Chag Sameach Pesach, Happy Passover to All.

This is a wonderful week to reflect on the freedoms HaShem has brought into our lives. It also is a period to focus on what pleases the Holy One, Blessed be He. When the intermediate days include a Shabbat the reading is Shemot or Exodus 33:12 – 34:35. The portion begins with Moshe pleading with the Most High. It ends with Moshe removing his hood (veil, covering) when HaShem was speaking with him. Moshe replaces `it when with the people to shield them from the brilliance of his face.

What happened that transformed Moshe’s face so much that he needs to shield the people? In this portion we find an earlier experience that is similar. When the Most High passes by Moshe on the mountain HaShem shields Moshe from seeing His essence. Moshe has a vision of what follows the Most High’s existence. Daring to be with HaShem, plead, listen, obey, write and be who the Most High asked Moshe to be and do what he was asked to changed Moshe. He changed dramatically. The transformation was visible to other people when he came down from the mountain. They could not look directly at him.

When I set aside the business of the day and go to meet the Holy One, Blessed be He, am I seeking to please HaShem? Am I longing to see the Most High and know His ways? Moshe was. God was pleased and plainly said so. What an example to strive following after in our lives?

Moshe received the Torah and wrote it as HaShem instructed while on the mountain with the Most High for forty days. We are not going to have that experience! What he did, received and learned can teach us how to please the Creator. Learning to create the quiet place, and know the longing for a vision or the presence of the Holy One, Blessed be he takes time and effort. It’s said the young men shall see visions, and the old men dreams later in the TaNaKh (Hebrew Scriptures). Prayer provides the possibility of drawing near, listening, knowing inwardly, seeing, speaking, pleading, and being with the Most High.

If I don’t spend time communicating with the One who created me and the world how can I know the Most High, though I am known. Prayer, or communication with the Creator gives us time to listen and speak with HaShem today, We have Torah to study and learn what the Holy One spoke to our people as the way to live our lives as well, We must draw near to unwrap this precious gift.

The way to please HaShem never changes. The Most High does not change. When we draw near we experience the mercy and compassion of the Holy One, Blessed be He. As we learn to come close, being known and beginning to know, or envision the Most High on His terms we will be changed slowly. Moshe saw what follows HaShem’s existence, His visage and whole person was transformed. He glowed.

This week we told the story of the Exodus, reminded of the journey, changes, Mt. Sinai and the giving of the Torah before entering the Promised Land. Are you ready to cross over, prepared to do and hear the Most High’s instructions and enter way and life set before you. It’s a choice, a daily choice set before us. This week opens it up to us fresh and new. We get a chance to come around again, if we are struggling fine tuning, doing teshuvah (repenting), drawing near spending time before the Most High. The ferris wheel is ready to start are you one and buckled as instructed?

Ruth Etalka