Komentarz do Wyjścia 34:35

והשיב משה את המסוה על פניו עד באו לדבר אתו MOSES REPLACED THE VEIL UPON HIS FACE UNTIL HE CAME IN TO SPEAK WITH HIM — but when he came in to speak with Him he took it off his face.

וראו בני ישראל, and when the children of Israel saw, etc.; We need to understand why the Torah repeats something we have been told already in verse 30. Perhaps the Torah wanted us to know that the Israelites needed to experience the fact that Moses' face emitted rays of light on more than one occasion in order that they should not interpret these rays as a residue of Moses' prolonged stay on the Mountain in the Celestial Surroundings. Had they observed the phenomenon only once, the Israelites would have concluded that it would fade away with time, just as time made their own experience during the revelation fade away. This is why they looked at Moses' face from time to time to reasssure themselves that these rays were evidence of Moses' being a superior being. It is also possible that the entire episode reflects a spiritual return by Moses to the time before man had sinned and G'd had provided clothing for him made of skin (leather). According to Bereshit Rabbah 24, the Torah scroll of Rabbi Meir had the words כתנות עור in Genesis 3,21 spelled אור, light. When G'd turned the skin of Moses' face into a source of light, He demonstrated that the process which had once turned light into skin was reversible and that man could be rehabilitated to the spiritual level he once enjoyed prior to the sin in גן עדן.

וראו בני ישראל את פני משה, “When the Children of Israel saw the face of Moses, etc.” We need to understand why the name of Moses is mentioned three separate times in this verse. The Torah could simply have written: כי קרן עור פניו והשיב את המסוה, “as soon as the skin of his face emitted rays of light he put the mask back on.” According to the plain meaning of the text we may understand the fact that the Torah bothers to mention Moses’ name three times as corresponding to the three times 40 days which Moses had spent on the mountain. It is a fact that during each of his stays on the mountain Moses achieved a greater degree of forgiveness from G’d. The radiations of light from Moses’ face may well have intensified each time he had achieved part of his purpose. This is why not only the name Moses but also the word פנים appears here three times. We may conclude that the very name משה assumed a greater significance in terms of his spiritual achievements during every visit on the mountain. The name had originally been derived from Pharaoh’s daughter saying that she had pulled him from the water. At that time the “water” referred to was physical water. In the interval Moses had graduated to Torah, otherwise known as the Jewish people’s “spiritual water,” their lifeline. Moses’ spiritual progress may reflect the saying of the sages in in Baba Kama 17 that אין מים אלא תורה, “the only water which is a true source of life is the Torah.”
Moses’ very name contains within it an allusion to the fact that he would be able to hear the Shechinah speak to him at some time in the future. (The name משה is an acrostic of the respective first letters in the words מבין שני הכרובים, “from between the two cherubs” the angel-like figures on the lid of the Holy Ark from where G’d’s voice appeared to speak to Moses.)

The message of this verse may also be that although Moses was at pains to cover his face with the veil, this did not prevent the Israelites from looking at his face whenever he had removed the veil. It was not forbidden to look at Moses' face seeing that Moses did not object. Moreover, G'd Himself wanted the people to get a glimpse of this אור החיים, the light which represented the idea of "Life" at its best.