Maureena’s Torah Reflections
Parashat Pesach Shabbat Chol ha-Moed. Exodus 33:12-34:26
Moses said to the LORD, “See, You say to me, ‘Lead this people forward,’ but You have not made known to me whom You will send with me. Further, You have said, ‘I have singled you out by name, and you have, indeed, gained My favor’”….
And God said, “I will go in the lead and will lighten your burden” (Ex. 33:12, 14).
In the verse preceding this parasha, we read, “The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one person speaks to another” (Ex. 33.11). The same expression is used in Deut. 34:10. In Num. 12:6-8 it is said that God communicated with Moses “mouth to mouth.” Moses’ experience with God is personal and direct, with no necessity of mediators.
The Rambam (also known as Maimonides), the foremost intellectual figure of medieval Judaism (1145–1204), wrote:
What is the proper [degree] of love? (It is) that a person should love God with a very great and exceeding love until one’s soul is bound up in the love of God. Thus, one will always be obsessed with this love as if one is lovesick … as we are commanded, “love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5).
Prepared by Prof. Sr. Maureena Fritz nds
See all Weekly Torah reflections from Bat Kol International
Subscribe to Maureena’s Torah Reflections
“Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies.”
Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions: Nostra Aetate, No. 4