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Is your child an angel? Wish your spouse were? What would that mean in real terms? Are angels perfect? How does one become an angel, and can anyone – save G-d – be even better than angel?
Let's begin with a fundamental question: What are Angels? We imagine them as floating haloed beings. Divine visitors to an otherwise shallow world.
Or, more metaphorically, we use the term for a newborn baby. Or the investor who just bailed out your company.
The concept actually originates in Torah, and the Torah describes angels as Divine emissaries (the Hebrew word – ‘Malach’ – can also refer to a human agent on a mission). An angel is not G-d, but it is G-dly. An angel is a being that is totally aware of its compete dependence on the Divine, and totally conscious that it only exists to fulfill its Divinely-ordained purpose.
In that sense, an angel is single-dimensional. It has no evil impulses, no rebellious tremors. It is a Divine functionary, and exists only to fulfill its ordained raison d' etre.
So we look up to an angel as a ray of G-d's sun.
In fact, our daily prayers have Scriptural verses which describe the inspiration and excitement with which angels embrace G-d. As Divine beings, angels have a direct perception of G-dliness, and that fills them with overwhelming excitement. So the Rabbis inserted the description of their holy passion into our daily meditations, to inspire us with the angelic experience.
Rabbi Sholom DovBer, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, once described the feelings he experienced while reciting the daily morning prayers: "When I recite the part of prayer which describes the praise that the angels sing before G‑d, I envy them. But when I read the Shema, the praise that the Jew sings before G‑d, I wonder: 'Where have all the angels gone?'"
With his final question, the Rebbe was underscoring an important truth: We humans struggle with selfishness, shallowness and distraction. We don't feel an intrinsic connection to G-d, and we admire the angels who have a much holier temperament.
But when we overcome our human handicap and succeed – even temporarily – in finding meaning, we're greater than angels can ever be.
This human experience is far from an angelic dream. But when it comes to fulfilling G-d's core purpose in Creation, it doesn't get better than that.
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