Shavuot 2020 Breaking the Barrier: When God and people meet

(2) בעבור ישמע העם וגם בך יאמינו לעולם, they will believe in the possibility of this “face to face” communication between man and G’d, and the fact that you have been granted this level of prophecy by Me. (compare Deut.5,4 concerning the expression “face to face.”) One of the principal ingredients of this level of prophecy is that the prophet remains in full control of all his faculties including all parts of his body, something no one had been able to credit until they saw that Moses possessed such a capability.The Israelites commented on this in Deuteronomy 5,21 when Moses quoted them as having said: “this day we have seen that G’d can speak directly to man and man can survive such an encounter.” [In other words, it took the revelation at Mount Sinai, experienced by all the people, to teach them that Moses could enjoy such a relationship with G’d on an ongoing basis. Ed.] It is not that the people needed convincing that there were people who enjoyed prophetic stature and communicated with G’d and He with them. After all, they knew about all the patriarchs, Aaron and Miriam as well as Moses being prophets. However, up until this time all prophetic messages from G’d had been communicated either in a dream or in a vision involving the prophet losing touch with his surroundings at the time of such communication by G’d. [at the very least, if such a communication had been received while the recipient was awake he would have to sit down, as he would be unable to stand...

(1) פנים בפנים FACE TO FACE — R. Berechia said: Thus did Moses, in effect, say: Do not think that I am misleading you with something which does not exist at all, as an agent does acting between the vendor and the purchaser; behold, the seller Himself is speaking to you (God who transmitted the Torah to you) (cf. Pesikta Rabbati 21: Pesachim Rabbah פ' י' הדברות קמייתא‎).

(1) face to face i.e., without an intermediary. When someone’s voice can be heard directly, it is called “face to face”, even if his face cannot be seen.

(1) פנים בפנים דבר ה' עמכם, “The Lord spoke with you face to face;” Moses refers to the first two commandments that G-d addressed directly to all the people, before they asked Moses to become their go between as they found G-d’s voice too overpowering and were afraid of dying. (Compare verse 22)

(21) and said, “The LORD our God has just shown us His majestic Presence, and we have heard His voice out of the fire; we have seen this day that man may live though God has spoken to him.

(18) He said, “Oh, let me behold Your Presence!” (19) And He answered, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim before you the name LORD, and the grace that I grant and the compassion that I show. (20) But,” He said, “you cannot see My face, for man may not see Me and live.” (21) And the LORD said, “See, there is a place near Me. Station yourself on the rock (22) 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. (23) Then I will take My hand away and you will see My back; but My face must not be seen.”

(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.”

(3) and Moses went up to God. The LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel:

...And Moses went up to God: Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani (4th c.): Before the Torah was given, "The heavens are for God", the divine ones cannot go down, and the mortals may not go up. A story about a king who is marrying off his daughter, and he issued a prohibition: 'The Romans may not go down to Syria, and the Syrians may not stone a Roman.' When she married, he cancelled the prohibitions.

So too, before the Torah was given from heaven, "The heavens are for God," and when the Torah was given "Moses went up to God.", [and] "God came down on Mount Sinai."

(1) וירד ה׳ על הר סיני AND THE LORD CAME DOWN UPON MOUNT SINAI — One might think, then, that He actually came down upon it! Therefore it states, (Exodus 20:19) “Ye have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven”. These two texts together teach us that He bent down the upper and lower heavens and spread them out over the top of the mountain like a bed-spread over a bed and the throne of Glory descended upon it (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 19:20).

(1) If you gain enlightenment about this passage, you will understand that His great Name came down upon the mountain and dwelt there in fire, and it was this that spoke with Moses. Throughout this passage, it is "The Lord", Yud Hey Vav Hey, who speaks with Moses, and the going up (v.3) and the leading out (v.17) are toward the place of the Presence, as I have explained in my comment to v.3 It was "the Lord" upon whom the people were warned "not to break through...to gaze" (v.21). For even the nobles of Israel did not see the Lord -- "they beheld God" (24:11) -- but all of Israel heard the Lord's voice from the fire. It is true that "God spoke all these words" (20:1) but as our Sages said, "God" represents Him in his aspect as judge. But they also say that Israel heard the first two commandments "from the mouth of the almighty," that is the Lord. And, of course, as Deut. 5:19 makes clear, "The Lord spoke those words ...to your whole congregation at the mountain." Deut 5:4 says, "Face to face the Lord spoke to you on the mountain out of the fire? does not contradict this; the Israelites were speaking to Moses of what they themselves had apprehended, the Voice speaking. In Deut 5:24 they say , "you go closer and hear all that the Lord our God says." Similarly, when Moses asks, "Has any people heard the voice of God speaking out of the fire, as you have, and survived?

(1) ויראו את אלהי ישראל NOW THEY SAW THE GOD OF ISRAEL — They gazed intently and failing in this they peeped in their attempt to catch a glimpse of the Supreme Being, and thereby made themselves liable to death. But it was only because God did not wish to disturb the joy caused by the Giving of the Torah, that He did not punish them instantly, but waited (postponed the punishment) for Nadab and Abihu until the day when the Tabernacle was dedicated, when they were stricken with death, and for the elders until the event of which the text relates, (Numbers 11:16) “And when the people complained …. and the fire of the Lord burned among them and destroyed בקצה המחנה” — those who were the קצינים “nobles” of the camp (Midrash Tanchuma, Beha'alotcha 16). (2) כמעשה לבנת הספיר AS IT WERE THE BRICKWORK OF SAPPHIRE — This had been before Him during the period of Egyptian slavery as a symbol of Israel’s woes — for they were subjected to do brick-work (cf. Jerusalem Talmud Succah 6:3; Leviticus Rabbah 23:8). (3) וכעצם השמים לטהר AND AS IT WERE AS THE BODY OF HEAVEN FOR PURITY — This implies that as soon as they (the Israelites) were delivered there was radiance and rejoicing before Him. (4) וכעצם — Translate it as the Targum does: “as the appearance”. (5) לטהר means FOR BRIGHTNESS AND CLEARNESS.

(3) ומשה לא ידע כי קרן עור פניו, Moses was not aware that the skin of his face radiated light. When G-d had placed His hand on his face to shield him when His glory passed and he stood in the opening of a cave in the rock (compare 33,22), he merited this reminder of that encounter. The reason that he merited this reminder which he had not merited when he carried the first set of Tablets, was that the first set of Tablets had been given publicly for everyone to see, whereas at the introduction to his ascent to receive the second set the Torah had expressly warned that that no one was to accompany him even at the bottom of the Mountain (verse 3). Seeing that the giving of the firsts set of Tablets was accompanied by so much publicity, if there had been no visible evidence that Moses had received a second set some people might have thought that he himself had written on the Tablets seeing that the raw material had been taken up on the Mountain with him, also. An alternate explanation: Seeing that prior to Moses’ return with the first set of Tablets the people had been prepared to accept another leader in Moses’ place, his emitting rays of light on his descent from the Mountain this time made a repetition of such an attempt quite unlikely.