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CONTEMPLATIVE JUDAISM
Sam Berrin Shonkoff
And he was there with YHWH forty days and forty nights. Bread he did
not eat, nor water did he drink. And he wrote on the tablets the words of
the covenant, the Ten Words. And it happened when Moses came down
from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the Covenant in Moses’s hand
when he came down from the mountain, that Moses did not know that
the skin of his face had glowed when he spoke with Him. And Aaron,
and all the Israelites, saw Moses, and, look, the skin of his face glowed,
and they were afraid to come near him. And Moses called to them, and
Aaron and all the chiefs in the community came back to him, and Moses
spoke to them.
Exodus 34: 28-32
It is said that every word of Torah has infinite meanings, but let us now
reflect on one interpretation of this passage. Moses is hitbodedut, in total
seclusion, which is an essential prerequisite for prophetic revelation. 1
Without bread or water for forty days, he is clearly in an altered state of
consciousness. As Moses directly experiences YHVH, he does not realize
that his face is glowing. Thus, he lacks self-consciousness and his ego is
dissolved during this encounter with the Divine. When Moses returns
to his community, the Israelites are afraid to come near him, for he is
glowing. The word used for “afraid” (yir’ah) in this passage is also used
to express the people’s fear of approaching the fiery presence of God on
the mountaintop. 2 Thus, human revelation involves a mystical connection
with YHVH in which the self and God are one. Immediately after Moses
reunites with the Israelites, he relates to them the contents of his revelation:
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