In this section, we will post a new D'var Torah each week, written specifically for this site.
Dvar Torah
Rav Elie Mayer, Ramat Bet Shemesh.
In the Mishkan, the Aron is covered by the Kruvim. The faces of the Kruvim were the image of children. Why children? There is a chassidic teaching that the Torah, symbolized by the Aron, should be approached with the innocence and simplicity of a child.
The Talmud teaches in Menachot 29a that Moshe could not figure out how to make the menorah, despite G-d showing him a vision of how the menorah should look. The Yalkut Meam Loez quotes the Midrash, that states that G-d instructs Moshe to have Betzalel make the menorah. Betzalel does as he is told and makes the menorah with no problem.
How can it be that Moshe, the greatest prophet and Torah scholar in the history of mankind, cannot figure out how to make the menorah but Betzalel, unheard of up until Parshat Trumah, makes the menorah effortlessly? Perhaps, Moshe was too focused on details and technicalities. Moshe is associated with din (judgement) as Chazal say: "yikov ha-din et ha-har" (judgement will ordain the mountain [Mount Sinai]). Betzalel, according to the Talmud in Sanhedrin 69b, was only thirteen years old when he built the Mishkan! He possessed a youthfulness that allowed him to be uninhibited by intricate details.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson zt"l, once noted that: "It is easy to dismiss the simplicity of a child as a mere lack of knowledge. But such simplicity contains a certain power, an integrity and sincerity that may begin to erode as we rush to acquire wisdom and sophistication."
It is written in Pirkei Avot in the fourth chapter:
Elisha ben Avuyah said: He who learns as a child, what is he like? Like ink written on new paper. And he who learns as an old man, what is he like? Like ink written on smudged paper.
The simple interpretation is that ideas that are learned when young are not easily forgotten. However, I learned an interpretation from HaRav Mordechai Machlis, shlita, that he who learns like a child is like ink written on new paper. Even when older, one should imbue him or herself with the curiosity, excitement and innocence of a child.
The Midrash teaches that when G-d gave the Torah, He asked Bnei Yisrael for guarantors for the Torah. Ultimately, G-d would only accept the children as the Torah's guarantors. Perhaps this is so because of these childlike qualities that are so important for Torah study and connection to G-d.
May ha-kadosh baruch hu bless all the children of Am Yisrael with health, happiness and success because they are the future of Klal Yisrael, the guarantors of Torah and the builders of all the Mishkanot of the Jewish people.
"And all your children shall be
learners of [the Torah of] G-d, and
great will be the peace of your
children." Isiah 54:13
Do not read
your children but your builders.
(Brachot 64a)
Prior Dvar Torah: Parshat Yitro by R' Chaim Solovetchik
Return to top