September 25, 2021
Leaving You Here
This week’s Shabbat reading follows the disastrous episode of the Golden Calf. As such, it may seem to have no direct connection to Sukkot, but it does recount an important (and sometimes neglected) conversation between God and Moses.
The reading begins with God telling Moses to “depart from here,” that is, from Sinai, along with the Israelites, and go up to the land that He had promised to Israel’s ancestors, adding “I will send an angel in front of you,” apparently to guide Moses and the people on their journey and dispose of their enemies (Exod 33:1-3). But then God gives the Israelites the bad news: “I will not be going with you, since you are a stiff-necked people.” As such, God explains, the people would be in constant danger of arousing the divine wrath.
The people are understandably upset at this news, and it is at this point that Moses, whose unique standing allows him to speak to God “face to face” (Exod 33:11), takes the initiative. What does he do? He acts as if he didn’t hear what God had just said.
Moses said to the Lord, “Look, You are telling me to lead this people up [to Canaan], but You haven’t told me who [or what] You are going to send along with me.” (Exod 33:12)
Actually, God had already said He was going to send an angel (Exod 33:2). But Moses apparently continues as if he hadn’t heard, urging God to remember that “This nation is indeed Your people.” God’s next words are often mistranslated: “My Face [apparently a specific angel or divine manifestation] will be going, but I am leaving you here” (33:14). This is merely a restatement of what He had said earlier: He will send His angel, but God Himself will remain at Sinai.
To this Moses answers: “If Your Face is not going, please do not make us depart from here.” In other words, sending this angel, God’s “Face,” is the minimum that God can be expected to do, but it is certainly not all that God could do. “But how can it be shown that I have found favor with You—I and Your people, that is—if not by Your going with us, so that we may be singled out, I and Your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” (33:16).
Correction: it was Moses alone who had found favor with God—nothing was said about the people of Israel! How could they be said to have found favor after having just committed the sin of the Golden Calf and suffered God’s punishment? But Moses slips the Israelites in (twice in fact) with the phrase “I and Your people,” as if his own, personal favor with God had somehow passed over to the stiff-necked Israelites. And surprisingly, God goes along with this. He now agrees to what he had previously refused to do: He Himself will be going up to Canaan with the Israelites.
And this is precisely what happened: the Deity who had previously remained on the “Mountain of God” (or the gods) would henceforth move from that mountain to another, Mount Zion. In fact, as is said elsewhere (Lev 23:43), the Israelites would camp together along the way in those special, mobile homes called sukkot—an explicit link between this Shabbat’s reading and the holiday we are celebrating.