The Limitations of our Sight (Ki Tissa)
What might this mean, that none of us are able to see God’s face?
Rashi explains that it is a matter of authority and permission. Just after this, God makes all of God’s goodness pass before Moses, but according to Rashi, God does not allow Moses to see God’s face.
But another commentator, S’forno, has a different take, written from God’s perspective: Your inability to see what you would like to see is not due to My depriving you, personally, of such an experience, but is rooted in man’s inability to see such things unless you had died first, as an eye of flesh and blood cannot see such things. You would be fatally blinded before understanding anything you would see.