Moses, who had spent forty days on Mount Sinai and who spoke with God “face to face” (Exodus 33:11), asks: “Oh, let me behold Your Presence!” (33:18). In his commentary to the Bible, Nahmanides explained: “He asked to be able actually to see God’s presence.” In response, God replies: “You cannot see My face, for man may not see Me and live” (33:20). Nahmanides continues: “And God answered him that He would pass the qualities of his goodness before him, so that he could apprehend it and have comprehend God’s goodness more than any other person, because the visage that he asked to see could not be seen.” It is hard to understand how Moses could ask the question, and the answer he receives seems obvious.

The matter becomes even more difficult to understand when God continues: “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. Then I will take My hand away and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen” (22-23).

The biblical commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra explained:

In my opinion, the Bible is speaking in the usual manner, as we clearly know that God has no physical body. And since He is not a physical body, it is impossible that He be seen with the eye, because the eye can only see physical objects. Therefore, I explained that the “let me behold” did not mean seeing with the eyes. Also “the Lord would speak to Moses” is not oral speech, which is the true meaning of speech, but rather oral speech is used as a metaphor. And the meaning of “as one man speaks to another” is that it was not by means of the agency of an angel, but rather direct communication with the Creator and not with an angel. And the reason for becoming one with things that have no objective being is that they are the ladder for ascending to the sublime. But this is not possible for a living being due to the physical body, and therefore: “for man may not see Me and live”.

As opposed to these attempts to explain the meaning of the biblical text, the Sages took an entirely different approach. Thus, for example, in the Talmud we find the following midrashic explanation: “Then I will take My hand away and you will see my back – R. Hanna b. Bizana said in the name of R. Simeon the Pious: This teaches us that the Holy One showed Moses the knot of the tefillin [at the back of the head]” (Berakhot 7a).

1. What did Moses see? We read Etz Hayim Torah and Commentary: “What does it mean that a human being cannot see God’s face – but can see God’s back? In the words of the Hatam Sofer, we cannot see God directly. We can only see the difference that God has made after the fact. We can recognize God’s reality by seeing the difference God has made in people’s lives.”  According to this approach, would it be correct to conclude that God is not seen objectively but is understood subjectively? Is seeing God dependant upon our desire to look, our willingness to see and our ability to discern?

2. The words “for man may not see Me and live” would seem to say that if a person sees God’s Presence, he will die. That reading would appear to be supported by the statement: “I will put you in a cleft of the rock and shield you with My hand until I have passed by”. How does Ibn Ezra propose that we understand “for man may not see Me and live”?

3. In regard to the tefillin knot, the Talmud states: “The shape of the knot of the tefillin is a halakha given to Moses at Sinai” (Eiruvin 97a). What do the Sages wish to convey in regard to the experience of seeing God’s back when they say that Moses saw the knot of God’s tefillin, and in saying that the shape of the knot is a halakha given to Moses at Sinai? What do the Sages wish to tell us by suggesting that God wears tefillin?

4. The story of Moses’ request to see God’s Presence immediately follows the story of the Golden Calf. Do the two narratives share anything in common?