Halakhah su Salmi 31:20

And this was the subject of what Moses asked when he said, “Please, let me behold Your Presence!”⁵⁰Ex 33:18. Here it should be asked, was Moses asking for something possible or impossible? If for something possible, why did God refuse him and say, “You cannot see my face”?⁵¹Ibid., 33:20. And if for something impossible, why did he ask? And the answer to this strictly speaking, is that Moses sought to perceive something while he was still in a material body what he would perceive only after he had been separated from matter. And the reason that it occurred to him to ask was because he saw that he had already stood on Mt. Sinai for forty days, and the power of his flesh had attenuated and the earthy matter in him weakened with the increase of light over him, by which the beams of light shone from his face. So he asked while he was still made of matter as if he were not, that he not be hindered from perceiving what he would perceive after the separation (of his soul from his flesh). And the Holy One Blessed be He replied to him, “For man may not see me and live,”⁵²Ibid. that is to say, no matter what, because you are still a man, it is impossible for you to perceive while you’re still material what you will perceive only afterwards. And so they said in the Midrash,⁵³Sifra, beginning of Vayikra 2. “‘For man may not see me and live:’⁵⁴Ibid. while alive they do not see, but upon their death the do see.” And this is after the separation of the soul from its material form. And it is possible to specify further that “upon their death” means when they are about to die, as in the topic they discussed in Midrash Deuteronomy Rabbah Parashat Ekev,⁵⁵Though it doesn’t appear in the printed editions of Deuteronomy Rabbah (Chavel). “How abundant is the good that You have in store for those who fear You.⁵⁶Ps 31:20. ‘It happened that when R. Abbahu was about to die, he saw the gift of his reward, what the Holy One Blessed be He was going to give him in the time to come, and all the good prepared for the righteous themselves in the time to come. So when he saw all these consolations which had been prepared, he exclaimed, “All these are for Abbahu!” and immediately he desired to die, and began reciting: “How abundant is the good that You have in store for those who fear You.”⁵⁷Ibid.

The main strength of piety from beginning to end is that although they scoff at him he does not forsake his piety, his intent is for heaven’s sake and he does not look at the countenances of women: especially so among other men where women are customarily seen, for example, if he has been in the wedding hall where the women were garbed in choicest ornaments and all were gazing but he did not stare, for that will he merit the great good that is laid up, as it is written, “which thou hast laid up for those that fear thee” (Ps. 31:20). And his eye will be satiated with the Divine Glory: “Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty” (Isa. 33:17). For this reason it is best for the individual when he meets a woman, whether single or married, whether a gentile woman or Jewish, whether she be of age or a minor, to turn his face aside from looking at her. Thus do we find in Job (31:1), “I made a covenant with mine eyes; how then should I look upon a maid.” And thus is it written in the book of Ben Sira, “Avert your eyes from a beautiful woman, lest you stumble and incur penalties for her.” ¹Ben Sira 9:5. (So Isa. 33:15) “And shutteth his eyes from looking upon evil” refers to him who gazes not upon women at the time when they stand by their wash.²Baba Bathra 57b. When they wash their garments and lift their skirts so as not to soil them, they uncover their legs, and we know a woman’s leg is a sexual incitement³Berakoth 24a.
/4/ Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Choice of Pearls, ed. Zvi Phillipawski (Warsaw: J. Lebenson, 1863), p. 9; also Jerusalem Talmud Berakoth 1:5. All future references to the Jerusalem Talmud will be designated J. T. and so said the sage, “nothing interposes better before desire, than closing one’s eyes.”