Parshas Terumah: The Unknown

"You shall place the lid on the Aron from above, and into the Aron you shall put the Testimony that I shall give you." (Shemos 25:21) Rashi comments: "I do not know why this has been repeated, for it has already been stated, 'And you shall put into the Aron the Testimony.'" Rashi goes on to say that maybe there is meant to be specific command not to place the lid on and then remove it in order to put the luchos into it, rather the luchos must be put into the Aron before the lid is even put in place.

Last year (5771), the Rebbe explained that Rashi's self-expressed ignorance as to why the commandment of placing the luchos in the Aron is repeated offers room for one's own interpretation. He then pointed out that the implication may be that there are two aspects to Torah. One, the revealed and apparent Torah, is meant to be placed in the Aron without a lid on it, accessible simply by looking towards it and engaging in it. There is a second aspect, however, which is more delicate and illusive, more difficult to connect to. That is the Torah in the kapores, the covering itself, as referred to in the pasuk. The lid itself is a Torah that must then be placed on the Aron.

Throughout Torah, the general sense is that the less in control one believes he is, the more emunah he may have, and hence, his levels of satisfaction and simchah will go up.

The more in control we become, the more we begin to live under the illusion that we really are in control. Today, thanks to the advances of science and technology, we are more in control of more things than ever before, and have been duped into expecting to be able to determine results based solely on our own involvement and industry. Society as a whole has become arrogant and complacent. What we aren't in control of we either deny outright or fight; we have forgotten that there is something bigger and better than our own selves. Giving up our perceived control and admitting that we don't know everything is really where we are free to connect with Hashem in the most profound ways.

Living in the unknown is very powerful. Living with a sense that there is an unknown, a mystery, that we don't have all the answers, is the key to emunah and simcha. We have to be able to say to ourselves, "Maybe, just maybe, I'm not in control. Maybe I'm not in charge."

There is something very important for us in the hiddeness. That feeling of unknown is symbolized by the Torah that is in the covering.

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