Parashat HaShavua - Ki Tisa

וַיֹּאמַ֑ר הַרְאֵ֥נִי נָ֖א אֶת־כְּבֹדֶֽךָ׃ (שמות ל״ג:ט״ז)

Moshe said, “Please God, let me see your cavod!” (Exodus 33:17)

What exactly is Moshe asking for?  What does it mean to see God’s cavod (honor)?  

One possible answer can be inferred from God’s response:

אֲנִ֨י אַעֲבִ֤יר כּל־טוּבִי֙ עַל־פָּנֶ֔יךָ…לֹ֥א תוּכַ֖ל לִרְאֹ֣ת אֶת־פָּנָ֑י כִּ֛י לֹֽא־יִרְאַ֥נִי הָאָדָ֖ם וָחָֽי

"I will cause all of my goodness to pass before you, but no one can see my face and live.”

Here, God is a teacher to Moshe, pointing him towards the truth that to see God’s cavod is not about viewing God’s form but rather about witnessing God’s essential qualities, including God’s goodness.

The commentators build on this response.  Ibn Ezra says that what Moshe really wants to see is God כמו עצמך, which can be understood as “your deepest self” (from עצמות, bones).  Here, the ability “to see” God is found in our ability to understand, to know God more deeply.    Sforno also interprets “to see” as “to understand.” His interpretation emerges from the use of the word  cavod in Isaiah 6:3, “ מלא כל הארץ כבודו,”(the whole earth is filled with God’s cavod).  He explains that to see God’s cavod is actually to understand 

שפע מציאות כל נמצא ממציאותך עם רוחק היחס ביניהם

“how every creature, every phenomenon in this universe derives from You, even though these phenomena do not appear to be related to one another.”

We have just finished the second grade Siddur Ceremonies.  Every year, I am astounded at the theological depth of the students’ responses and how they connect to and even shed light on the words of our sages.  One of our second graders said:

God made us, so God can feel us.  If you make a puppet, you can feel what it is doing when it is in your hand.

We can extend this idea to consider the possibility that the puppet can also “feel” the hand of the puppeteer.  When Moshe is beseeching God, according to Ibn Ezra and our second grader, what he really wants is to feel God, to know God in a deeper way, in his bones.  

Another child said:

We can see God because we are made in God’s image and we have so many different talents and also we have our imagination.

According to this student, and Sforno, since everything derives from God the way we see God’s cavod is by looking at all of the amazing things in God’s world.

For my part, I feel God’s presence in the moments when children reflect on questions like these and in their words.

Rabbi Anne Ebersman
Director of Jewish Programming N-5 and Director of Hesed (Community Engagement) and Tzedek (Social Responsibility)