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Moses Saw the Knot of Gods Tefillin from Behind

After the golden calf, Moses asked to see God's glory. What he saw from behind, pressed into a cleft of rock, was the knot of the divine tefillin.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Ornaments Removed After the Calf
  2. God Wears Tefillin
  3. The Back, Not the Face
  4. Moses Defends the People He Had Just Led Through a Catastrophe

The Ornaments Removed After the Calf

Before anyone asks about God's glory, there are the ornaments to reckon with. At Sinai, the Israelites had been given jewelry on which was inscribed the great and holy Name. These were not decorative items. They were Name-bearing talismans, carrying the ineffable letters on the bodies of 600,000 people. The revelation had been physical and intimate in this way: God's Name pressed against Israel's skin.

After the golden calf, God told the people to take them off (Exodus 33:5-6). The Name could not remain on a people who had just prostrated themselves before their own metalwork. Targum Jonathan on Exodus 33, the Aramaic Torah paraphrase shaped in Palestine between the second and seventh centuries CE, records that Moses understood the weight of this command and stripped his own ornament first as the people grieved. He then took all the ornaments and used them to build the Tent of Meeting, the private place of consultation outside the camp where Moses would speak face to face with God while the cloud came down and the people watched from a distance.

God Wears Tefillin

The Talmud, tractate Berakhot 6a, states this plainly: God wears tefillin. This is not a metaphor. The question in the Talmud is what the divine tefillin contain, and the answer is a verse from Psalms 29:11 about God giving strength to Israel, the same structural role that Israel's tefillin fulfills in reverse, carrying scriptural portions about Israel's obligation to God. The divine and human tefillin correspond to each other. Each side wears the other's name.

Moses had survived more than anyone before him. He had stood at the burning bush without dying. He had stood on Sinai for forty days without eating or drinking. He had stood before Pharaoh ten times. He had argued with God face to face. And now, in the wreckage after the calf, he asked for more: show me Your glory (Exodus 33:18).

The Back, Not the Face

God's response is precise. You cannot see My face, for no person can see Me and live. But I will place you in the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with My hand while I pass, and then I will remove My hand and you will see My back, but My face will not be seen (Exodus 33:20-23).

Targum Jonathan fills in what the back contains. What Moses saw, pressed into the cleft of the rock with a divine hand over his eyes until the right moment, was the knot of God's tefillin. Not the boxes, which face forward. The knot, which sits at the back of the head. Moses saw what no one else had seen or would see: the rear aspect of the divine tefillin, the place where the binding closes.

The detail is staggering in its intimacy. God shows Moses not majesty but a fastening. Not the words inscribed inside the boxes but the knot that holds everything together. Philo of Alexandria, the philosopher who wrote extensively on Exodus in the first century CE, frames the command to bind tefillin on the hand as a reminder that every act must be performed in righteousness with the memory of divine presence. The hand bound with tefillin is a hand reminded of its obligations. Moses saw the hand of that obligation at its most private point, from behind, after the worst failure of Israel's young history.

Moses Defends the People He Had Just Led Through a Catastrophe

Shemot Rabbah 43, the Midrash Rabbah on Exodus, a compilation of Palestinian midrashic material assembled around the sixth to seventh centuries CE, gives the argument Moses made when God threatened to destroy Israel after the calf. Moses pointed at the Exodus: you took them out of Egypt (Exodus 32:11). Why bring up the Exodus at this moment? Rabbi Avin, citing Rabbi Shimon ben Yehotzadak, explains through a parable. A king owned a neglected field and hired a sharecropper to transform it into a vineyard. The sharecropper worked it, the vines grew, but then something went wrong. The king threatened to destroy the whole thing. The sharecropper asked: whom exactly will you hold responsible for this, the vineyard or me? I am the one you assigned to it. If it went wrong, the responsibility tracks back to who set up the arrangement.

Moses was saying: these are the people You brought out. You chose the assignment. The failure is connected to the choice You made when You took them from Pharaoh. God, in the tradition's account, accepted this argument. The nation survived.

MosesTefillinDivine PresenceGolden CalfSinai
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From the tradition

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Letter of Aristeas 1:160Letter of Aristeas

Upon our hands, too, he expressly orders the symbol to be fastened, clearly showing that we ought to perform every act in righteousness, remembering (our own creation), and above all the fear of God.

He bids men also, when lying down to sleep and rising up again, to meditate upon the works of God, not only in word, but by observing distinctly the change and impression produced upon them, when they are going to sleep, and also their waking, how divine and incomprehensible the change from one of these states to the other is.

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Targum Jonathan on Exodus 33Targum Jonathan

After the golden calf, God told Moses something devastating in (Exodus 33:1-23). The Shekinah (the Divine Presence) would not travel with Israel anymore. The Targum Jonathan turns this crisis into the most intimate conversation between God and a human being anywhere in the ancient Aramaic translations.

The people had been wearing ornaments "on which was inscribed and set forth the great and holy Name," given to them at Mount Sinai. After the calf, God demanded they remove these. The Targum says Moses "took and hid them in his tabernacle of instruction." The holy Name-bearing jewelry was too sacred to destroy, too dangerous for a sinful people to keep.

Moses moved the Tabernacle two thousand cubits outside the camp and renamed it "the Tabernacle of the House of Instruction." Anyone who wanted to repent would walk out to that tent, "confess and pray for the pardon of his sins; and praying he was forgiven." It became the first confession booth in history.

When Moses spoke with God, the Targum makes a remarkable clarification: "the voice of the Word was heard, but the Majesty of the Presence was not seen." God and Moses spoke "in the way that a man converses with his companion," yet the divine form remained hidden.

Moses then asked to understand why righteous people suffer and the wicked prosper. The Targum expands his request into a full theological question about divine justice. God's answer was to make "all the measure of My goodness pass before thee."

The climactic moment comes when Moses asks to see God's glory. "Thou canst not see the visage of My face," God replies, "for no man can see Me and abide alive." Instead, God placed Moses in a cleft of rock and covered him with the divine Word. When God passed by, Moses saw "the handborder of the tephilla of My glorious Shekinah." The back-knot of God's own tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer). Not God's face, but the strap of His phylacteries.

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Shemot Rabbah 43:9Shemot Rabbah

This particular section, Shemot Rabbah 43, gives us a glimpse into the intense drama that unfolded between Moses and God after the Israelites' colossal blunder.

The verse in question is from (Exodus 32:11): "that You took out of the land of Egypt.” Why, Moses asks, does he bring up the Exodus at this moment?

Rabbi Avin, quoting Rabbi Shimon ben Yehotzadak, explains with a parable. Imagine a king with a neglected field. He hires a sharecropper to transform it into a vineyard. The sharecropper works hard, the vineyard flourishes, but the wine it produces is..fermented, not quite right. The king, disappointed, orders the vineyard to be cut down.

The sharecropper pleads, "My lord, think of all the effort and resources invested in this vineyard! It's just young! Give it time, and it will produce fine wine."

So too, argues Moses. When the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to destroy Israel after the sin of the Golden Calf, Moses interceded. "Master of the universe," he implored, "did You not take them out of Egypt, a land steeped in idolatry? They are still inexperienced, like young children!" As it says in (osea 11:1), "For Israel was a lad and I loved him." They need time to mature, to learn, to grow into the people they are meant to be. Moses isn’t just begging for mercy; he’s reminding God of the context, of the journey, of the potential that still resides within the Israelites. It’s a powerful argument rooted in patience and understanding.

Moses continues, invoking (Exodus 32:12): "Why shall the Egyptians speak, saying: He took them out for evil, to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from upon the face of the earth? Relent from your enflamed wrath and reconsider regarding the evil against Your people." In other words, what kind of message would it send to the world if God brought them out of Egypt, only to destroy them so soon after?

Rabbi Ḥanina bar Abba adds a profound layer, suggesting that Moses prayed that even in the future, God should be willing to "reconsider" punishments He might impose upon Israel. (As Etz Yosef explains). It's a prayer for enduring compassion and a willingness to see beyond immediate transgressions.

And God responds, "As you live, so I will do." And then, the pivotal line: "The Lord reconsidered the evil" ((Exodus 32:14)).

Wow.

This passage from Shemot Rabbah isn't just a story; it's a evidence of the power of intercession, the importance of context, and the enduring hope for redemption. It reminds us that even after monumental failures, there's always the possibility of reconsideration, of growth, and of a future yet to be written. And it all hinges on Moses's courage to remind God of their shared history and the potential that still flickered within the fledgling nation of Israel. Powerful stuff.

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