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Part One · Chapter Twenty-One — ʿAvar
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ʿAvar — its first sense is that of 'passing' (ʿubūr) in Arabic: the displacement of a body in place. Its primary instance is the movement of an animal over a straight distance: 'and he himself passed over before them' (Gen 33:3); 'pass on before the people' (Exod 17:5). And this is frequent.
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Then it was borrowed for the traveling of sounds through the air: 'and they caused a proclamation to pass throughout the camp' (Exod 36:6); 'which I hear the Lord's people spread abroad' (1 Sam 2:24).
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Then it was borrowed for the alighting of the light and the Indwelling that the prophets see in the vision of prophecy. He said: 'and behold, a smoking furnace and a flaming torch that passed between those pieces' (Gen 15:17). And that was in the vision of prophecy, for at the beginning of the account it says, 'and a deep sleep fell upon Abram' (Gen 15:12), and so on.
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And in accordance with this borrowing it is said: 'and I will pass through the land of Egypt' (Exod 12:12), and all that resembles it.
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And it was also borrowed for one who does some act and goes to excess in it, overstepping its bound: 'and like a man whom wine hath overcome' (Jer 23:9).
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And it was also borrowed for one who passes by one aim and intends another aim and end: 'and he shot the arrow to send it beyond him' (1 Sam 20:36).
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And in accordance with this borrowing is, in my view, His saying: 'and the Lord passed by over his face' (Exod 34:6), the pronoun in 'his face' referring to Him, may He be exalted. So too the Sages took it — that this 'face' is His, may He be exalted — and although they mentioned it in the manner of homiletics (this is not its proper place), it nonetheless lends some support to our view, so that 'his face' is a pronoun for the Holy One, blessed be He. The clarification of this is according to what I shall set forth.
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And it appears to me that Moses, peace be upon him, sought a certain apprehension — the one figured by 'seeing the face' in His saying 'but My face shall not be seen' (Exod 33:23) — and was promised an apprehension short of what he sought, the one figured by 'seeing the back' in His saying 'and thou shalt see My back' (Exod 33:23). We have already drawn attention to this notion in the Mishneh Torah.
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So I say here that God, may He be exalted, withheld from him that apprehension figured by 'face,' and passed him on to another notion — namely, the knowledge of the acts ascribed to Him, may He be exalted, which are supposed to be multiple attributes, as we shall explain.
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By my saying 'withheld from him' I mean that that apprehension is, by its very nature, veiled and forbidden; and that every perfect man, when his intellect attains that which it is in his nature to apprehend and then aspires to a further apprehension beyond it, may have his apprehension disordered or perish — as will be explained in one of the chapters of this treatise — unless divine help accompany him, as He said: 'and I will cover thee with My hand until I have passed by' (Exod 33:22).
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As for the Targum, it follows its custom in such matters: every instance it finds ascribed to God which would entail corporeality or its accidents, it construes by deleting the construct-term, assigning that relation to some matter annexed to God and left implicit. Of His saying 'and behold, the Lord stood above it' (Gen 28:13) he rendered: 'the glory of the Lord stood above him.' And of His saying 'the Lord watch between me and thee' (Gen 31:49) he rendered: 'may the Memra of the Lord watch.' And upon this principle he carried his rendering through, peace be upon him.
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And so he did with His saying 'and the Lord passed over his face' (Exod 34:6): 'and the Lord made His Shekhinah pass before him and proclaimed.' So, on his view, the thing that passed is undoubtedly something created; and he made the pronoun in 'his face' refer to Moses our master, so that 'over his face' is to be explained as 'in his presence,' as it says 'and the present passed over before him' (Gen 32:22). And this too is a good and acceptable interpretation.
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And what confirms the interpretation of Onkelos the proselyte, of blessed memory, is the wording of Scripture: 'and it shall come to pass, while My glory passeth by' (Exod 33:22). For it has stated plainly that what passes is a thing ascribed to Him, may He be exalted — not His essence, may His name be exalted. And of that glory He said 'until I have passed by' (Exod 33:22) and 'and the Lord passed over his face' (Exod 34:6).
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And since there is no avoiding the supplying of a deleted construct-term — as Onkelos always does, at one time making that elided term 'glory,' at another 'Shekhinah,' at another 'Memra,' according to each place — we too will here make the deleted construct-term 'a voice,' so that the implied sense is: 'and a voice of the Lord passed over his face and proclaimed.'
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And we have already shown the language's borrowing of 'passing' for a voice: 'and they caused a voice to pass' (Exod 36:6). So the voice is what proclaimed; and do not find it far-fetched that 'proclaiming' should be ascribed to a voice.
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For with these very words the expression was made of His addressing Moses, may He be exalted. It says: 'and he heard the voice speaking unto him' (Num 7:89). So just as 'speaking' was ascribed to the voice, here too 'proclaiming' is ascribed to the voice. The like of this has come plainly — I mean the ascribing of 'saying' and 'crying' to a voice — as it says: 'a voice says, Cry; and one said, What shall I cry?' (Isa 40:6).
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So the explanation, according to this construal, is thus: a voice from God passed in his presence and called out, 'O Lord, O Lord' — the repetition of 'the Lord' being for a vocative call, since it is He, may He be exalted, who is being called, like 'Moses, Moses' and 'Abraham, Abraham.' And this too is a very fine interpretation.
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And do not think it strange that this recondite notion, hard to apprehend, should admit of many interpretations — for that does no harm to the matter we are pursuing; and you are free to choose whichever of the views you wish.
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Either that whole great scene is, without doubt, a vision of prophecy, and the whole aspiration is intellectual apprehensions — what was sought, what was denied, and what was apprehended — all of it intellectual, with no sensation in it, as we interpreted first.
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Or that there is, along with this, an apprehension by the sense of sight — but of some created thing, by the seeing of which the perfection of intellectual apprehension comes about, as Onkelos interpreted it — unless that visual apprehension too was within the vision of prophecy, as it came in the case of Abraham: 'and behold, a smoking furnace and a flaming torch that passed' (Gen 15:17).
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Or that there is, along with this, an apprehension of the sense of hearing as well, and that the voice is what 'passed over his face' — which is likewise, without doubt, something created. Choose whichever of the opinions you wish.
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For the whole aim is that you not take His saying here 'and He passed by' like 'pass on before the people' (Exod 17:5): God, mighty and exalted, is not a body, and motion is not possible for Him, so it cannot be said that He 'passed' in the original sense of the word in the language.