This week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim (Ex. 21:1 – 24:18) outlines
God’s rules that Moses is to set before the Israelites. They are a compendium of civil and criminal
laws and social and religious precepts that will have to be obeyed in order
that Israel remain God’s covenant people.
After Moses repeats these laws to the people, they declare, “All that God
has spoken, we will hear, and we will do!”.
Following this acceptance, a strange ritual takes
place. Moses, Aaron, Aaron’s sons Nadav
and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel , “And they saw the God of
Israel; and there was under His feet the like of a paved work of sapphire
stone, and the like of the very heaven for clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel
He laid not His hand; and they beheld God, and did eat and drink” (Ex. 24:10-11). This same God, a few chapters from now, will
tell Moses that no human can see God’s face and live. ). God, who has placed such emphasis on being
incorporeal, not only allows Moses and the elders to see Him, but to eat and
drink before Him!
Modern academic commentators explain this passage by
comparing it to ancient suzerainty treaties in which the vassal people ate a meal
with the king to seal the treaty.
Rabbinic commentaries on the Torah generally understand that Moses and
the leaders experienced a prophetic vision, rather than actually “seeing God”. What I love about it is that a long list of very
earth-bound laws and precepts, of concrete and understandable rules about daily
life comes a powerful other-worldly experience of the ineffable Presence.
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