Happy Passover, Temple De Hirsch Sinai! This week, we depart from our regularly scheduled programming for our special Passover parsha. It comes from the middle of parshat Ki Tisa where, in addition to a list of very important holidays (including Passover), we find a beautifully intimate moment between God and Moses.
Moses has just destroyed the original tablets of the Commandments and has returned to the mountain of God to re-record God’s word in stone. Harkening to imagery of two people deeply in love, Moses says, “Hareini nah et k’vodecha—Oh, please, let me behold your immensity.” But “immensity” doesn’t do the word “k’vodecha” justice here. “Kavod,” which is often translated as “honor” or “respect,” is also etymologically connected with density and weight. Moses is experiencing a gravitational pull toward God; a deep desire to be close to God in a way that no human has ever been.
Moses begs God for an intimate moment, and God obliges in a way that is abounding in love, saying, “I will cause my goodness to pass before your face.” While God can only reveal God’s back to Moses (as seeing God’s face is not possible), this scene is a transcendent reminder of the power of the face as reminder of God’s presence in each of us. As Emmanuel Levinas, paragon of Jewish thought, once wrote, “The human face is the conduit for the word of God.”
May this Passover be a steadfast reminder of the godliness in each of us, a persistent nudge toward seeing God in the face of each person we have the opportunity to encounter. May we be welcoming to the face of the Other, fulfilling the mitzvah and blessing of Kabbalat Panim—receiving faces.