Symbolism of the Aron

What is the symbolism of the Aron HaKodesh?

What is the form of the Aron? It is a wooden box encased in pure gold on the inside and the outside, two keruvim statues (generally understood to be some kind of humaniform depiction of an 'angel') facing each other poised atop the cover. Inside it we placed the cubes of stone inscribed with the Ten Utterances, and beside it or on top of it was kept a Torah scroll written by Moshe, a jar of the manna from the desert journey, and the staff of Aharon.

What does the wood represent? The wood represents endless growth and change, just as a tree grows all its life. To stop growing is to die. To change is to live. So too, our relationship with God, our beliefs and our very beings, must always be growing and changing - to be changeless is to die.

What does the pure gold represent? Gold, a noble metal, represents changelessness and perfection, absolute axiomatic truth.

What does the gold coating the wood represent? That neither unconstrained change nor eternal stasis are acceptable. The change is guided by the coat of gold, and the gold, a soft and weak metal, bends and shapes itself to the ever-changing wood inside it.

What do  the keruvim represent? They represent the way past the keruvim that "guard the way to the Tree of Life" with "swords of fire" (Genesis 3:24). The Aron and its accompaniments are the devices by which we, humanity, reenter the Garden and gain eternal life, the keruvim sheathing their swords and forming an archway to bring us in.

Thus, only by changing, bounded by only the axioms of the Torah, can we live. Only by living within the axioms of the Torah are we preserved from decay and death, eternal oblivion.

Exactly when we abide by this - rejecting both the ossification of tradition and the rejection of our axioms, when we hold the covenants with God within us, His Words by our sides - then there is no limit on our potential, then can we claim the Tree of Life.