Why God Doesn’t Reveal Himself Today

The Aish Rabbi Replies

Thank you for your fundamental question. The answer is equally fundamental. Man is not on the level to experience such an intense encounter with God today. If people who don't fully believe in God or who aren't spiritually prepared to see Him would come face to face with their Creator, they would either be terrified into submission or they would openly rebel against a God they know they cannot handle yet neither can they deny. This in fact is precisely what happened to some of the Jews at the Revelation itself – who only a few weeks after the Revelation were dancing around a Golden Calf. (According to the Sages, they were actually converts – from the mixed multitude which joined the nation at the time of the Exodus.)

God rather set up the world in such a way that He appears to be hidden – making it a challenge for man to discover Him and commit to serve Him. It really looks as if we can sin and get away with it in this world, almost as if no one is watching. And that interestingly applies even to those of us who believe with perfect faith that God does exist and is omniscient. The Talmud relates that R. Yochanan ben Zakkai, on his deathbed, wished his grieving students that they would fear God as much as they fear man. His surprised students asked: “Only that much?!” He answered: “If only! Know that when a person sins he looks around and says, ‘I hope no one is watching!’” (Brachos 28b). Indeed, one of the classical works on ethics and philosophy, the Chovot HaLevavot, notes that it is one of the great wonders of the world that an omnipresent God has hidden Himself so fully that we have no sense of His reality. We feel an instinctive sense of shame before others – but unless we have significantly trained ourselves, we feel no such sense before God – even when intellectually we fully believe He is there right before us (Sha’ar HaBechina Ch. 5).

This in fact is what gives our lives meaning. The true purpose of life is overcoming challenges in order to come closer to God. Challenge requires free will – that evil is tempting and seems available – but we overcome it for the sake of our Master. Now if we had too strong an awareness of God – if for example He would reenact the Sinaitic experience every generation – we would really no longer have free will. It would be too obvious that God exists and commands us to observe His Torah. We would have no realistic way of ignoring that and succumbing to sin. And without temptation and challenge, our very good deeds would be almost meaningless. (And indeed, we might go to the exact opposite extreme – as did the worshipers of the Golden Calf – rebelling against a God we cannot handle nor can we deny.) God had to publicly reveal Himself once during man’s history – so we would have no real doubt as to His existence, but it was a performance He could never again repeat. God had to hide Himself to make life challenging – and so meaningful. We are thus left today knowing God exists but not feeling it. And our challenge is to discover that God who we know in our hearts truly exists.

(See R. Aryeh Kaplan’s treatment of this issue here.)