The famous story in Exodus of Moses’ encounter with God, but can’t see the face of God and only his back is very meaningful and studied. Since God is divine and transcends time and space and our dimensions it makes sense that no one can see the face of God and live. (Exodus 33:23).
He is the Most High God עליון (Most High – Psalm 7:17), very powerful פני יהוה (The face of the LORD – Psalm 34:16 KJV) and who sees everything עיני יהוה (The eyes of the LORD – Proverbs 15:3 KJV).
In his book “Totality and Infinity” Levinas* touches on the concept on the face of the other. It is precisely this encounter phenomena that he analyzes. It is the meetup where you face the Other, and the Other is present, is there, is alive and their face speaks even if words are not spoken and as Levinas states “…The manifestation of the face is already discourse”
When we see the Other, we dethrone the “I”, our ego and we are obligated to act ethically.
“To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity.”
(Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 51)
“The face is a living presence; it is expression. The life of expression consists in undoing the form in which the existent, exposed as a theme, is thereby dissimulated. The face speaks. The manifestation of the face is already discourse.”
(Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 66)
Jesus’ commandment to love “the other” our brother/sister is for eternity. It is a commandment that we must follow. It obligates us to look at our brother/sister (the Other) and love them because to love is divine.
“If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.” (1 John 4:20-21)
God is infinite and his love is beyond our imagination. It is not a surprise that love of your neighbour is mandatory if you claim to love God (Matthew 22:37-40).
“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
Simone Weil** a philosopher and mystic wrote on the topic of the forms of the implicit love of God that we imitate the divine love when loving our neighbour. In fact the name of Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς (Jesus Christ) and the phrase (αγαπα και τον αδελφον αυτου – love his brother also) in 1 John 4:21 have the same value of 2368. It is a movement of infinite (∞) love.
Although man was created in the image of God (בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים – bə·ṣe·lem ĕ·lō·hîm – Genesis 1:26-27), it is only through the true mediator Christ (1 Timothy 2:5), who is the perfect image of God (εἰκὼν τοῦ Θεοῦ – eikōn tou Theou – Colossians 1:15) where we have salvation.
“Through love of neighbour, we imitate the divine love that created us and our fellows. Through love of the order of the world, we imitate the divine love that created this universe of which we are a part.”
(Weil, Awaiting God, 62)
References:
*Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969
**Weil, Simone. Awaiting God: A New Translation of Attente de Dieu and Lettre à un Religieux. Translated by Brad Jersak. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012.
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