Seeing God Face to Face

(1) ויאמר לא תוכל לראות, your inability to see what you would like to see is not due to My depriving you, personally, of such an experience, but is rooted in man’s inability to “see” such things unless you had died first, as an eye of flesh and blood cannot “see” such things. You would be fatally blinded before understanding anything you would “see.”

(1) כי לא יראני האדם וחי, “for as long as a human being is alive, he cannot experience My essence visually.” According to Rabbi Shimon the Yemenite,” the definition of a human being is that he is alive. But even celestial creatures named חיות are named thus to remind us that though they “live” forever, they too are not able to have a visual experience of G-d’s essence (Torah Shleymah 131 on our verse.) If you were to counter that Isaiah 6,2 claimed to have experienced such a visual revelation when he said: ואראה את ה׳אדוני יושב על כסא, “I have seen G-d seated on a throne,” this did not describe what is known as a clear vision, but as something at best like a reflection from a mirror; he had been screened by a partition at the time.

(1) ויאמר לא תוכל לראות, He said: "you are not able to see, etc." G'd meant that it was not He who withheld visual insights from Moses, it was simply that being a mortal human being, a composite of flesh and spirit, made such a thing impossible. This is why G'd added the word וחי, "and remain alive," to explain to Moses that because G'd wanted Moses to remain alive He could not grant his wish at this time. This would correspond to the thoughts expressed by the Psalmist when he said: (Psalms 84,11) "better a day in Your courtyard than a thousand (days in Your palace)." (2) Alternatively, we may understand this verse to mean that even if man were חי, i.e. a perfectly righteous individual, immortal, G'd cannot be "seen" by man. We would have to understand the word חי in the sense it is used in Samuel II 23,20 where Benayahu son of Yehoyadah is described as בן איש חי, "a perfectly righteous individual." The letter ו at the beginning of the word וחי in our verse indicates that it adds something to what had already been stated, i.e. the inability to "see." (3) Still another way of understanding the words כי לא יראני האדם וחי, is that even after death it is impossible for man to "see" G'd. G'd asks: How can you expect to "see" G'd while still alive? Whatever "light" the righteous will be able to "see" in the hereafter does not come close to what you Moses are asking of Me at this time.

What did Moses see? It is said: “And I will remove My hand, and you will see My back, but My face you will not see” (Exodus 33:23). Rav Ḥana bar Bizna said in the name of Rabbi Shimon Ḥasida, the expression: “And you will see My back,” should be understood as follows: This teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, Who, as mentioned above, wears phylacteries, showed him the knot of the phylacteries of His head, which is worn on the back of the head.

(25) Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. (26) When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was strained as he wrestled with him. (27) Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” (28) Said the other, “What is your name?” He replied, “Jacob.” (29) Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.” (30) Jacob asked, “Pray tell me your name.” But he said, “You must not ask my name!” And he took leave of him there. (31) So Jacob named the place Peniel, meaning, “I have seen a divine being face to face, yet my life has been preserved.”