Dvar Torah Parashat Vayikra

By Rabbis for Human Rights on July 8, 2007 - כ"ב תמוז תשס"ז

Many of our sages take special note of the beginning of the book of Vayikra, because of the unusual formulation: “Gd called to Moses and spoke to him…” Wouldn’t it have been enough to simply say: “Gd said to Moses”, as in most other places?One explanation is given in the Targum Yonatan: Moses was concerned – at Mt Sinai, there was a period of preparation before Gd spoke to him, and even then Moses had to wait to be called before ascending the mountain. Now, in the newly built Mishkan, surely a similar rule should apply, and therefore Moses waited until Gd called to him before going into the Holy of Holies to hear the commandments.

A different (though not necessarily contradictory) reading is that of Rashi, who tells us that the word Vayikra is “lashon chiba” – a word that shows love/friendship/caring: Gd is calling to Moshe out of love before going on with the difficult business of rules and regulations, sacrifices and sin-offerings. Rashi goes on to say that Vayikra is the word that refers to how the angels interact with one another in sanctifying Gd וקרא זה אל זה… (Is 6:3: they call to one another saying “holy, holy, holy…”)

The word Vayikra itself is written in the Torah with a small א. This is a hint to us (according to the Sfat Emet) that this parasha, and indeed this whole book, is about the small details, the “nitty-gritty” of actions .

Many of us are often guilty of assuming that action and details are indeed “small stuff” - less interesting, less worthy of our time and effort than the large and lofty ideals that we expect and look for in the Torah.

Action is perhaps lower on the divine scale than the realms of thought and ideal, but it is a necessary part of Torah and of life. Without its small א the word Vayikra would be Vayikar (as in the case of Balaam, in Bemidbar 23), related to the word mikre - chance or happenstance. To take control of our lives and to fill them with high values can not be left to chance. It is very rare that a person just happens upon Gd’s word. Rather, in order to hear the call (Vayikra) we must act: as midrash Vayikra rabba (1:1) quotes Psalm 103:20: Doing Gd’s word in order to hear the voice of Gd’s word.
And when the call comes, we must be ready to hear, then once again to act on what we hear. We know that the call will be one of love and friendship, a personalized call to which we can only respond Hineni – here I am, but also a call that requires us to act with that same love and friendship toward our fellow people, to act as the angels do, asking permission of one another, working together in awareness of each other’s holiness – this is the work of Human Rights.

Shabat Shalom

Rabbis for Human Rights recommends that you read these articles in Vayyiqra

Dvar Torah Parashat Vayikra - July 8th, 2007
Vayyiqra: Hurting others and seeking atonement for our failures - March 30th, 2006

Categories: Vayyiqra
Tags: Bo, human rights, order, palestinians, reparation, rest, settlers