"For Man Shall Not See Me and Live" On Contact with the Divine

Then I, justified, will behold Your face;awake, I am filled with the vision of You.

One thing I ask of the LORD, only that do I seek: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD, to frequent^-b His temple. He will shelter me in His pavilion on an evil day, grant me the protection of His tent, raise me high upon a rock. Now is my head high over my enemies round about; I sacrifice in His tent with shouts of joy, singing and chanting a hymn to the LORD. Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud; have mercy on me, answer me. In Your behalf^-b my heart says: “Seek My face!” O LORD, I seek Your face.

Turn to the LORD, to His might; seek His presence constantly.

ה׳ bless you and protect you! ה׳ deal kindly and graciously with you! ה׳ bestow [divine] favor upon you and grant you peace!

(12) You shall set bounds for the people round about, saying, ‘Beware of going up the mountain or touching the border of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death...(21) ה׳ said to Moses, “Go down, warn the people not to break through to ה׳ to gaze, lest many of them perish. (22) The priests also, who come near ה׳, must stay pure, lest ה׳ break out against them.”

(16) “You speak to us,” they said to Moses, “and we will obey; but let not God speak to us, lest we die.” (17) Moses answered the people, “Be not afraid; for God has come only in order to test you, and in order that the fear of God may be ever with you, so that you do not go astray.”

(18) He said, “Oh, let me behold Your Presence!” (19) And [God] answered, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim before you the name ה׳, and the grace that I grant and the compassion that I show,” (20) continuing, “But you cannot see My face, for a human being may not see Me and live.” (21) And ה׳ 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.”

Abram said to Sarai, “Your maid is in your hands. Deal with her as you think right.” Then Sarai treated her harshly, and she ran away from her. A messenger of ה׳ found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the road to Shur, and said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” And she said, “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.” And the messenger of ה׳ said to her, “Go back to your mistress, and submit to her harsh treatment.” And the messenger of ה׳ said to her,“I will greatly increase your offspring,And they shall be too many to count.” The messenger of ה׳ said to her further,“Behold, you are pregnantAnd shall bear a son;You shall call him Ishmael, For ה׳ has paid heed to your suffering. He shall be a wild ass of a person; His hand against everyone,And everyone’s hand against him;He shall dwell alongside of all his kin.” And she called ה׳ who spoke to her, “You Are El-roi,” by which she meant, “Have I not gone on seeing after my being seen!”

(9) Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel ascended; (10) and they saw the God of Israel—under whose feet was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity. (11) Yet [God] did not raise a hand against the leaders of the Israelites; they beheld God, and they ate and drank.

(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.” (32) The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip. (33) That is why the children of Israel to this day do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the socket of the hip, since Jacob’s hip socket was wrenched at the thigh muscle.

(17) So Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “What is your name? We should like to honor you when your words come true.” (18) The angel said to him, “You must not ask for my name; it is unknowable!” (19) Manoah took the kid and the meal offering and offered them up on the rock to the LORD; and a marvelous thing happened^-b while Manoah and his wife looked on. (20) As the flames leaped up from the altar toward the sky, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flames of the altar, while Manoah and his wife looked on; and they flung themselves on their faces to the ground.— (21) The angel of the LORD never appeared again to Manoah and his wife.—Manoah then realized that it had been an angel of the LORD. (22) And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen a divine being.” (23) But his wife said to him, “Had the LORD meant to take our lives, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and meal offering from us, nor let us see all these things; and He would not have made such an announcement to us.”

In the year that King Uzziah died, I beheld my Sovereign seated on a high and lofty throne; and the skirts of God’s robe filled the temple. Seraphs stood in attendance, each with six wings—two covering the face, two covering the body, and two to fly with. And one would call to the other,“Holy, holy, holy! GOD of Hosts—Whose presence fills all the earth!” The doorposts would shake at the sound of the one who called, and the House kept filling with smoke. I cried,“Woe is me; I am lost!For I am a man of impure lips And I live among a peopleOf impure lips;Yet my own eyes have beheldThe Sovereign GOD of Hosts.” Then one of the seraphs—who had taken a live coal from the altar with a pair of tongs—flew over to me, touched it to my lips, and declared,“Now that this has touched your lips,Your guilt shall departAnd your sin be purged away.”

(5) I had heard You with my ears,But now I see You with my eyes; (6) Therefore, I recant and relent,Being but dust and ashes.

(25) But I know that my Vindicator lives;In the end He will testify on earth— (26) This, after my skin will have been peeled off.But I would behold God while still in my flesh,

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.

ויראו את אלקי 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). 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). 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. וכעצם — Translate it as the Targum does: “as the appearance”. לטהר means FOR BRIGHTNESS AND CLEARNESS.

§ The Sages taught: Four entered the orchard [pardes], i.e., dealt with the loftiest secrets of Torah, and they are as follows: Ben Azzai; and ben Zoma; Aḥer, the other, a name for Elisha ben Avuya; and Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva, the senior among them, said to them: When, upon your arrival in the upper worlds, you reach pure marble stones, do not say: Water, water, although they appear to be water, because it is stated: “He who speaks falsehood shall not be established before My eyes” (Psalms 101:7). The Gemara proceeds to relate what happened to each of them: Ben Azzai glimpsed at the Divine Presence and died. And with regard to him the verse states: “Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His pious ones” (Psalms 116:15). Ben Zoma glimpsed at the Divine Presence and was harmed, i.e., he lost his mind. And with regard to him the verse states: “Have you found honey? Eat as much as is sufficient for you, lest you become full from it and vomit it” (Proverbs 25:16). Aḥer chopped down the shoots of saplings. In other words, he became a heretic. Rabbi Akiva came out safely.

(3) In this sense we must understand the words “And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God” (Exod. 3:6), though retaining also the literal meaning of the passage, that Moses was afraid to gaze at the light which appeared to his eye; but it must on no account be assumed that the Being which is exalted far above every imperfection can be perceived by the eye. This act of Moses was highly commended by God, who bestowed on him a well deserved portion of His goodness, as it is said: “And the similitude of the Lord shall he behold” (Num. 12:8). This, say our Sages, was the reward for having previously hidden his face, lest he should gaze at the Eternal. (Talm. B. Berakot Fa.)
(4) But “the nobles of the Children of Israel” were impetuous, and allowed their thoughts to go unrestrained: what they perceived was but imperfect. Therefore it is said of them, “And they saw the God of Israel, and there was under his feet,” etc. (Exod. 24:10); and not merely, “and they saw the God of Israel”; the purpose of the whole passage is to criticize their act of seeing and not to describe it. They are blamed for the nature of their perception, which was to a certain extent corporeal—a result which necessarily followed, from the fact that they ventured too far before being perfectly prepared. They deserved to perish, but at the intercession of Moses this fate was averted by God for the time. They were afterwards burnt at Taberah, except Nadab and Abihu, who were burnt in the Tabernacle of the congregation, according to what is stated by authentic tradition. (Midr. Rabba ad locum.)

Yet when God wanted to create the world, there was no place in which to create it, since there was nothing but Ein Sof (the Infinite One). He therefore contracted the Light to the sides, and through this contraction the Vacated Space was made. Then, within this Vacated Space, all time and space came into existence—this being the creation of the world {as explained at the beginning of Etz Chaim} . This Vacated Space was necessary for the creation of the world, since without the Vacated Space there would have been no place in which to create the world, as explained above. Yet, understanding and comprehending this contraction [that resulted in the formation] of the Vacated Space will be possible only in the Future, since it is necessary to say about it two contradictory things: existence and nonexistence. The Vacated Space is the result of the contraction; that [God], so to speak, withdrew His Godliness from that place. Thus there is, so to speak, no Godliness there. Were it not so, it would not be vacated. There would then be nothing but Ein Sof, with no place whatsoever for the world’s creation. However the actual truth is that, even so, there is surely Godliness there as well. For there is surely nothing without His life-force. This is why it is not at all possible to comprehend the concept of the Vacated Space until the Future.