Word: ויקרא , vayikra, “He called”
Context: Vayikra is the first word of the parsha and of the new book, a call to Moshe to come and be given instructions concerning the sacrificial offerings of the Tabernacle:
ויקרא אל משה וידבר ה’ אליו מאהל מועד לאמר
And He called to Moshe and God spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting saying . . .
Special features of this word: ויקרא is written in the Torah with a small alef, so that the word looks like it is related to the words קרה, kara, “to happen” and יקר, yakar, “precious.” Also note the absence of God’s name in the first phrase – “He called to Moshe” – so that the calling appears to have no clear subject, though it clearly refers to God.
Interpretation: In the verses immediately preceding this verse, at the end of Exodus, upon the completion of the Tabernacle, we are told that “Moshe was not able to enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it and the Presence of the Lord filled the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:35).” There is a beautiful midrash which suggests that Moshe was feeling too shy and unworthy to enter the Tabernacle, and that God, seeing Moshe in this state, called out to him lovingly – Moshe, Moshe, come forward, come close, come close. Don’t stand outside any longer; come inside with Me (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayikra 1:1).
This welcoming in is what is happening in the call of vayikra. Moshe was feeling as small as that tiny alef of the word vayikra. And God’s call to him– vayikra – was a way of telling him how much he mattered, how very precious, yakar (vayikra without the alef), he was to God.
Message: We, too, often feel unworthy of coming into God’s house, of entering into relationship and connection with God, and so we hesitate, stand at the doorway, keep ourselves apart. And to us, too, God calls lovingly, a constant call to come close. However, we often don’t hear these calls and don’t know they are from God, because, as with Moshe’s call here, the identity of the subject, the “caller,” is hidden, camouflaged. Moshe understood that it was God calling and responded, but we tend not to recognize the signs.
Partly, this is because the call of yakar, of preciousness, is hidden in the garb of a call of karah, of mere happenstance, of the seemingly random events of our lives (Netivot Shalom on Vayikra). Hidden in these seemingly insignificant happenings, in the strange ways that our lives take turns, in the people that we meet along the way, and in the strong emotional pulls and tears of our soul – these are painful, but also a call from beyond – hidden in all those meanderings and inexplicable upheavals, are divine calls to come close, calls to each of us in particular to come into the sanctuary with God, calls of love and faith in our potential, calls by name to emerge out of hiding, to step out of our small alef selves and into our fullest, highest reality in divine relationship.
Concluding Word: קרבן, korban, a sacrificial offering. With the call of vayikra, Moshe is called to instruct Israel concerning the sacrificial offerings, the korbanot, a word whose root is קרב, to come close. Note how very similar these two roots are – קרא, to call, and קרב, to come close. The shift is in only one letter, the last letter, a shift from the first letter of the alef bet, alef, to the second letter, bet. Once we hear the loving divine call, we need only take one step, to go from alef to bet, to enter the door which has been standing open, waiting for us. .
Photo by Kaique Rocha from Pexels
