Our parsha and this new book of the Torah begin with a call: vayikra el Moshe – God called to Moshe (Leviticus 1:1).
How is God calling to us in this moment?
Prelude to the Call: “I Can’t Go In”.
The prelude to this call to Moshe occurs at the end of last week’s parsha: the mishkan (tabernacle) is finished, God’s glory fills the space, and, the Torah says, lo yakhol Moshe lavo el ohel mo’ed, “Moshe was not able – lo yakhol – to enter the Tent of Meeting” (Exodus 40:35). “I can’t go in, “ Moshe says, and so, in our parsha, God responds with a call, an invitation to draw close and step in.
That’s where we often stand, like Moshe, on the threshold of the sanctuary, right there in the doorway, hesitant to step further into intimacy with God or with others or with life because we are not sure we are invited, not sure we are worthy or capable, maybe sometimes not sure we are ready, scared of what will be expected of us. And so we stand there in the doorway, hesitant and unsure, full of self doubt – I can’t do it.
There is, somewhere inside us, as there was for Moshe, also a call from God to come forward, to enter into the sanctuary, into the embrace of divine fullness and love. The question is – What is the nature of that call to you in this moment? How is God calling to you to come close?
The Call is Not Obvious:
Looking more carefully at Moshe’s call , the first thing to notice is that the word God is not included – just vayikra el Moshe, “he called to Moshe” not “God called to Moshe.” The divine nature of the call is hidden.
That is indeed how it is for us – the inner call from God is not earmarked for us as a divine call. It doesn’t come with a return label marked heaven. It is an anonymous call that we have to intuit on our own as divine. And often, in fact, it will appear to us as happenstance, random, not divine at all. The word vayikra is written in the Torah with a small alef, making the word look like vayikar from the root קרה, karah with a heh, meaning “to happen.” The divine call masquerades as just another random happening. (Netivot Shalom)
So continuing our inquiry: How is God calling to me in this moment? What are the subtle, hidden ways God might be calling to me, asking me to come closer, wanting to draw me further into connection?
When we call out to someone before speaking to them, usually it’s in a situation where they are a little distance away and we are trying to get their attention. Applying that to ourselves: How has God been trying to get my attention lately? What are the things in my life that keep “happening,” either externally or internally, that are asking to be turned towards and seen? How might these be a divine call?
Call Shows God’s Yearning For Us
A call implies yearning, teshukah and kivuy lev, as the Mei Hashiloah puts it, “desire” and “hope of the heart.” God calls to us because God is yearning for us, wanting to draw us in, ever optimistic, always continuing to call and hope that we will hear and draw near. It is like a lover who keeps knocking at the door, flowers in hand, never giving up. God is that steady.
These calls, they are different for each one of us. They are individual calls. The rabbis say that no one else could hear God’s voice calling to Moshe, only Moshe. That’s the way it is for each of us – we get an individual call, unique to us, tailored to who we are and who God knows we could become.
Different Types of Calls
How do you recognize the call? What does it feel like? The call can come in different forms. At Har Sinai, Moshe gets the call while climbing up the mountain (Exodus 19:3). Sometimes the call comes to us in the form of enthusiasm and initiative and the abundant energy to climb a mountain to reach our goal. We know God is calling to us because we feel drive and determination and clarity and passion for something – this is one type of call.
The Call of Our Self Doubt
But sometimes the divine call may be more subtle and less pleasant, and I think our parsha speaks to this other type of divine call, to the moments when we are standing outside a door and feeling, like Moshe, lo yakhol, I can’t do it, I can’t go in. To the moments when our alef, our ani, our “I,” is, like the alef in the word vayikra, an alef zeira, “a tiny alef.” To the moments that we feel small, less than, full of self doubt, anxious, unsure, shut down. Lo yakhol – he felt that he couldn’t go in, couldn’t continue; sometimes we have this energy, too, the energy of lo, of no, of negativity about ourselves and our capacities, the energy of collapse and giving up and hopelessness, the energy of not seeing a way forward. Lo yakhol lavo – he couldn’t enter. Impossible, no way through this.
And out of that place, too, comes a call – vayikra el Moshe– it doesn’t sound like God, but it is. We are low, we are down, we are feeling pathetic and incapable – and this, too, is somehow a divine call. So asking again, how has God been calling to me lately, and this time, including the difficulties you have been encountering, the internal and external challenges, the sense of lowness and impossibility, of self doubt and anxiety, and considering – how might these, too, be a call from God? How might the collapse itself, the doubt itself, be a call? What might the small alef be asking for? how might that small alef be an angel sent from God to draw some new energy out in me?
Each Ache is a Call to Healing
Because hidden in every challenge is its opposite, hidden in every difficulty is the capacity to handle it. We are called to confidence through self doubt, called to courage through fear, called to connection through disconnection, called to self love through self loathing, called to calm through anxiety.
It is as if all these little angels of pain and suffering and confusion and lostness have been placed inside us in order to call us to the work of redeeming them, in order to call us to develop strength and confidence and love and connection. Each stab or pain or worry or anxiety is like a bell meant to wake us up to return to our source, to return to the place inside us that is always connected and strong and calm; each ache is a call to come close to God and know that we are held, that we have ground, that we are not alone.
Little Alef As Our Inner Child
Maybe you can see the little alef as your own inner child who is suffering in some way. See her there, small, alone, unsure, frightened, desperately wanting love, whatever it is. Maybe she is sucking her thumb or crying or curled up in a ball or sitting, lost and despondent, on a curbside. This small alef inside you, however she manifests in you, whatever she is needing, that need is a call from God. This is God’s way of asking you to find inside yourself that place of divine connection where there is abundant love and strength and courage, to live from that place and provide this little one a loving home inside you..
Call of Love
When we look at the word vayikra with the alef so small what we see is another word – yakar – “precious.” Our little alef, our inner child, is asking for preciousness, calling us to know that we are infinitely precious to God, just as we are, unconditionally loved in our essence. Rashi says that this vayikra call is lashon hibah, “the language of endearment;”, this call is like the call of a lover to their beloved through the wind – “Moshe, Moshe, come here, I love you, come close.” Maybe you can hear that divine call of love with your own name, calling you to come close. This love is what your little alef is asking for.
How It Helps To View Our Suffering This Way
What if we really felt and understood our suffering in this way, as a call from the divine to come close and to grow in love and strength? How would that shift our attitude towards the aches and pains we suffer? Often when we are experiencing emotional difficulty, on top of the initial pain, we add a layer of shame and judgment– I shouldn’t be feeling this, what’s wrong with me that I get so down and anxious all the time? But what if we thought of our suffering as little angels sent to call us home, sent to call us to our home in the divine, a place inside us that is large and secure and confident, calm and grounded and full of love? What if we thought of the aches as sticky notes, the kind of notes you put around your house to remember something important? Each time we get an inkling of pain, we can think –ah, there is the divine call again, there is the secret love note, there is the invitation to step into God’s sanctuary, not to remain outside, but to step inside.
It isn’t always easy. Sometimes we may be stuck in the place of smallness, in the place of lo yakhol, of “I can’t do it,” for a long time, suffering alone, not seeing that it is a divine call, but struggling against it and fighting it. Even Moshe couldn’t always hear the call in his pain right away. It took all the space between one sefer and the next, all the way from Shmot to Vayikra, for Moshe to understand this was a divine call, for the call to fully manifest for him. Sometimes we are mired in our suffering for a while. But the thing is, God keeps calling. The rabbis say that there is a divine call that goes out to every single person every single day. God just keeps knocking at our door, never giving up on us. We are worth the wait.
Just One Tiny Step Across The Threshold
But then, once we hear it, once we realize – oh, this pain is a call, then the movement can be swift, like the movement from alef to bet in the alphabet, a tiny step, like turning on a light. To change the word קרא, kara, “call,” into the word קרב, karav, “to come close,” as in korbanot, the theme of Sefer Vayikra, involves only that tiny movement from alef to bet. Just a small step moves you across the threshold, from call to closeness, from hearing the call to actually entering into intimate connection, into the sanctuary.
How is God calling you to come close in this moment?
Photo by Yan Krukau at Pexels
