Parashat: Festival Reading

Parashat: Festival Reading
Exodus 33:12–34:26

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

— Exodus 33:18–20

This Shabbat we take a break from our regular parsha schedule to read a special portion for the festival of Sukkot. While the festivals are mentioned later in the reading, we begin with Moses asking God for support in leading the people and ultimately asking to see God’s face. God is willing to “make all My goodness pass before you” but explains that Moses cannot see God’s face. Why? The Kotzker Rebbe (Rabbi Menahem Mendel, 19th century Poland), in explaining the prohibition against making a graven image of God, writes that we are prohibited from making a god that is fixed in a single form. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel teaches that images of God are forbidden because God has just one image, “the image of every breathing and living human being.” May this Shabbat grant us an opportunity to see the goodness of God’s presence in all the faces we encounter.

— Rachel Petroff Kessler