Parashat Terumah – The Ark and Quantum Theory |
Scientific discoveries come in numerous forms. Some are achieved through careful observation and disciplined experimentation. Others, far more rare, erupt into history as sudden and unimaginable visions of reality—revelations that expose dimensions of existence no one suspected.
There are “known knowns”—things we know that we know. There are “known unknowns”—things we know we do not yet “know”. But then there are the “unknown unknowns”: realities so far beyond our conceptual framework that we do not even know that we do not know them.
Such was the case in 1905, when a young patent clerk named Albert Einstein flipped our understanding of the universe. In a series of papers written within a few months, he shattered conventional notions of space and time. Special relativity was not merely a refinement of prior knowledge, it was an eruption from the realm of the unknown unknown.
But, in some sense, even Einstein’s revolution pales beside what emerged in the decades that followed: quantum mechanics.
Quantum theory did more than simply revise our understanding of matter—it destabilized the idea of objective existence altogether. Particles behave differently when observed. Their properties are not fixed “out there” in some independent world but appear to crystallize through the act of observation.
The American physicist John Archibald Wheeler called this a “participatory universe.” We are not detached spectators of the cosmic drama; we are participants in its unfolding. Suddenly, humanity—so degraded by Copernicus and Darwin—is once again reinstated at the center of existence.
As Niels Bohr wrote, reflecting on quantum theory: “In the drama of existence we are ourselves both actors and spectators.”[1]
Nothing could be more unexpected.
This startling background provides a basis for understanding one of the most mysterious concepts in the Torah—the empty space between the two kharuvim, the golden cherubim (or angels) that stood atop the Ark in the Holy of Holies.
“There I will meet you, from above the cover, from between the two keruvim that are on the Ark of the Testimony…” (Shemot 25:22).
“There I will meet you, from above the cover, from between the two keruvim that are on the Ark of the Testimony…” (Shemot 25:22).
This is more than a conventional empty space. God does not speak from the cherubim. He speaks from the space in between; from a “nowhere”, from existential emptiness.
It is from a void that seemingly cannot contain sound at all. Sound requires vibration, medium, movement through space and time. Yet here, the Divine voice emerges from a dimension that defies physical conditions.
The Talmud makes an even more radical claim. The Ark, though it had precise physical dimensions, “did not occupy space.”² When placed in the Holy of Holies, the measurements from wall to Ark and Ark to wall together equaled the full width of the chamber—as if the Ark existed and yet did not exist spatially at all.[2]
It was present—but dimensionless.
Visible—but ungraspable.
Real—yet immeasurable.
A physical object that transcends physicality.
This seems to be reminiscent of quantum entities that possess no definite state until observed. A reality that eludes classical description, the Ark stands at the threshold between being and non-being.
The Chassidic master Menachem Mendel of Rimanov taught something equally astonishing: at Sinai, Israel heard only the Alef of Anochi—“I am the Lord your God.”[3]
But the letter Alef has no sound of its own. It is a silent letter, merely a carrier of breath. If so, they heard nothing.
And yet within that nothingness, they heard everything—the entire Torah, all of the commandments, all existence.
Revelation begins not with sound, but with silence; not with substance, but with emptiness, not with a known known, but with an unknown unknown.
The space between the keruvim is not a gap. It is not an absence. It is a dimension beyond measurement, beyond vibration, beyond definable reality. It is the locus of encounter.
God speaks from the “in between.”
Ultimate reality does not reside in the visible forms—the golden cherubim—but in the invisible relational space that connects them. Divine presence emerges not from fixed objects, but from the tension, the openness, the ungraspable interval between them.
Modern physics stumbled upon the instability of matter.
The Jewish Tradition revealed the instability of existence long before.
Quantum mechanics unsettles us because it denies the solidity of the world we thought we knew. The Ark unsettles us because it denies the solidity of the categories through which we think.
Ultimately, God is not a known known. Nor merely a known unknown. He is the ultimate Unknown Unknown.
And from that sacred emptiness, the voice still speaks.
Questions for the Shabbat Table
Why do you think the Torah says that God spoke from between the keruvim, rather than from one of them? What might the “in between” symbolize in our own lives—between people, between ideas, between moments?
The Israelites heard only the silent letter Alef at Sinai. What do you think it means to “hear” something that has no sound? Can understanding sometimes begin with confusion or emptiness?
Science once believed the world was solid and predictable. Quantum theory changed that. Have you ever had a moment when something you thought was solid or certain suddenly became uncertain? How did that change you?
If God is the ultimate “Unknown Unknown,” is He completely beyond us — or radically within us? The Rambam insists that we can only describe God in negative terms: we can say what He is not, but never what He is (Guide I:58). God is utterly transcendent, beyond all categories of thought.
Yet Chassidic teaching, especially in the name of the Baal Shem Tov, declares: “There is no place devoid of Him” (leit atar panui minei). God is not merely beyond the world — He permeates every moment of it.
And then there is Baruch Spinoza, who identified God with Nature itself (Deus sive Natura) — denying transcendence altogether (at least according to some interpretations).
So which vision resonates more deeply with you?
A God so transcendent that He cannot be grasped?
A God so immanent that He fills every particle of existence?
Or something that is both at once?
And if God is both infinitely beyond and intimately present, how can those opposites coexist without collapsing into contradiction?
[1] Niels Bohr, “Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics,” in P.A. Schilpp (ed.), Albert Einstein: Philosopher–Scientist (1949), 236.
[2] Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 21a.
[3] Cf. Makkot 24a (re: hearing the first commandment); teachings attributed to R. Menachem Mendel of Rimanov in Chassidic tradition.