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Parashat Shemot
Essays and Articles:
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Godly Presence Beside Human Presence
Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
Paro claims that Israel has no right to leave the enslavement because: “In what way are they different from them? These are idolators and those are idolators.”
To answer Paro, and to answer the people of Israel, God created a sign and a wonder: The staff, which changed into a snake, and then changed back again into a staff, in Moshe’s hand.
So the world asks: How could God’s staff, on which is engraved the Name – one of the sacred names of the Creator, Yitbarach – be changed into a snake?
“He was hinting to him that by means of Moshe’s hands, through his mighty [spiritual] power, [Moshe] destroys the snake power, and it becomes a piece of dry wood. But if his hand would loose its hold on it, and cast it away, it would become a snake – until Moshe would flee before it.” (Ohr HaHaim)
Shmot 3:5: “And God said: Do not approach hither. Remove your shoes from upon your feet, because the place on which you stand, sacred ground it is.”
“You see, there are two things that God commanded him. The first, that he should not approach, and the second, that he should not stand there, even in the place on which he was standing. And we need to know why He did not begin with the removal of the blunder that he was already involved in – that he was standing in his footgear on sacred ground – and afterwards He could command him not to approach hither…”
“We could further say that the place where he stood was not sanctified until after this, because when God wished to speak with him there, in the place where he stood, [then] He wished to sanctify it, and He warned him in advance.”
“And perhaps for this reason, it specifically says “it is”, since really it needed to say only “the place is sacred ground”. But the scripture intended by saying “it is”, that previously it was not.” (Ohr HaHaim)
It seems clear from the Ohr HaHaim’s words that the Creator’s appearing and intervening was direct, yet occurring with, and alongside of man, as seen with the staff and with the sacred place.
Compare this to Yaakov’s experience: “How fearfully awesome is this place, etc.” – in which we find no Godly intervention and none of His Presence, Yitbarach, but rather everything deriving from the source of Yaakov Avinu himself.
In Sefer Shmot, a change is noticeable in His Presence, Yitbarach. Though It comes from a supreme source, It is accompanied by the human presence and the human initiative: “And He saw that he had turned aside to see.”
It is Moshe’s taking hold of the staff that changes its condition. The Creator teaches Moshe the difference between him and the avot: Their presence alone had been enough to cause the Godly Presence, through their own pnimiut, through their own inner essence.
With Moshe, God’s Presence, Yitbarach, would rest upon and be applied to Moshe himself, who would then become the Godly Presence that had taken over his own – Moshe’s – presence.
This is what the Ohr HaHaim means by ‘the place on which Moshe stood had not been sanctified before Moshe had stood on it’. There is therefore no need for the Ohr HaHaim’s explanation, where he distinguishes between the negative prohibition, “do not approach hither,” and the positive commandment, “remove your shoes from upon your feet” – for if there had been no sanctity in the place before Moshe had stood on it, there would have been no mitsva whatever in his removing his shoes – until he had stood in the place, and had sanctified it by his own presence.
Such is the case also when Moshe grabs hold of the tail of the snake, and when the staff turns into a snake. In the staff per se`, as an object, there is no intrinsic kedusha, except as it exists within Moshe’s reality. The staff is thus subject to the reality and to the needs of the human being relating to it.
When Moshe had need of it, in order to prove to the people and to Paro that the Godly Presence rested upon him, then the staff became subject and subjugated to the Godly Presence that reflected from Moshe.
What the Egyptian magicians accomplished with their sorceries in a similar vein was actually not similar at all, except at the most superficial, visual level. “And Aharon’s staff devoured their staffs” to teach Paro the difference between direct Godly Presence, and Godly Presence that must pass through a human being who does not surrender himself to It and who does not efface his own will before It.
There are different levels to this. The tangible level comes first and foremost, but there is also control over the less tangible levels: Sorcery, for example.
Even at those levels, however, human ability is limited to only those objects and only to those frameworks. Thus a human being can draw an object from the level of sorcery down to the level of tangibility, or vice versa.
“ ‘And Aharon’s staff devoured their staffs:’ After it had turned back into a staff, it devoured their staffs.”
Here is innovation, and diverging beyond man’s capabilities as a human being. This, the Egyptian sorcerers could not do.
The Creator gives Moshe and the Egyptians an edifying lesson in connecting with the Godly Presence. He shows man as he is, versus man as he becomes the Godly Presence.
In the case of a man who is transformed, through devotion, self-sacrifice, and self-effacement, in the case of the anav, the humble one, such a man then diverges from his own limitations, toward the infinity of love, while the self bursts forth from within the pnimiut, breaking the bounds of ego, merging with the Godly infinity and embracing others in his love – and the infinite becomes his own presence.
Thus Aharon’s staff devours their staffs, yet does not get fat. Thus the anav, the humble person clears away ego, and expresses the Godly self, which bursts the frameworks of limitations.
Thus Mount Sinai, which was the lowest, and was outside of the sacred place.
The sacred place was Mount Moriah, uniquely privileged to bring about the expression of the unfolding of the Godly presence, later to be become the tangible Godly Presence Itself – on Har HaMoriah.
Nevertheless Har Sinai comes to teach us a major rule of the Godly Presence: Man’s role, man’s part in the unfolding of the Godly Presence. The Presence will not even begin without human initiative, without itaruta dilitata, without “and they cried out”, without “their cry I have heard, because of their oppressors”.
So too with the permanent actualization of the Presence in the Holy Temple. The Presence in the Bet HaMikdash was dependent on human initiative.
Avodat Hashem is man’s part in the Godly Presence. It is man’s part in the covenant.
Presence with the avot:
The avot themselves represented the Presence, through their own spiritual power. The direct Presence did not rest on them, but rather through them, found in the background of the events that occurred personally and only to them. Whereas with Moshe, the Presence was direct. It was not merely through Moshe, but by him, and at his hand.
The first time this occurs, it is as a response of itaruta dili’eila; Heaven is aroused to respond to man. It then becomes the new stage in the connection between man and the Creator, which has been evolving since the sin of Adam HaRishon.
We can see God’s descending on Mount Sinai and man’s receiving the Torah as a tikun, a repair for the sin of Adam HaRishon.
Therefore the Creator does not heal Moshe of his stutter, so that no one will ere in thinking that Moshe himself, on his own power, is performing the miracles, for then they will not be able to tell the difference between Moshe and Paro and his sorcerers:
It is precisely the anav – who is even apparently handicapped – who becomes the bearer of the direct Godly Presence.
Thus “the lowly bush was flaming with fire, yet the lowly bush would not be consumed”. Thus God’s response to b’nei Yisrael’s cry is mentioned repeatedly, first in verses 2:24 and 2:25 and then in 3:7 and 3:9.
As His first response to Moshe’s refusal of the mission, God replies: “For I will be with you.” The Lord’s Presence – ad hoc. To meet the need of the present moment, of the immediate situation.
Moshe is not satisfied with this promise, because has three problems that he must face: One, convincing himself. Two, convincing the peple, and three, convincing Paro.
“For I will be with you” is already the Godly Presence, but only in a very incipient stage. It is too similar to the avot, who, by virtue of the sanctity of their worship of God, became His Presence, Yitbarach.
Convincing the people would require a more methodical Presence: Ehyeh asher ehyeh. “I will be, as I will be.” Permanently.
In order to convince Paro, the Presence must be one that prevails over the forces of nature, and invalidates them; methodically, according to plan, and in stages.
Despite the fact that the Creator could have taken them out all at one blow, He preferred to teach them a lesson in Godly Presence, through a methodical approach, planned in advance, toward permanence.
This is why already at the very beginning, they are told that “each woman will borrow from her neighber vessels of silver and vessels of gold and garments.”
Moshe’s aim was to achieve a Godly Presence that was differentiating, that would fit itself to the level of each individual, according to each situation, according to its difficulty – in the sense of ba’asher hu shahm, “the way one is right then and there”.
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