Sukkot - 5785

Sukkot - 5785

Rabbi Hal Miller

  Then Shlomo said, "God said He would dwell in the thick cloud. [Malachim I 8:12]

The haftorah for the second day of Sukkot refers a number of times to a thick cloud.

The word arafel is also used for foggy, misty, vague, nebulous and indistinct. The word

is used in numerous other places, with varying meanings. In modern Hebrew, it means

fog. In most of the places in Tanach where we find the word, it refers to a thick cloud,

thick darkness or something similar, and is very often listed alongside the word anan,

which always means cloud. It seems to involve a thickness that makes it difficult for one

to sense through. What does it mean in our context?

Two verses before ours, Malachim I 8:10, reads, " it was as the Kohanim left the Sanctuary

that the cloud filled the Temple", but the word for cloud there is anan. The following verse,

8:11, "The Kohanim could not stand and minister because of the cloud for the glory of God

filled the Temple" also uses anan. Our verse uses arafel, that God would "dwell in the

thick cloud." Verse 13 then goes on to discuss a dwelling for God. It would seem that maybe

our word is related to a Divine dwelling place, and the use of anan is related to a place

that God is specifically concentrating Himself at the moment. We, of course, know that God

is not physical and cannot as such limit Himself to any particular place, but maybe this

distinction can help us understand the Torah's use of the word arafel.

The verses 10 and 11, rather than describing a physical implementation of God, can be

read as a restriction on people. For whatever reason God chose, He required people to stay

out of those areas at those times. We could read such an interpretation into what Rav Hirsch

writes, "the presence of the cloud is an announcement of the proximity of God that will be

visible to those standing outside" thus it is to let the general population know that God is

present and supportive of the Kohanim and what they are doing.

Rashi, on Shemot [15:17], says "the earthly Sanctuary is aligned with the heavenly throne

which You made", seemingly indicating that the thick cloud is a kind of connection device

between the Temple built by man on earth and the Temple in heaven. Abarbanel gives us

something related, explaining that the arafel was a sign to Shlomo that his building of the

Temple was correct and successful.

Radak bypasses our question entirely, calling this the same cloud as in verses 10 and 11,

but that seems to ignore the word change from anan to arafel. Others also seem to view

the two words as implying the same thing. But the majority do try to separate them.

In Tehillim [97:2] we see both words, anan v'arafel s'vivav, "clouds and darkness surround

Him" and in Tehillim [18:10] "a thick cloud under His feet" v'arafel tachat raglav, both of these

seem to rely on anthropomorphisms relating physicality to God, so we need to look a little

deeper. Rav Hirsch explains these two verses that with arafel, God is hiding something from

man. In 18:10, God intervenes in earthly matters, but man does not see it, and in 97:2 that

there is a period of darkness that paves the way to the light that will follow. If so, then the

words anan and arafel are opposites. Anan is a beacon, a publicization that God is near.

Arafel is a hiding, that really knowing God is beyond us.