Parshat Ki Tisa: The Secret of Forgiveness

(5) The LORD came down in a cloud; He stood with him there, and proclaimed the name LORD. (6) The LORD passed before him and proclaimed: “The LORD! the LORD! a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, (7) extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet He does not remit all punishment, but visits the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations.” (8) Moses hastened to bow low to the ground in homage, (9) and said, “If I have gained Your favor, O Lord, pray, let the Lord go in our midst, even though this is a stiffnecked people. Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Your own!” (10) He said: I hereby make a covenant. Before all your people I will work such wonders as have not been wrought on all the earth or in any nation; and all the people who are with you shall see how awesome are the LORD’s deeds which I will perform for you.

§ The verse states: “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed” (Exodus 34:6). Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Were it not explicitly written in the verse, it would be impossible to say this! The pasuk teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, wrapped Himself in a prayer shawl like a prayer leader and showed Moses the structure of the order of the prayer. He said to him: Whenever the Jewish people sin, let them act before Me in accordance with this order and I will forgive them.

The Holy One, blessed be He, protected him with the hollow of His hand that he should not die, as it is said, "And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover thee with my hand" (Ex. 33:22). When the Holy One, blessed be He, had passed by, He removed the hollow of His hand from him, and he saw the traces of the Shekhinah, as it is said, "And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back" (Ex. 33:28). Moses began to cry with a loud voice, and he said: "O Lord, O Lord, a God full of compassion and gracious …" (Ex. 34:6).

And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there (Exod. 34:5). How fortunate was Moses was that he could come before the Omnipresent while no angel or seraph was able to do so! Two people discussed this verse. One said that Moses was drawn into the cloud, and ascended into the firmament like a colias (A type of bird or butterfly) until he reached the Holy One, blessed be He, as it is said: And stood with him there. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed (ibid., v. 6). He taught Moses how to plead in defense of Israel. He said to him: Tell Me about the merits of the patriarchs; remind Me of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, My servants. Were it not for their merit I would destroy them, but now and henceforth it will be said: The Lord, merciful and gracious (ibid.). The Holy One, blessed be He, declared: I taught Moses to speak in their defense in this world, but in the future I that speak in victory, mighty to save, (Isa. 63:1); that is, I shall speak in their behalf.

Along the same lines, Rabbi Yoḥanan said in the name of Rabbi Yosei: From where is it derived that the Holy One, Blessed be He, prays? As it is stated: “I will bring them to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in the house of My prayer” (Isaiah 56:7). The verse does not say the house of their prayer, but rather, “the house of My prayer”; from here we see that the Holy One, Blessed be He, prays. The Gemara asks: What does G!d pray? Rav Zutra bar Tovia said that Rav said:G!d says: May it be My will that My mercy will overcome My anger, and may My mercy prevail over My other attributes and may I conduct myself toward My children, with the attribute of mercy, and may I enter before them beyond the letter of the law. Similarly, it was taught in a baraita that Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha, the High Priest, said: Once, on Yom Kippur, I entered the innermost sanctum, (The Kadosh haKadoshim) the Holy of Holies, to offer incense, and in a vision I saw Akatriel Ka, the Lord of Hosts, (one of the names of God), seated upon a high and exalted throne. He said to me: Yishmael, My son, bless Me. I said to Him “May it be Your will that Your mercy overcome Your anger, and may Your mercy prevail over Your other attributes,and may You act toward Your children with the attribute of mercy, and may You enter before them beyond the letter of the law.” The Holy One, Blessed be He, nodded His head and accepted the blessing. This event teaches us that you should not take the blessing of an ordinary person lightly.

The Gemara asks "What did Moshe see [that immediatly after the יג middot he ran and bowed in worship]? He saw Tolerance/Slowness to Anger (ארך אפים)" In truth, what is the value of Divine Tolerance if the sin is not erased entirely? (meaning if G!d has great patience, but does eventually run out) Isn't even the full life of a person temporary, and arent a person's mitzvot and good deeds of limited value, not able to reach the true depths of the Divine due to there lacking of perfect intention, not being drawn from the Source of Life? Shouldn't we be at the mercy of our mistakes for the length of our and our children's brief existences? G!d showed Moshe that this is not the case, in the Depths of G!d there is no Anger, Anger only exists at the dangerous periphery (the outermost layer) of G!d. (It is not our lives which are brief and immaterial, but rather Divine Anger). Once Moshe understood this, G!d showed him the aspect of Tolerance (ארך אפים), that G!d would be eternally tolerant with G!d's children, that eternal life was planted within them, and that all of there mitzvot and good deeds would endure for eternity, as these things are all rooted deeply in the Source of Life...

Moses said before G!d: Please forgive now the sins of Israel, that we did with the golden calf! G!d said to him: Moshe, if thou had said, "Please forgive now the sins of the Israel people even to the end of all generations" I would have done so, as it was an favorable time. But you said: "Please forgive now the sins of Israel, that we did with the golden calf!" G!d said to him: Moses! Behold, let it be according to thy words, as it is said, "And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to your words" (Num. 14:20).

Rav Yehuda said: A covenant was made with the thirteen attributes that they will not return empty-handed, as it is stated in this regard: “Behold, I make a covenant” (Exodus 34:10).

With the beginning — with the Torah, which is called the beginning of his work (Prov. 8:22) — the Holy Blessed One created the world (Zohar 1:5a). We find that every thing was created by way of the Torah and the power of the actor is in that which is acted upon, in which case the power of the Torah is in each thing and in all the worlds, and also in the person as is written, This is the Torah: A person (Num. 19:14) as we will clarify. And the Torah and the Holy Blessed One are one (Zohar 1:24a), so we find in all things the life-force of the Holy Blessed One.