February 3, 2026
Moses saw the face of God just once and then
forgot. He didn’t want to see the desert,
not even the Promised Land, only the face of God.
In the fury of his longing he struck the rock,
climbed Mount Sinai and came down again, broke
the Tablets of Law, made a golden calf, searched through
fire and smoke, but he could remember only
the strong hand of God and His outstretched arm,
not His face. Moses was like a man who tries to recall
the face of someone he loved, but tries in vain.
He composed a police sketch of God’s face
And the face of the burning bush and the face of Pharaoh’s daughter
Leaning over him, a baby in the ark of bulrushes.
He sent that picture to all the tribes of Israel,
Up and down the desert, but no one had seen,
No one knew. Only at the end of his life,
On Mount Nebo, did Moses see and die, kissing
the face of God.
Seeing God’s face is an eternal yearning expressed throughout our sacred texts. The Psalmist cries out, “Don’t hide your face from me,” on numerous occasions. We might begin to ask ourselves, what does it actually mean to see God’s face? We read in Exodus 33:11, “Adonai would speak to Moses face to face as one person speaks to another.” Several verses later, Moses asks God to behold God’s presence, but God responds, “You cannot see my face, for a human being may not see me and live.” At the end of the Torah, in Deuteronomy, we learn there would never be another prophet who would know God face to face like Moses did. In the book of Numbers, the words the Priests use to bless people hope that God would lift God’s face as part of the blessing. These words are quite paradoxical. They reflect God’s mystery but behold the desire we each have to feel accepted by God and to ultimately feel God’s blessing.
In Amichai’s poem, I am drawn to the metaphor of the police sketch. In this contemporary metaphor, Moses is trying to reach out to others to see if anyone had the experience he had. Would anyone recognize the blessing he felt? He draws in some of the most sacred moments in his life. He felt the blessing of love by Pharaoh’s daughter as a baby floating in the Nile. He beheld the flames of the burning bush, a moment when he felt the intimacy of God’s call to him. After sending the sketches to every tribe, we might feel Moses is disheartened when no one recognizes God’s face. Why would that be? Is it because no one had actually seen God’s face before? Is it because no one had a relationship with God? Perhaps it is because every person might see the face of God differently. When God introduces Godself to Moses and asks God’s name, God responds, Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh. While we do not typically translate these words, it can be loosely translated as, “I will be what I will be.”
So many of us struggle with a belief in God or with creating a relationship with God. We wonder what God looks like, and if we cannot see God, then we might question God’s existence. We do know that love exists, and the wind exists. Perhaps, then, the relationship we create with God is unique to each of us and changes based on how we feel or what we need on a given day or in a given moment. If we need God to teach us, God teaches. If we need God to guide us, God guides. If we need God to comfort us, God comforts.
Each of us is a sketch artist. Sometimes we sketch with paper and pencil; other times, we paint pictures with our words. What is the face of God you would sketch? Perhaps it is staring back at you in the mirror.
Rabbi Rick Kellner