Face To Face – Ki Tisa
וְדִבֶּר ה' אֶל מֹשֶׁה פָּנִים אֶל פָּנִים כַּאֲשֶׁר יְדַבֵּר אִישׁ אֶל רֵעֵהוּ וגו' (שמות לג, יא).
In this week’s parsha we read about the Ohel Mo’ed that was located in the center of the camp, where the Shechina appeared to Moshe. The passuk says that when HKB”H and Moshe communicated it was “face to face”, like one person speaking to another.
However, just a few short psukkim later, Moshe begs HKB”H to show him His Glory (ibid. passuk 20), to which HKB”H replies “Sorry, I cannot show you My face because no man can see My face and live.” Hashem tells Moshe to stand on the צור (literally translated as “rock”, but which Rashi translates as “mountain”), in an opening in the rock (cave) and HKB”H will pass by the opening and as He does so, Moshe will get a glimpse of HKB”H from behind וְרָאִיתָ אֶת אֲחֹרָי. Rashi, (quoting Brachot 7a) says that HKB”H showed Moshe the knot of the Tefillin at the back of His head, as it were.
In the first passuk above it says “face to face”, but later that Moshe was not allowed to see Hashem’s face. So which is it?
Rashi there says שהקב"ה מקומו של עולם ואין עולמו מקומו, that HKB”H cannot be limited in any physical location. Also we have the third principle of faith of the Rambam –
אֲנִי מַאֲמִין בֶּאֱמוּנָה שְׁלֵמָה. שֶׁהַבּוֹרֵא יִתְבָּרַךְ שְׁמוֹ אֵינוֹ גוּף. וְלֹא יַשִּׂיגוּהוּ מַשִּׂיגֵי הַגּוּף. וְאֵין לוֹ שׁוּם דִּמְיוֹן כְּלָל.
So obviously HKB”H does not have a “face” and all the above descriptions are simply allegories to concepts we humans can understand, however the true reality is beyond our human understanding.
The Malbim (on passuk 11 above) explains what it means “face to face”. There is a concept called Aspaklaria Me’ira. In the shiur on Yitro I discussed the Ten Sfirot and how they were a set of “filters” to diminish the Divine bright light, the אור הגנוז, so that we humans could experience it. There were very few people in history who merited seeing the unfiltered Divine light, one of them was Moshe Rabbeinu. When Moshe received prophecy, it was with no filters, just the pure, unequivocal message of HKB”H – also called Aspaklaria Me’ira.
In this shiur, I would like to discuss a different aspect of this topic, from Meir Panim, which focuses largely on the “face” and bring a principle which has important implications regarding our relationship with HKB”H and with each other.
Our face is an exterior portrayal of what is going on inside us, very much like a computer/cellphone screen is a manifestation of the electronics and program inside it.
HKB”H gave us a face because it adds another dimension to our ability to communicate. At the heart of the צלם א-לוקים we humans have, is the ability of speech. Facial expression gives our speech context and also constitutes a form of communication all on its own (without speech). Our facial expression conveys emotion – joy, sadness, worry, curiosity, frustration, perplexity, etc. Often these are automatic responses to an inner emotion (a true reflection of what we are feeling inside), but unlike computers/cellphones, we humans have the ability to manipulate facial expression that allows us to mask what we are truly feeling inside. This is called acting. Some people make a lot of money from it, or so they tell me.
Manipulating one’s facial expressions is sometimes a good thing. It allows us to protect our children from trauma that they are not yet old enough to comprehend. It allows us to improve our position in business negotiations (keeping a poker face). It allows us to deter crime and violence. Manipulating facial expression at will, can directly affect our endocrine system and metabolism (as we will see later).
HKB”H is בוחן כליות ולב, it is not possible to mask or hide anything from HKB”H, He sees directly within our hearts. It is not surprising therefore that in our relationship with Him, He demands from us total transparency, an absence of manipulation תָּמִים תִּהְיֶה עִם ה' אֱ-לֹקֶיךָ. The Gemara (Brachot 28a) tells how Rabban Gamliel placed a guard at the entrance to the Beit Hamidrash. Not a security guard with a baton or a firearm, but someone who was like an “X-Ray” machine, he could look inside you and tell if the image you portrayed outwardly, matched who you really were inside as a person. Only if the two matched were you given admittance.
Also in our relationships with others, HKB”H prefers that we be transparent מדבר שקר תרחק. Although, in certain circumstances, halacha permits us to manipulate both our words and our facial expressions so that what appears on the outside is not necessarily a reflection of what is inside. HKB”H Himself “altered” the truth somewhat when relating Sarah’s conversation with Him to Avraham, for the purpose of preserving peace. The Gemara (Yevamot 65b) tells how Yosef’s brothers “fabricated” something that Yaakov their father, supposedly said, also for the purpose of preserving peace. We know that Aharon HaKohen used to fabricate things to preserve peace. Aharon would say to Chaim (who was fighting with Shmulik) “I heard that Shmulik is sitting at home miserable about the fact that you are fighting – he wants to reconcile”. To Shmulik, he would say the same thing about Chaim, Even though it was not true, the end result – that Chaim and Shmulik reconciled – justified the means. מותר לשנות מפני השלום.
HKB”H wants to see our face, as it were. He wants us to raise our heads skyward in search of Him so that he can see our faces. This is what the angels do when they sing praises to HKB”H – they face upwards. The Mishna Brura (Hilchot Tefila, Orach Chaim 125, 5) quotes Sefer Heichalot –
ברוכים אתם לה' שמים ויורדי מרכבה אם תאמרו ותגידו לבני מה שאני עושה בשעה שמקדישים ואומרים קדוש קדוש קדוש ולמדו אותם שיהיו עיניהם נשואות למרום לבית תפלתם ונושאים עצמם למעלה כי אין לי הנאה בעולם כאותה שעה שעיניהם נשואות בעיני ועיני בעיניהם באותה שעה אני אוחז בכסא כבודי בדמות יעקב ומחבקה ומנשקה ומזכיר זכותם וממהר גאולתם.
Sefer Heichalot says that when we say Kedusha in the Amida and we answer “Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh etc.”, we should elevate ourselves on the edge of our toes and gaze upwards. HKB”H reveals what He is doing when Am Yisrael raise their bodies and eyes toward Him during Kedusha, that HKB”H doesn’t have any greater pleasure than that, as it were - when Am Yisrael are facing HKB”H, with their eyes locked in an embrace with His, as it were. At that point HKB”H grabs hold, as it were, of the part of the כסא הכבוד that is the image of Yaakov Avinu, He hugs and kisses it, as it were, and He recalls Am Yisrael’s merits and He hastens the Geulah.
Do you hear that? HKB”H “waits” especially for that time of the day when Am Yisrael look up at Him and say Kedusha, when they are face to face with Him. At that time HKB”H silences the prosecuting angel and hastens our Geulah! Is there anything more powerful than that, to hasten the coming of the Mashiach?
HKB”H wants transparency with us, He wants a relationship of חוברה לה יחדיו. Like the Mikdash down here on earth is umbilically connected to the Mikdash in Heaven, our eyes down here are umbilically connected with HKB”H’s “eyes”, as it were, in a loving gaze like a חתן to his כלה. Do you understand now why the Kruvim on the Aron HaBrit are as they are?
HKB”H can certainly “see” our faces, as it were, He created them. Can we see HKB”H’s face? Not in its entirety. Depending on who we are and how spiritually elevated we are, we see more and more, unfiltered, until we reach the highest level of Moshe Rabbeinu who saw with Aspaklaria Me’irah. However, even that is not the entire picture. A mortal man/woman cannot see HKB”H’s entirety and live to tell the tale. It is impossible to “encapsulate” infinity in something finite. When our neshamot ascend to Heaven after 120 years and we leave behind all physical limitations, only then can we see the entirety of HKB”H and our “vantage point” - which “seats we have in the house” - is dependent on our spiritual stature. Those who are more elevated have “front row seats”, while those less so are staring from the “balcony” and basking in the radiance of HKB”H’s Shechina - for all eternity - an indescribable pleasure that outshines any possible pleasure that we can experience as humans. Take the most pleasurable experience in your life, multiply it by ten trillion in intensity and even that is a minute fraction of the pleasure of basking in the Shechina. This is the reward for tzaddikim in Olam Habah.
The Ba’al Haturim on the passuk above, that HKB”H spoke to Moshe face to face, like one man converses with another, says that what the passuk means is that Moshe and HKB”H spoke to each other בסבר פנים יפות. The Ba’al Haturim brings a רמז for this, that the gematriya of ידבר איש אל רעהו is the same as שהוא מסביר לו פנים.
In Meir Panim I discuss at length what בסבר פנים יפות means, it means – with a smile! When HKB”H and Moshe were conversing, Moshe had a smile on his face and HKB”H, as it were, did too. This is not surprising. Chazal tell us that a prophet does not merit prophecy until he enters a frame of mind of simcha.
The Rambam in his introduction to Pirkei Avot (שמונה פרקים, ז) quoting the Gemara (Shabbat 92a), describes when a נביא merits prophecy - אין הנבואה שורה אלא על חכם גיבור ועשיר. One of the requirements is that he be עשיר “rich”. What does it means rich? Not that he is Elon Musk or Bill Gates, but that he is שמח בחלקו (Avot 4,1). The Gemara (Shabbat 30b) says that in the years that Yaakov was mourning Yosef, the Shechina and prophecy departed from him, because he was lacking simcha.
Sefer עוללות אפרים (קמ"ב), written by the Kli Yakar, says that the Luchot Habrit were made from סנפיריון, a precious stone that is transparent, so that the עשרת הדברות could be read from any angle or side. According to him, this is a fundamental principle – transparency. And it was in both Luchot, both the side בין אדם למקום and the side בין אדם לחברו.
Therefore, in our dealings and interactions with our fellow man, we also are required to be “face to face”, with no masks and no manipulations.
Society teaches us to manipulate our “face”. Depending on the culture, it is not “macho” for men to cry, not “macho” for men to smile, not acceptable for neither men nor women to show emotion overly much, to maintain “decorum” (whatever that means) at all times. Culture and trauma condition us to develop a disparity between our inner selves and the outer image we portray to the world. In today’s culture we are encouraged from a young age to be “cool”, to walk in a certain way, to talk in a certain way, to dress in a certain way.
The way of the Torah is the opposite. The Torah teaches us to be “real”, to be true to our inner self, not only in our thoughts, but also in our actions and interactions with the outside world תוכו כברו, like the guard at the door in Rabban Gamliel’s Yeshiva. To make sure that our “face” is a reflection of our true selves and not a manipulation, also in our relationships with our fellow man. The true “cool”, the Torah form of “cool”, is being true to yourself, not a sham and a show.
As we are required to aspire to a “face to face” relationship with HKB”H, we are also required to do the same with our fellow human beings.
The contemporary form of “transparency” is not the Torah form of transparency. Contemporary transparency means that, despite the fact that you are interacting with other people, they are really transparent to you – they are invisible, you don’t actually see them! You see people on the sidewalk, at the traffic light, at the bus station, at school, in Yeshiva, at work, at home, etc. but you don’t see them, you don’t actually acknowledge their presence, their worth. Our egocentric modern society teaches us to focus inward in ever decreasing concentric circles and ignore whoever and whatever is happening around us. It is not enough that we humans are instinctively self-centered and focused on our own ד' אמות, we need to harness technology to exacerbate that and increasingly blot out the real world around us, focusing on our ever-diminishing-in-size cellphone screens, with earphones in our ears, and very soon virtual reality goggles over our eyes.
The Torah version of transparency is to be hyper-aware of what is going on around you, to also be able to see within, to see not only the outward appearance, but the inner essence, to observe events occurring around you and understand them on a deeper level, beyond that which meets the eye.
To communicate and interact with your fellow human being on a real level, not via an Internet chat with cute emoticons, distorted and frame-limited webcam images and sound. HKB”H gave us REAL emoticons that are much “cooler”. Yes, technology has facilitated instant communication that is eons more functionally advanced than what existed just two centuries ago. To communicate with someone 200 years ago required sending a handwritten letter, delivered by hand, halfway across the globe, something that could take months, even years. Today we can communicate instantly with someone on the other side of the world, even with someone “outside” the world (on the international space station, for example). However, in the process we have lost the ability to communicate. We have lost the layers of communication that cannot be conveyed by technology, layers that only exist in a face to face, real conversation. Today we prefer to chat with family members in the same house on the cellphone, rather than making the minimal effort to walk up ten steps and stand in front of the real human being and have a real conversation. This “laziness” is having serious repercussions on our people skills (and also on our waistlines).
Some people prefer using technology to communicate, because the technology masks the true reality. Typically people who are not transparent, whose outer face does not match their inner self, prefer technology, to hide the inner self and portray a false, manipulated version of themselves to the outside world. Technology makes it easy to do that. Hiding your inner self in a face to face conversation is not as easy. Technology facilitates being false! Real, face to face communication encourages us to eliminate the disparity between the within and the without.
The Torah concept of face to face בין אדם לחברו requires real human contact. Only in this way can you truly experience all the communication cues that HKB”H created in this world, full (not framed) body language, those (invisible to the camera) vibes that one picks up on in frontal communication, that have to be felt, not seen or heard. There is much more to communication than pixels and sound waves. This is why it is halachically not acceptable to answer אמן to and be יוצא a bracha or tefila transferred technologically (via phone, video chat, etc.). COVID highlighted this issue and the halacha stands. Yes, in a situation where it is either a Zoom session (without being עובר any עבירה of course) or absolutely nothing, a Zoom session is preferable – it at least gives you a feeling of שייכות and solidarity, but halachically you are not יוצא hearing Megilat Esther, for example via Zoom. That remains unchanged. It is better to read it yourself, even without טעמים if you do not know them. If you cannot read Hebrew, then read it in English. If you cannot read it yourself (in any language) and the alternative is – nothing, only then is a Zoom session preferable – over nothing, but you are still not halachically יוצא. Same thing applies to participating in a Zoom “minyan”.
The Torah (and halacha) distinguishes between what is real and what is not real. There is no “virtual reality” in the Torah, only אמת. As HKB”H requires a face to face relationship with Him, he requires us to have a face to face relationship with one another, to see one another, to feel one another, in the real world.
The communicative relationship between Moshe and HKB”H was like כַּאֲשֶׁר יְדַבֵּר אִישׁ אֶל רֵעֵהוּ, which the Ba’al Haturim explains is a smiling relationship. The power of a smile cannot be overstated. A smile precedes communication. It acknowledges the person in front of you and defuses animosity. Not only does it convey absence of threat to the person in front of you, it also defuses any feelings of animosity within yourself. The physical movement of the smile muscles releases feel-good hormones. It continues as an essential part of the conversation itself and conveys respect.
Take a look at people in a demonstration (we have a lot of them these days) and see how many of them are smiling. Take a look at the TV news announcer and note the expression on his/her face. When people “communicate” in that way, it is not a conversation, it is a monologue. It is a focusing on “self” and not on the “other”. It is a cancellation of the “other". It is all part of the “cancel culture”. How many disputes do you think can be resolved successfully in this way? When two people are in the same room, communicating in a non-combatant demeanor, with an openness to acknowledge and at least hear out the person in front of them, that is when disputes are resolved peacefully and without violence. It is very rare that there exists no common ground whatsoever, especially amongst Am Yisrael. (This is as opposed to when a terrorist rushes at you wielding an axe or a gun. In that case you do not smile, you defend yourself and neutralize the threat).
In Meir Panim I bring the principle that whenever the word כף appears in the Tanach, the word can be interpreted equally as either “hand” or “smile”. When HKB”H said to Moshe וַהֲסִרֹתִי אֶת כַּפִּי וְרָאִיתָ אֶת אֲחֹרָי וּפָנַי לֹא יֵרָאוּ it means that when HKB”H removes כַּפִּי, His smile, then Moshe will only be seeing Him from behind, and not His face, because the face of HKB”H, as it were, is a smiling face.
In these troubling times we find Am Yisrael becoming more and more distanced from “face to face”, both with HKB”H and with one another. We are in serious need of a wakeup call. Hopefully it will be a positive wakeup call and not a negative one. The choice is up to us.
