Vayikra
It has been a very trying week for all of us. I am so proud of how our community has come together at this time.
We are dealing with a thing that we can’t see or feel or perceive and yet it has turned the whole world upside down.
We live in a scientific world that seeks to understand nature and this is a great blessing as through accumulating knowledge we can deal logically with this virus and overcome it. Yet at the same time there has been increased awareness at how little we know about our Universe.
As Jews we believe that Hashem is ultimately in control. We cannot fathom His ways for “Your thoughts are not my thoughts and Your ways are not my ways” (Isaiah).
And so the Jewish religious response has always been twofold (Of course we also follow the advice of the Drs and experts)
On the one hand to humble ourselves before God’s awesome power and at the same time to increase in acts of kindness and prayer and even demand of God that he heal us now!
Sadly we are unable to read the Parshah from the Holy Sefer Torah. But if we would there is an interesting thing in this week’s Parsha which can only be seen in an actual Sefer Torah That is the small Aleph in the first word of the Parsha – Vayikra, meaning “And He(God) called to Moshe”.
Rabbi Yaacov Ben Asher 1269 (Germany) -1343 (Spain) has a fascinating insight in his famous commentary on the Torah. He writes:
The aleph of vayikra is small, since Moses wanted to write vayikar (he happened), as it is said of Bilaam, as if God had only happened upon him accidentally. God told him to write an aleph, so he wrote it small.
The Parsha begins with “And He called to Moses, and the Lord spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying:” The verse is problematic because “and He called is superfluous. It could just have said “The Lord spoke to him …”.
Rashi answers this conundrum by explaining that the calling denoted by Vayikra was more than just communication of a Mitzva. It was a communication showing God’s affection for Moshe, His special relationship to him.
Moshe wanted to downplay this relationship but God insisted and yet Moshe had a sort of victory in that he wrote the Aleph in small.
This debate behind the scenes between Moshe and God is very mysterious and beyond this Dvar to fully unravel. But we can take to heart the following message for our uncertain times.
There is no randomness or happenstance in creation. That is a Bilaam mentality denoted by the word Vayikar. The Jewish view is that Hashem is calling to each and everyone of us with love and affection with a huge VAYIKRA.
But in order to hear that call we must make room for Hashem by making our egos symbolised by the Aleph smaller.
May Hashem soon reveal the cure for this Virus. May He heal those suffering with it across our Globe. And may there come a day when we all hear the affectionate call of God to us within our souls which are in truth bound in oneness with Hashem.