Terumah: Inaccessible

This week's parsha deals with the sacred.  The root within terumah is  רוּם, ROM, meaning high, exalted. Terumah moves an asset from  the mundane to the holy. The  act of giving makes the matter worthy of its lofty recipient. 

Translation becomes more problematic when dealing with issues of sanctity. I do not think that the feelings and concepts of the ancients, along with their tribal variations are preserved in language. The skepticism that is the foundation of modernity is an enemy to the mysteries that explained the world to the ancients. It is an impossible  challenge to understand the world through the chauvinistic eyes of others. What were the Aztecs thinking? 

The sanctuaries in this week's parsha were made from special materials. Dyed fabrics, acacia wood, gold, silver and copper. All of these were expensive, precious, hard to produce. They were economically significant: they could be used as money. Their value was universally appreciated. It is hard for me, living in the industrial age, to appreciate the difficulty involved in making these items and the expense involved in acquiring them. Gifting these items was a significant economic sacrifice. 

The ark of the covenant was the first object described. Arguably, the most central and important object is described first. This gilded box was to be covered by a כַפֹּ֖רֶת , kaporeth. The word means cover, but the word develops a connection to atonement. The day of atonement (the only day of the year that a human [the High Priest] faced the kaporeth covered ark) is called Yom Kippur. I think this is an insight into the "atonement" that is achieved on Yom Kippur. It is an expensive, heavy, ornate [almost] inescapable cover [up] of the transgressions of the past year. It is not an erasure. 

The tablets, the Divine law engraved in stone, delivered to Moses at Sinai were the centerpiece of the Tabernacle complex.  The tablets, both the original shattered tablets and the intact replacements, were placed in and aron. The word, aron in this context, is   usually translated as ark; the word also means coffin.  They were put into a gilded box that was never to be opened again. The tablets, the words from Gd written in stone, cannot be referenced. We need to be satisfied by the tradition that the tablets are contained in the ark

The inaccessibility of the tablets is consistent with their stated purpose. The Sinai experience, for which the tablets are the proof [testament] was intended as a basis for the national faith in the human administered judicial system. The law was to human interpretation, not set in stone. 

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 ,barring human access. A cherub seems to a guard  that bars access to the most sacred.  In the [modern] synagogue, 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 Torah, the representative of the Tablets, that contains the content of the tablets, is called the Tree of Life.  The synagogue ark, covered with its perocheth,  guards the Torah from us; and it protects  us from the wrath of  Gd for our neglect of the Torah. 

What does this lack of access accomplish? Reference materials at the library are hard to access to protect the  materials from damage and theft. In the case of the tablets, there is an intentional remoteness. Coming close to Gd is dangerous. A person cannot confront the essence. Some things must remain covered up forever.