According to this week's parsha -Ki Tissa- Moses was not to see God’s Face (His Self) but was granted a “view” of His Back (God’s action viewed in retrospect). But for even a “back” view to be granted, the text describes how God Himself placed Moses in a “cleft in the rock” for his own protection. Moses didn’t choose to hide there. God put him there.
The closer we get to God the more we realise how little we understand what or who “He” is. The closer we try to get, the deeper our awe. Describing even a “back” view is futile.
In our attempts to “connect” with God in contemplative prayer we experience a need to withdraw to a protective enclosure….a “cleft in the rock” away from the bustle of work or crowds, a metaphysical “cave” in which to focus our attention, or a large prayer-shawl under which we can feel God’s protective embrace.
Whether we sense God’s presence in our prayer,
or whether we sense God’s presence in His activity through people or in nature,
What we see is always a mere interpretation or reflection of His “Presence”.
But that didn’t stop Moses from wanting to pierce the fog
and it doesn’t stop contemplatives from feeling the same ache either.
Perhaps the contemplative lesson of the “cleft in the rock incident” is that we should wait for God to place us there if He should so choose, always accepting that He may very well NOT choose to do so.
God is “Ha Makom”..THE place.
God Himself is the Rock in which Moses was hidden and it was God’s own “Hand” which protectively sealed the opening of the cleft during the revelation described in Ki Tissa.
In our contemplative “cleft in the rock” we may often feel that we have “seen” nothing or “met” nothing.
But we will have been in that “Place”
… Ha Makom …
That is more than enough.”
N R Davies
March 2007
