cherubim have an entirely other, and other-worldly, purpose.
What exactly the cherubim were, or even what they looked like, has been the subject of speculation and imagination for centuries. We met them first as guardians stationed at the eastern end of Eden, along with “the flame of the ever-tuning sword” in Genesis 3:24, though no details of their form and likeness is offered there. They appear in the visions of Isaiah and Ezekiel as terrifying but enthralling living, multifaced, human-animal-angelic composites attending the throne of the Almighty. In this week’s parashah, God instructs Moses in the minutiae of the future Tabernacle, including that two cherubim statues are to be fashioned in pure gold, positioned on either side of the Cover of the Ark that will house the Tablets of the Torah in the innermost heart of the desert sanctuary.
5781
The parasha moves quickly through events: the loss of historical memory with the rise of a new Pharaoh, the enslavement of Bene Yisrael, the psychology of that enslavement and its concomitant cruelties, the emergence of Moshe’s existential self-understanding as he moves from a position of privilege and aligns himself with slaves, Moshe’s flight to Midian, his epiphanic encounter with God at the burning bush, and his return to Egypt as a God’s emissary.
These events describe the foundational experiences of who we are and need constantly to become as Jews. The events of Egypt impact us in an even more seminal way than the encounter at Mt. Sinai. I suggest that because together with the creation of the world, we mention the exodus from Egypt during the amidah of virtually every holiday, during every kiddush, in the daily recitation of the Shema, and by reciting the haggadah in the transformative ritual of the seder. This parasha raises the moral challenges that lie at the h