Shabbat Parashat Mishpatim - 5786

Shabbat Parashat Mishpatim - 5786

Rabbi Hal Miller

  They saw the God of Israel and under His feet was the likeness of a sapphire

  brick and it was like the essence of the heavens in purity. [Shemot 24:10]

At first glance, this verse seems very odd. Who was seeing, what were they looking at, and what is this verse doing here?

The first question is easily answered from the previous verse, "Moshe, Aharon, Nadav and Avihu and seventy of the elders of Israel ascended." That might seem too simple to be asking about but it is relevant to what is being seen and what the purpose of the verse might be.

As usual, Onkelos rewrites the verse to remove anthropomorphisms. He renders it, "They saw the glory of the God of Israel. Under His Throne of Glory was the likeness of a precious stone and like the appearance of the heavens for purity." We are told that nobody can see God and live [Shemot 33:20], so Onkelos makes the obvious substitutions of "saw the glory of the God of Israel" in place of "saw the God of Israel", and "under His throne" in place of "under His feet", so the first half of our verse will be more palatable. Then he substitutes "precious stone" for "sapphire brick". Rashi differs with Onkelos, saying that they actually saw God and thus deserved death, but God "did not want to mar the rejoicing of the Torah and He waited for Nadav and Avihu until the day, etc.," and for the others listed at various future points. Rashbam views it that they saw "manifestations of God's attributes", which is more like Onkelos. Rav Hirsch is close to Rashbam, explaining that what they saw was "the phenomenon by which God announces His Presence", meaning the fire from heaven in Choreiv.

The word livnat means brick, but per Rashbam that word can also mean 'whiteness of' as in the sense of purity. The word sapir refers to a precious gem we usually call sapphire but is also related to the sefirot of the Kabbalah. Baal HaTurim combines the two words and writes "white sapphire". Rashi calls it a thing that merely "had the form of a sapphire brick. It was in front of Him at the time of the enslavement to remember the pain of Israel" meaning it was a reminder to God. He does not explain why God would need a reminder, but does seem to imply that the reminder may in fact be for the group mentioned in verse 9, who are seeing it in our verse, perhaps to let them know that God has been with them all along. The verses do not give any explanation about what this sapphire brick is used for, so Rashi's implied 'reminder' here helps some with our questions. Sforno thinks it is a block of the primordial material first created on the first day of Creation, which could possibly be tied to the sefirot of Kabbalah.

Ibn Ezra calls the entire incident a prophetic vision, that they saw the same thing Yechezkel would see [Yechezkel 1:22-27] although from a different vantage point, below rather than above. Ramban concurs to some degree, saying "they saw the God of Israel" means that they stood in the merit of Yaakov to allow them this vision.

Rav Soloveitchik notes that "the attribute 'God of Israel' is mentioned here for the first time", meaning the Rav agrees with those other than Rashi that these leaders did not actually see a physical representation of God, but something new that God was showing the Israelites now, indicating that they had progressed beyond Adam who hid from God's Presence.

Why is it important that it was this group of people that our verse says 'saw'? Could it not have been anyone else? Certainly these were the leaders of the nation, representatives of all the people. But at the initial revelation on Sinai, the entire nation was witness to God, so why not here? In chapter 20, God spoke to the entire nation, but then the people asked for relief, that Moshe should be the intermediary. At first, God accepted that arrangement, and from that point through the end of chapter 23, laws were revealed just to Moshe. Then in 24:1 God tells Moshe to bring up Aharon, Nadav, Avihu and seventy elders to the foot of the mountain and prostrate themselves. In verse 9, this group approaches but rather than prostrate, they stare at the scene in our verse. Thus the key to our question is less who they were but more what they did. As representatives of the people they should certainly have followed the Divine instructions but did not. Our verse is thus describing yet another incident of even the leaders, even with the majesty of the revelation, being a stiff-necked people. The verse is teaching that we should all be careful to set a good example, regardless of who we might be.