Moses yearns for divine understanding

Torah Study

CANTOR SARAH AND RICHARD SAGER
Chol HaMo'eid Passover/Exodus 33:12-34:26

• Moses asks to see God.
  
  
• God says that although Moses will be allowed to understand something of God's nature, Moses cannot see God's face.
  
  
• God reveals divine attributes to Moses on Mount Sinai.
  

(Moses) said, "Oh, let me behold Your Presence!" ... But, God said, "you cannot see My face ... and live." And Adonai said, "See, there is a place near Me. Station yourself on the rock and, as My Presence passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and shield you with My hand until I have passed by." (Exodus 33:18-22)

• Behold! Human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open toward the light. ... And they see only their own shadows, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave. ... In the world of knowledge, the idea of Good appears last of all and ... is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right. (Plato)
  
  
• "(An) intangible God can be real without having form or taking up space, if the attributes for which He stands are real and valid in our world. If we use the word "God" to designate such qualities as Justice, Love, and Truth and if ... Justice, Love, and Truth are real, ... then God too is real. (Harold S. Kushner)
  

1. Plato's Idea of the Good seems to have similarities with the Jewish understanding of God as "the universal author of all things beautiful and right ... and the immediate source of reason and truth." What is it about Plato's formulation that allows us to understand the nature of God?
   
   
2. God states that God cannot be seen. Kushner maintains that just because something is not visible does not mean it doesn't exist. Are the concepts of Justice, Love, and Truth consistent with God's own revelation of God's self?
   

Plato's "Parable of the Cave" helps shed light on what we might call "Moses' Cleft in the Rock." Plato describes human beings locked into a cave. We learn that it is possible for the individual to be released from the cave and to reach, in stages, the ultimate reality that is called the Idea of the Good.

By contrast, Moses cannot see the ultimate reality, God, for no person can see God and live.

Plato's Idea of the Good ("god") is a fixed vision, the contemplation of which is the highest form of knowledge.

The progress of Moses' theological vision is profoundly different. The God of the Jews moves through history: "I will make all My goodness pass before you;" Maimonides understands "all My goodness" to mean God's actions in the world. God is known through our actions, as we aspire through our deeds to create a world of compassion, holiness, and truth. It is that path that we reaffirm each year during Passover. Having relived the drama of the Exodus, we seek to comprehend the essential nature of this God with whom we are now inextricably linked. As Moses does in these chapters, so do we renew the covenant of relationship with the God of our continuing journey from darkness into light, from oppression to a still unimagined freedom of the spirit.