When I led Torah study on Shabbat during Passover, we read Exodus 34:12. We learned that Moses needed some assurances before agreeing to lead the Israelite people any farther through the wilderness. Moses pressed God and asked to see God’s “Presence,” referring to God’s glory, from the Hebrew, kavod. And God responded, “One may not see My face and live.” But Torah tells us:

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 (Exodus 33:22-23).

To me, this is an expression of extraordinary compassion. Knowing that seeing God’s face would kill Moses—his faithful servant whom God singled out—God doesn’t deny him something unique, but God also doesn’t deny it to others, too. This is a conclusion that we draw from the teaching of Rabbi Michael Marmur, Ph.D., in his new book, Living the Letters: An Alphabet of Emerging Jewish Thought (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025).

In his book, Marmur teaches that the Hebrew letter Tet, is for Tefachim, which describes a “Torah of Tension,” in his words. No better example exists than this Torah portion where Moses must contend with the unbelievable honor of being singled out by God, only to be denied his ultimate wish and still lead a mixed multitude of people through the wilderness while they murmur, complain of thirst and hunger, and commit blasphemy with a Golden Calf. That Moses didn’t breach his contract is for another commentary.

Our commentary is about the essential Torah tension from which an impervious and durable relationship is formed. First, it’s formed between God and Moses. Marmur writes, “Moses cannot hold the hand of God, but he has the opportunity to hold on, as it were, to what God is holding” (page 161ff). What God is holding is the universe of Torah and its teachings, which are the ways of God that we are bound by covenant to do. Second, God’s mercy and compassion go beyond what Moses experienced for himself. In effect, Moses was the first one who had the “opportunity to hold on, as it were, to what God is holding,” but he would not be the last one.

The purpose in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt to Sinai was not to hide but to reveal. And in the revelation was the “opportunity to hold on, as it were, to what God is holding.” At Sinai, all the people spoke in one voice, “We will do and we will understand,” and in some translations, “We will faithfully do all that You have commanded.” Who was at Sinai? In Deuteronomy, we read, “I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone but both with those who are standing here with us this day…and with those who are not standing with us here this day” (Deuteronomy 29:13-14).

We are supposed to speak of ourselves as being at Sinai and enjoying the duty and privilege to hold on to what God is holding. Moses will always be remembered as the greatest prophet (Deuteronomy 34), but God didn’t make an exclusive arrangement with Moses that excluded subsequent generations of Torah-bound Jews. On the contrary, the future of Torah-bound Judaism depends on this tefachim, this Torah of tension, where we seek God every day but only through God’s teachings. Torah is our life and length of our days. See you at Torah study.

L’Shalom,