This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa, includes the infamous tale of golden calf. While Moses is atop Mount Sinai, the Israelites make for themselves an idol to worship, one that they can see and touch, one made by the work of their own hands.

This triggers such intense rage within God that God wants to annihilate the Israelites. Only Moses’ wise reasoning soothes God’s impulses, and the matter is eventually brought to a just conclusion. 

God gives Moses instructions to travel onward with the people, but the ordeal has shaken Moses, and he is not quite ready to move on.He begs God for some kind of assurance that God will not turn away from him or his people any time they make a mistake, which they surely will. 

“Make Your way known to me so that I might comprehend You,” Moses pleads. “Show me Your glory.”  

We can hear in these words the same desire the people had, a desire to feel connected to and know their God in a more direct and tangible way.

In reply, God says to Moses, “I shall make all My goodness pass before you … [but] you will not be able to see My face, for no human can see My face and live.”  

God tells Moses that his eyes will be shielded until God has passed, and then Moses will see God’s back.

God’s back? Setting aside any issues we may have with the anthropomorphism of God in these verses, how is seeing God’s back supposed to be a comfort to Moses at this time? In human interactions, turning one’s back on another is considered a sign of abandonment or, worse, betrayal. The Sages of our tradition wondered about this as well, and in response they came up with many creative ideas of what “God’s back” really means.  

But the response I am resonating with most these days comes from Rabbi Jeff Roth, who explains that with God’s back to Moses’ face, Moses receives a precious gift. His physical presence is aligned with God’s presence, and this enables Moses to look out at the world through God’s eyes. In this moment he sees the world the way that God sees the world, through the lenses of both justice and love.  

Each of us might do well to try to view our world today through these two lenses. Looked at through the lens of justice, we know our world today is in desperate need of repair. It is hard to look at a world that is suffering, to see people in pain, and to feel so limited in the response that we can make.  

But God needs us to hold our gaze and not turn away from the anguish. God needs our voices and actions to stand up for the vulnerable, to speak out against violence and to show up in the fight against oppression in any form.

At the same time, we understand that the harshness of this world can be softened by our compassion and tenderness, by our patience and our love. Cultivating kindness and compassion for ourselves and for others is one of the most effective ways to bring healing to our world. Jewish tradition teaches that God showers us with hesed, with loving kindness, each day, and that each of us has the responsibility to share these same kindnesses with one another.  

Through Parashat Ki Tisa, may we learn to look upon the world, upon all others and upon ourselves through the eyes of God, and in doing so, may we bring about a world of justice and of love.