August 18, 2022 / 21 Menachem Av, 5782 • Parshat Eikev
Issue 731
Dedicated in loving memory of Mrs. Miriam Friedman

Channeling Moses

Moses said to the Jewish people, What does G-d demand of you? Only to revere G-d:

Deuteronomy 10:12


This “reverence” is the fear that G-d would see us doing something that we would be embarrassed or ashamed to have Him see us do. This constant awareness that we are living in G-d’s presence might have been easy for Moses, but how could he assume that it would be easy for the rest of us?

The answer is that indeed, every Jew contains within him a “spark” of Moses. When we reveal our inner Moses, the fear of G-d does indeed become relatively easy to attain.

The Moses within us is thus our inborn ability to reach profound levels of Divine consciousness. Possessing this inner spark enables us all to contemplate and meditate upon G-d’s presence within the world and His being absolutely beyond the world, and thereby awaken ourselves to a profound awareness of His presence.

Even though we may not be able to sustain this awareness constantly, the depth of its impression upon us when we contemplate it profoundly makes it relatively “simple” to reawaken this awareness at any time.

—from Daily Wisdom