EXOD1012 Why does God want the Jews to perform all of the 613 commandments? On a certain level, we can never truly understand God's motives. There are numerous sources that tell us that, by definition, man cannot possibly understand God. Even Maimonides, the rationalist, explains in Hilchot Yesodei Hatorah 1:10 that man cannot truly understand the Almighty in the manner that man perceives other humans. Moses in [this verse] tries to understand God, and the Almighty responds Exodus 33:19 – 23 that man cannot truly perceive Him from the front, but lets Moses perceive God from the rear. Nevertheless, we can begin to understand certain motives of God through the Scriptures themselves, which gives us some clues.