‘ “Please let me have a vision of Your glory,’ begged [Moses].
“God replied, ‘I will make all My goodness pass before you, and reveal the Divine Name in your presence. I will have mercy and show kindness to whomever I desire. But, you cannot have a vision of Myface. A man cannot have a vision of Me and still exist. I have a special place where you will be upstanding on the rocky mountain. When My glory passes by, I will place you in a crevice in the mountain, protecting you with My hand until I pass by. I will then remove My hand, and you will have a vision of what follows from My existence. My essence itself, however, will not be seen.’ ” (Exodus 33:18–23)
We need to understand why our teacher Moses asked to be shown God’s glory only now, after the incident with the golden calf, and not before the Jewish people had sinned.
Rashi’s opinion (ibid.) is well known. According to Rashi, Moses saw that this was a propitious time when God was acceding to his requests, so he took leave to request to be shown even God’s glory.
But what did the response that God gave to Moses mean? God said, “I will have mercy and show kindness to whomever I desire.” To whom does this refer?
The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 17b) quotes the verse (Exodus 34:6): “God passed by before [Moses] and proclaimed, ‘God, God, Omnipotent, merciful and kind, slow to anger, with tremendous love and truth . . .’ ” The Talmud explains that the Holy One, blessed be He, drew his robe around him like the reader of a congregation and showed Moses the order of prayer.
Let us attempt a simple understanding of this verse, at least according to our limited intellect. Why did God show the order of prayer to Moses at that time, and not at any other time? Another question is this: Why does God say, “You will be upstanding on the rocky mountain?” The Hebrew word for upstanding is nitzavta. The Talmud (Nedarim 64b) says: “Wherever the words nitzim or nitzavim are used in the Torah text, it is not a good sign, for they usually mean contention or uprising.”
And yet, as the verse in Psalm 82:1 says, “God stands (nitzav) among the congregation of God.” God is upstanding because this is appropriate for Him, blessed be He, as it is written (Psalms 93:1): “The Lord reigns: He is clothed with majesty.” For humans, however, it is not fitting. Man has no right to arrogate such a pose. Why, then, did God say to our teacher Moses, “You will be upstanding (nitzavta)?” And why did God go on to say, “I will then remove My hand?” Could God not have arranged things so Moses would not see God’s honor until after God had passed? Surely, only something that would naturally be visible needs to be hidden by the hand. This is not the case with God’s honor, which cannot be seen, in and of itself, until God reveals it.
Even though we have no way of even attempting to understand God’s revelation of Himself to Moses, we may still try to learn what it suggests to us. (Sanhedrin 103a) Perhaps it is similar to what we have learned in the sacred literature—I believe I heard this teaching in the name of the Great Maggid (R. Dov Ber of Mezeritch), commenting upon the following, well-known saying of the sages, of blessed memory: “R. Yohanan said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yochai, ‘What is meant by the verse (II Chronicles 33:13) “And he, Manasseh, prayed unto God, and God responded to him?” The text of R. Simeon had the Hebrew VaYechtar substituted for the word VaYe’etar. The meaning was changed. Instead of the verse reading “God responded to him,” it now reads “God tunnelled toward him.” This teaches that the Holy Blessed One made a kind of opening in the Heavens in order to accept his contrition. It was a ruse to avoid the Attribute of Justice, which was urging that his repentance not be accepted.’ ” The Maggid’s holy teaching is this: From this talmudic passage we learn that God’s acceptance of the sinner’s repentance is actually beneath His honor, beneath the throne of glory.
The Maggid’s teaching needs interpretation. In the liturgy of the High Holidays we praise God, saying, “It is Your way, O God, to have long patience toward the wicked and the righteous, and that itself is Your praise.” If God’s honor and glory are bound up with the very fact that He forgives, what then did the Maggid mean?
It may be, however, that the Maggid’s teaching is only with respect to the Attribute of Judgment. There are accusatory angels, and it is only according to their values that it is beneath God’s honor to accept the sinner’s repentance. This is not the case, however, with respect to the values of Jews. On the contrary, because the Holy Blessed One and the Jewish people are one, if God were not to accept a penitent’s contrition, it would be not only the Jewish person who remained sullied and degraded with sin, but also that part of him that is divine. Therefore, it is God’s glory to forgive and to accept repentance. The Torah goes so far as to command: “When a man is legally sentenced to death and executed, you must then hang him on a gallows. However, you may not allow his body to remain on the gallows overnight, but you must bury it on the same day. Since a person who has been hanged is a curse to God, you must not [let it] defile the land that God your Lord is giving you as a heritage.” (Deut. 21: 22–23) Rashi explains this verse with a parable, saying, “It may be compared to the case of identical twin brothers: One became king and the other was arrested for robbery and was hanged. Whoever saw him on the gallows exclaimed that the king was hanged.” So the Torah commanded us to bury the hanged man because of his resemblance to God.
This explains why God said to Moses, after the events surrounding the golden calf, “I will send an angel before you to safeguard you on the way, and bring you to the place that I have prepared. Be careful in his presence and heed his voice. Do not rebel against him, since My name is with him. He will not pardon your disobedience.” (Exodus 23:20–21) As we said above, according to the values of the angel, it is beneath God’s honor to accept the sinner’s contrition.
Perhaps, after being informed that God Himself, and not an angel, would continue to lead the Jewish people into the Promised Land, Moses then asked, “Please let me have a vision of Your glory,” meaning “Is it Your glory to forgive, or is it beneath Your dignity, as the angels contend?” To which God responded, saying, “I will have mercy and show kindness to whomever I desire,” meaning: “Even though the sinner is unworthy, this is My glory—and moreover, every Jewish person is in part divine.”
In addition to this, God also said to Moses, “I will remove My hand,” and “You will be upstanding on the rocky mountain.” We learn in the Talmud (Ta’anith 4a): “Israel said before God, ‘O God, set me as a seal upon they heart; as a seal upon thine arm.’ (Cant. 8:6) Whereupon the Holy Blessed One replied to her, ‘My daughter, you ask for something that at times can be seen and at other times cannot be seen. I, however, will make of you something that can be seen at all times, as it is said, “Behold I have carved you upon the palms of My hands.” (Isaiah 49:16)’ ” This hints to us that even when we experience, God forbid, God’s hiddenness (hester) and endure physical and spiritual troubles, we should not allow into our hearts the thought that we are really hidden, God forbid, from God. For even when it is the palm doing the concealing, there is still that level of “on the palms of My hands,” because we are carved into the palms themselves. It is the ultimate closeness, such that we can never be utterly hidden.
“And you will be upstanding on the rocky mountain” also hints that one can be strong and upstanding even at a time of hiddenness (hester), because the soul knows that it is already carved, and always seen at the level of “I have carved you upon the palms of My hands.”
With these two together, you will find naturally, within yourself, the power to be upstanding. This is also a commandment; God is commanding you to strengthen yourself and be upstanding.