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.