Parashat “Ki Tisa” (Exodus 30:11-34:35)
for the week of February 19th, 2011
During our weekly Hebrew School service, I told the students about “Ki Tisa.” I emphasized the part about Moses’ famous encounter with God (towards the end of the portion) and explained the context. As Moses attempts to find his footing following the disastrous incident of the golden calf, he seeks reassurance from God and asks to be shown the Divine Presence/God’s Glory (Ex. 33:18). God responds that while a human being cannot see God’s face and live (Ex. 33:20), Moses will be granted a moment of intimate meeting with God (Ex. 33:21-24). God places Moses in a cleft of the rock and then God’s Presence ‘passes by.’ While the Hebrew text leaves it unclear who is speaking, either Moses or God then proclaims what have come to be known as ‘the thirteen attributes of God’ (Ex. 34:6-7).
I explained to the students that one of the things I find most interesting about this moment is that the words don’t describe God physically. They don’t talk about what Moses saw during that encounter. After God passes by, we don’t hear that God is about 5’11”, with brown wavy hair and big shoulders. Instead, we hear that God is compassionate, gracious, patient, kind and faithful but also holds people responsible for the consequences of their wrong actions. So I asked the students to talk about their own experience of God, their own sense of God, but without using “seeing” words. Acknowledging that we might all choose different ideas or words because we think of God differently, I asked them to describe not what God “looks” like but to try and find the words they would use to describe what God “feels like” or what God “means to them.”
One student said that God is like being “surrounded” or hugged or embraced by the whole world. Another student used the word “powerful” and then linked it to the awesomeness of creation. A student said that, for him, the experience of God is somehow connected with his relationships with family and friends—the special closeness and connection he feels to those people. One student said that God is all the goodness in the world and another said that is God about taking risks—about being challenged to stretch beyond what you know for certain you can do or what you’re sure you believe.
Probably like you, I was pretty impressed by the thoughtfulness of these answers and by the spiritual sensitivity of our students. Even without being placed in the cleft of a rock and receiving the promise of a specific moment when they were guaranteed that God would pass by, our students managed to find words for their own, authentic experiences of revelation. Their inspiring voices teach us not to be afraid to talk about God. Their answers remind us not to be afraid to reach for our own words which, though inevitably inadequate (as all words describing God must be), nevertheless have the power to say something important and True about our own experiences of God. In so doing, like Moses, we may be blessed to receive some reassurance of God’s presence in our hearts and our lives and even find courage to continue the journey.
