A baby's tale

My daughter has earned various nicknames, but perhaps the most accurate, is ‘crazy lady’.  Of her many pastimes, perhaps her favorite is to take her tiny stroller, and put either: a cell phone, doll, or stuffed animal in it.  Then she goes.  She only knows one speed, and that is as fast as her tiny legs can carry her.  She careens around corners, crashes into walls, and given that the stroller is not made for such speeds, it wobbles and shakes as if it had a case of tremors.  Unfortunately, as the wobble increases, she is prone to lose her balance and topple over.   Generally, the results are not so bad, she pops back up and goes on as if nothing had happened, but inevitably there will be those falls that are not easy to get up from.  There is a pause, and then the siren begins.  That is when it is time to swoop in and comfort. 

                That is the life of a child- constant growth and constant instability.  With so much instability in their life, there has to be an external figure that can provide a semblance of stability, and the child has no choice but to trust him or her for that is their only hope in getting through the growth process. Ideally, this is a parent, and the hallmark of a child is their trusting nature.  I am not sure my daughter would be apt to go full speed ahead if she didn’t know there was someone there to pick her up and comfort when the fall is a tough one. 

                It is no wonder, then, that on top of the holiest object and in the holiest place that there is in Judaism- the Holy Ark and Holy of Holies, respectively- there are two Cherubim.   The Talmud describes that these Cherubim had the face of a baby. Why?  Because these are faces of trust, faces that realize that they are in an unstable existence.   The result of living in an unstable existence is that you look up for a source of stability. 

                To live a life of growth requires trust. Necessarily, in any growth process there is a period of instability where you have left the previous stage behind and are about to land in unfamiliar territory.  This a time of vulnerability, and a person is beholden to trust an authority to get through the tumult.  For this reason, at the heart of Judaism is the trusting face of a child, for this is the face that shows a person what it takes to grow, trust in something higher.