NUM60 Plato described the human body as a "living tomb," as a prison. Plato, Phaedrus 250. Jewish tradition compares the human body to the Temple, to a house of God. See e.g., Abraham Ibn Ezra on Exodus 25:40, in standard editions of Hebrew Scriptures with commentary. But, to compare the body to the Temple assumes a prior vision of the Temple. At the center of the Temple was the Holy of Holies, the most sacred spot in the world. There one found the cherubs. What were the cherubs doing? "Rabbi Kattina said, 'Whenever Israel came up to [the Temple for] the Festival, the curtain would be removed for them and the cherubs were shown to them. Their bodies were intertwined with one another and they were thus addressed: Look! You are beloved before God as the love between man and woman." On this text, Rashi comments, "They [i.e., the cherubs] cleaved one to the other, holding and embracing each other as the male embraces the female." Yoma 54a and Rashi there. These texts depict the Holy of Holies as a bedroom where the cherubs engage in the procreative act. And where does God dwell? Between the cherubs (this verse, and discussion in Abraham J. Heschel, Torah min ha-Shamayim, vol 1 (London: Soncino, 192), pp. 59-64. In this view, the most physical act can have the most spiritual meaning. As the Iggeret ha-Kodesh -- The Holy Letter, states: "If you comprehend the mystery of the cherubim, you will understand what the sages of blessed memory meant in saying that when a man cleaves to his wife in holiness, the divine presence is manifested. In the mystery of man and woman, there is God. ... Proper sexual union can be a means of spiritual elevation when it is properly practiced." The Holy Letter, Seymour J. Cohen, trans. (New York: Ktav, 1976), pp. 50, 48. Sexuality represents a stance of pro-creation and re-creation that aligns the individual with the rest of humanity as well as with the Divine image implanted within each human person. Already in Scripture, sexual experience is described as "knowing." See e.g. Genesis 4:1, I Samuel 1:19; Iggeret ha-Kodesh, p. 142. Sexual experience, coupled with love, desire, and will, can penetrate not only the mystery of sexuality, but the mysteries of knowledge of the world, of the divine, and of the self. (On desire love, and will, see Iggeret ha-Kodesh, p. 142. On love, and love of God, see this volume, chap. 3).