Vayikra
Leviticus 1:1 - 5:26
Précis: The title of the Third Book of the Torah,Vayikra (“And He called”) is usually called “Leviticus” in English (from its name in Greek) which is based on the fact that much of the Book concerns ritual sacrifices performed under the auspices of the Levites. Many traditional commentators note that the Book is found in the center of the first Five Books, and intuit from its positioning the “centrality” of its teachings to Jewish tradition.
The introduction to this Book in Etz Hayim reminds us that the “central concern” of the ancient Israelites was “how they were to express their loyalty” to Adonai. The answer from Vayikra: they were “to be holy, for I Adonai Your God, am holy.” Etz Hayim also reminds us of the importance of ritual: “…[S]omething in the human soul responds to ritual, whether it be the formality of a traditional wedding or the rituals of a sporting event…There is something comforting about the familiar, the recognizable, the predictable. There is something deeply moving about performing a rite that is older than we are, one that goes back beyond the time of our parents or grandparents…There is power in the knowledge that we are doing what generations of people before us have done in similar situations.”
Yet, as noted in the introduction to this Book in the Plaut Commentary, much of this“holiness” is expressed in terms of sacrificial ritual which ceased to occur with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. The word generally used in English for the ritual offering in the Temple is "sacrifice," but there is a deeper meaning to be found in the Hebrew word, korban, from a root meaning “to draw closer." The system of “sacrifices” (“korbanot”) was designed to allow the Israelites to “draw closer” to the Ineffable.
With the end of the sacrificial system, the instructions of Vayikra remained an important area of study because of the belief that the restoration of the sacrificial system would soon occur and that the People would be restored soon to the Land as well. Later, as prayer became the de facto substitute for sacrificial rites, elements of those rituals were transformed and inserted into our prayer services. We thus have a daily reminder of our ancient ritual life and its core intent of drawing closer to Hashem.
Leviticus 1:1-2 "Adonai called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying...”
The Stone edition of the Chumash, in its introduction to this Book, offers a very interesting midrash which is illustrates how the smallest of details in the Torah can offer important moral lessons. Here, even a matter of font size has relevance.
In most hand-written Torah scrolls, (and in many printed editions of the Chumash), the work “vayikra” appears with a final “aleph” in a smaller size (font) than the rest of the word. Is this a mere scribal tradition, one in which someone’s error centuries ago was retained out of a fear of making an improper textual change?
Midrash notes that there is another instant when the root word “vayakir” is used (it’s in connection with God’s calling to Bilaam over the issue of blessing/cusing the Israelites. In a midrash on this subject by Rabbi Meir of Rothernberg (the Maharal) it is noted that Moses, who was renowned for his humility, wanted to write the word as vayakir, which has a connotation of happenstance, as if God did not speak with Moses directly but rather appeared to Moses in a vision or dream. Instead, God told Moses to write vayikra with an aleph meaning that God purposefully called to Moses. Moses suggested a compromise: I will write vayikra with a small aleph. The lesson: Moses, the greatest of prophets, continually displayed a remarkable sense of humility.
While the midrash speaks about Moses, it communicates a more universal lesson about how we all should approach our own lives, with modesty and humility.
