized by the cherubs sitting atop the aron.