Terumah: interlocking pieces

Terumah: interlocking pieces 

There is an intrinsic pleasure in pieces that fit together. People do jigsaw puzzles, children build structures with legos for the pure pleasure of fitting. Mathematical proofs and puzzling through  the Talmud provide a similar sense of things fitting, turning the jagged into the smooth. Following directions and coming to a desired result is a related pleasure.  These feelings of accomplishment impart the satisfaction of order in the world, they evoke a sense of an ordering principle ( or Being). The tabernacle described in Terumah has many interlocking pieces. Considering their source, I presume they fit together quite well.  I also presume that the instructions were followed very closely. 

 Heaven is the paradigm of order.  The sun and moon and stars in their  (very rarely changing), seemingly eternal array are a fitting throne for the One Eternal. Great and beautiful earthly structures bring us a taste of heaven. 

The tablets, the Divine law engraved in stone, were the centerpiece of the Tabernacle complex.  The tablets were placed in and aron,  usually translated as ark, the word also means coffin.  What does it mean to put the tablets of the law in a coffin? It means that  they cannot be easily referenced, but should the need arise they can be disentombed. There is some security in knowing that something may be extraordinarily difficult, but not impossible.  Is this a message of Raiders of the Lost Ark?

The strangest, most elaborate object in the Temple was the kaporeth, the ark cover.  It was a slab of gold, sized to cover the coffin of the law, with the likeness of cherubim extruded from its substance.  In the Ten Commandments  the enclosed  tablets  state: 

לֹֽ֣א תַֽעֲשֶׂ֨ה־לְךָ֥֣ פֶ֣֙סֶל֙ ׀ וְכָל־תְּמוּנָ֡֔ה אֲשֶׁ֤֣ר בַּשָּׁמַ֣֙יִם֙ ׀ מִמַּ֡֔עַל וַֽאֲשֶׁ֥ר֩ בָּאָ֖֨רֶץ מִתַָּ֑֜חַת וַאֲשֶׁ֥֣ר בַּמַּ֖֣יִם ׀ מִתַּ֥֣חַת לָאָֽ֗רֶץ

You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.

Those tablets are covered by a sculpture, by the command of Gd. Such an affront means that the simple interpretation  of the words is inadequate.  The true meaning of the stated commandment  is covered, presumably in its language.  Only with deep study is the true meaning revealed, and then, only  partially. 

An important achievement of art is the provocation of thought  devolving from its strangeness. The disquiet that emerges from (re)presentation confronts the viewer.  The two dimensional portrayal of a three dimensional world is a contradiction that invites the investigation of the significance of objects, now removed from their  natural, solid  world.  The choices that are made in architectural constructs  refocus the meaning of the people and the objects they contain; they create a relationship between the human and the artifact. 

It is in this spirit  of inconsistency that the ark cover, the kaporeth,  becomes an oracle, a place for communication from Heaven

וְנוֹעַדְתִּ֣י לְךָ֮ שָׁם֒ וְדִבַּרְתִּ֨י אִתְּךָ֜ מֵעַ֣ל הַכַּפֹּ֗רֶת מִבֵּין֙ שְׁנֵ֣י הַכְּרֻבִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֖ר עַל־אֲרֹ֣ן הָעֵדֻ֑ת אֵ֣ת כָּל־אֲשֶׁ֧ר אֲצַוֶּ֛ה אוֹתְךָ֖ אֶל־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ (פ)

There I will meet with you, and I will impart to you—from above the cover, from between the two cherubim that are on top of the Ark of the Pact—all that I will command you concerning the Israelite people.

This was a function that was seldom used, almost never after the time of Moses. 

 The cover, was designated the kaporeth. In the liturgical world, the meaning is expiation.  It is the same as the pre-Yom Kippur ( Day of Atonement) ritual done with chickens that are slaughtered as substitutes for their purchasers. This often filmed ritual ( considered pagan and anathema by Joseph Caro, the author of the standard Code of Jewish Law ( Shulchan Aruch) captures the replacement  and cover-up aspect of expiation from sin. The knowledge of the law, on the tablets contained under the kaporeth, is part of the sin of its violation. Hence, covering the law decreases the burden of guilt.  "Hareni kaporath mishkavo,"" Behold I am the expiation of his bier,"  is the phrase one uses in the first days after the death of a parent.  It is the statement of  an attempt at sharing the responsibility for any transgressions the parent may have done.  Perhaps kaporeth is always incomplete and smacks of the pagan 

The statuary on the kaporeth was in the form of  כְּרוּב, cherubs.  The cherubic form is also found on the tapestry that separates the inner sanctum, home of the ark and its cover, from the remainder of the  Tabernacle.  This curtain is named: perokheth which is an obvious rearrangement of the letters  kaporeth ( in Hebrew) .  The single earlier appearance of the cherub in the Torah  is in the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden.  The cherub is the guardian of the Tree of Life ( and knowledge?) , barring human access.  When the Torah is replaced in the  synagogue ark, we sing : עֵץ חַיִּים הִיא לַמַּחֲזִיקִים בָּהּ  It is a Tree of Life for those that hold fast to it.  The ark, covered with its perocheth,  guards the Torah from us and us from the (wrath?) of  Gd for our neglect of the Torah. Innocence extrudes beauty. 

 John Keats wrote :“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”. 

I have always had doubts about this statement.  Perhaps, I do not understand it well enough; perhaps  it comes from a different, competing culture.  There are aspects of beauty in truth; and beauty can encompass a truth that merits work to attain.  Certainly, beauty can cover the truth and what people call beauty  is false in some dimensions. 

Mr Rogers sings to the (cherubic) children: It's ( always) a beautiful day in the neighborhood.  Really?