Shabbat comes in 5.20pm: goes out 6.24pm
In parshat Ki Tissa, Moses pleads to be able to see God – “Let me behold your presence!” but that request is denied, “for a human may not see Me and live.” However God does promise that Moses will be able to see God’s “back.” So God places Moses “in a cleft of the rock” as God passes before him (33:21-23).
Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, the Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, writes, “Our knowledge of God, of existence, of truth will always be incomplete. What we see, at best, is only God’s back, and that from the obstructed view afforded by a cleft in the rock. It is the same answer that God will give to Job. Our presumption exceeds our grasp. While Judaism enables us to enlarge our vision, it also reminds us of our limitations.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Paul Arberman
