Those Cherubs

Exodus 37:6-9 - A description of those beautiful golden cherubim that are made to 'protect' the ark. What differentiates them from idols? They may look a bit like idols to some.

The cherubim are a symbol of the protection of God's words.

R. Jonathan Sacks of UK said that the two figures with outstretched wings represent the place where God dwells is when two people truly face each other and reach out to each other.

Rabbi Brant Rosen's blog describes this well:

While most of us tend to picture cherubs as cute flying babies, the original cherubim (in Hebrew: “cheruvim”) were often fearful and ferocious creatures. Near Eastern scholars point out that statues of cheruvim were common in the ancient world, and were typically understood to be the guardians of sacred places. They were often represented with the body of an animal (such as a bull or a lion) and the face of a human. (The Egyptian sphinx is probably the most well known example of an extant cheruv.)

In the Torah, there are several important references to cheruvim. It is a cheruv that guards the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden after the expulsion of Adam and Eve. In some prophetic visions, cheruvim guard the Heavenly Throne itself; in Ezekiel they are famously described as creatures with four faces: a human, a lion, an ox and an eagle. Our Torah portion does not identify the precise form of the cheruvim that guard the Ark of the Covenant, but it seems clear that they have a similar protective function - “ancient Israelite gargoyles,” as it were.

If this was indeed the case, the physical stance of the cheruvim seems more than a little curious. As described in our portion, the cheruvim are facing each other, with their wings outspread over the ark. But if the function of the cheruvim was to guard the holy ark, wouldn’t it make more sense that they would face outward (i.e. toward a potential intruder?)

Many commentators suggest that the image of the cheruvim is one of mutuality and intimacy, not vigilance, per se. It is powerful to contemplate this image: the ark, which resided in the holiest of holy places, was “guarded” by symbolic sentries that were turned eternally toward each other. It might be said that only here could there be a place truly worthy of the Divine presence.