Parashat Ki Tisa: Seeing and hearing: The difference

The event at the center of parashat Ki Tisa is the sin of the golden calf. This sad story occurred shortly after the revelation at Mount Sinai, where God established an eternal covenant with the people of Israel, a covenant centered on mutual commitment: “If you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples,” or as later formulated by the Torah: “I will be your God, and you shall be My people” (Leviticus 26:12).

The basic condition for the existence of this covenant is the prohibition against idolatry. Yet, only 40 days after the revelation at Mount Sinai, when the Israelites feared that Moses had disappeared, they created a golden calf and danced before it, proclaiming, “This is your God, O Israel.” When Moses descended from the mountain and witnessed this event, he broke the tablets of the covenant received from God, punished the instigators of the sin, and interceded with God to forgive the people for their worship of the calf.

The last part of the portion describes a dialogue between Moses and God in which Moses seeks forgiveness for the people and, beyond that, makes a surprising request to God: “Reveal to me Your glory.” Moses asks to see God! The resolute response Moses receives is: “You cannot see My face, for man shall not see Me and live.” Man cannot see God.

Throughout the generations, Jewish sages explained that Moses did not expect to literally see God. He sought an intellectual elevation beyond human capacity, but God explained to him that living beings cannot ascend to such heights. As long as man is alive, he is limited not only in his physical abilities but also in his intellectual capacities. Such a high level of intellectual comprehension cannot be realized.

Why is intellectual comprehension specifically likened to the sense of sight?

Because through the eye that sees, man cannot grasp the essence of a thing but only its external shell. When we see a person, we do not see his essence, his character, or his qualities but only his external appearance. Similarly, man’s intellectual comprehension is not capable of grasping the essence of things but only definitions – the external framework of the thing.

The Torah offers another way to encounter God: “Hear, O Israel.” Hearing is a deeper sense than seeing. When we hear someone speak, we are able to understand his essence. When we hear music, we are elevated to a profound experience that we cannot reach through sight alone. Man aspiring for a deep encounter with God cannot do so through intellect alone but through hearing – hearing the law, hearing the truth, hearing and obeying.

Thus, Moses described the revelation at Mount Sinai that the people experienced: “You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice” (Deuteronomy 4:12). At Mount Sinai, all of Israel heard the revelation of God through the Ten Commandments, but they did not see Him. There was a cloud and thick fog on the mountain from which the voice emanated.

This led to the sin of the golden calf. The people, who had lived for hundreds of years in Egypt among idolaters, struggled to adapt to an abstract faith, to a God who could not be seen. At the first opportunity, they created a calf that symbolized to them the gods, a tangible calf that could be seen and touched.

Indeed, a person seeking a religious experience may resort to ecstatic experiences that lead him to a feeling of divine attainment. But this is a mistake. The one and only God, the God of Israel, does not expect anything from man but one thing, in the words of the prophet Micah: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

Justice, kindness, and humility are the qualities that lead man to a true encounter with God. ■

The writer is the rabbi of the Western Wall and holy sites.