Understanding the First Verse of Parshat Vayikra

1 And the LORD called unto Moshe, and spoke unto him from
the tent of meeting, saying:

א  וַיִּקְרָא אֶל-מֹשֶׁה; וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֵלָיו, מֵאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד לֵאמֹר.

This is the opening verse of Sefer Vayikra/Leviticus, the third book of the Torah, and its conventional translation.

I take exception to the translation of the first three words וַיִּקְרָא אֶל-מֹשֶׁה because they do not mean “And the LORD called unto Moshe”. Indeed had that been the intent, the text of the entire verse would have been arranged in the conventional Torah manner:

  ויקרא יהו-ה אל משה; וידבר אליו מאהל מועד לאמר

Which would then be correctly translated as per the above.

Something very new is happening here. This is the first time that God wishes to speak to Moshe from the just completed Mishkan where the Divine presence has only now take up residence. And just as a mortal monarch would not shout out to the street to call for one of his subjects, a fortiori the King of Kings, ensconced now in his desired domicile would not be calling out for Moshe.  No, he would be dispatching an emissary to SUMMON Moshe for an audience.  Which is why the Torah does NOT say “And the LORD called unto Moshe”. Indeed, the word for LORD does not appear in the opening of the verse at all.

Hence a proper translation for the opening phrase would be “And he summoned Moshe”, i.e. via an emissary, like an angel. Once Moshe arrives, having been duly summoned, the rest of the verse makes perfect sense:

וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֵלָיו, מֵאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד לֵאמֹר

And the LORD spoke to him from the Tent of Assembly (Mishkan) saying

This is not merely an issue of semantics. It is substantive. By issuing, for the first time, a summons from within the Mishkan, God is changing the rules of the game. He is officially declaring the Mishkan as His residence, with all its attendant formalities and ceremonies. Henceforth this is where He will conduct official business, and this is where one must go for an audience, supplication, adjudication and atonement.

***

Imagine making a sacrifice to the LORD  of a factory fresh Lamborghini

And now for some more enjoyable reading, here’s an update version ofmy earlier essay on Parshat Vayikra: The Soul and the Sacrifice, from Bullock to BMW:

It is difficult for us today to connect to the idea of animal sacrifice. Rambam [Guide for the Perplexed 3:32] was no aficionado of קורבנות (sacrifices), explaining that it was an accommodation to more primitive people who could only relate to their Maker by way of animal sacrifice; that the incense altar was simply a way to deodorize the charnel house that was the outer section of the Mishkan and later the Beit Hamikdash.

The very last things that were added to the Mishkan — after the mystical trio of the   ארון (Ark), שולחן לחם הפנים (Showbread Table) and מנורה (Menorah), and after the construction and decoration of the inner and outer holies – were the sacrifice altars which were placed outside the holies; almost an afterthought, thereby supporting Rambam’s thesis.

And yet, from our daily prayer preambles to both Shaharit and Minha one would think that sacrifices were the very heart of Beit Hamikdash ritual, with everything else running a distant second.

And now a question:

Why is it that when a קרבן עולה (whole burnt offering) is brought to the Temple it must be perfect, unblemished and gender-specific and yet, instead of taking this prime, perfect specimen and burning it whole it must first be hacked apart, eviscerated, dismembered and only then (with certain parts hauled out to a special dump) burned as a “fragrant offering to God”? Would it not make more sense to keep the offering absolutely perfect until the flames consume it in its entirety?

Rashi notices an anomaly: When the Torah speaks of the voluntary whole burnt offering (עולה) of an animal it refers to the donor as אדם “man” (Vayikra/Leviticus 1:2) Yet when the sacrifice is that of a vastly more modest meal offering (flour, oil, frankincense) the donor is referred to as נפש “soul” (2:1).

Another important distinction between voluntary animal sacrifices and meal offerings is that, while the former are referred to as a “Sweet savour of the Lord (ריח ניחוח לה’) the seemingly miserly meal offering is described as no less than “a thing made most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire (קדש קדשים מאשי ה)   (2:3).

Rashi explains the אדם vs. נפש distinction as referring to the poverty of the Nefesh donor, as it would be the poor person who would bring meal offerings, and God loves the wretched.

Now it is true that later in this parsha where it discusses mandatory sacrifices, actual distinctions are made between what is required of the wealthy and what is acceptable from the poor. Yet no such distinction is made here regarding voluntary offerings. On the contrary, despite what Rashi says, there appears to be a significant preference for both the humble meal offering and its donor with no reference to his socio-economic status.

To better understand what we are dealing with here – and in keeping with Rambam’s understanding of animal sacrifice – it helps to understand what these voluntary animal sacrifices meant to their  respective donors.

The sacrifice of a prize, unblemished bullock was no minor thing. A bull back then was the mainstay of an agricultural enterprise. It was the bull that pulled the plow, threshed the wheat, and mounted the cows. To take the very best of these and bring it as a sacrifice was hardly an everyday occurrence.

If the Torah were to be given today, chances are that instead of sacrificing bullocks – which few of us have or need – we would perhaps be asked to sacrifice our cars, which are the closest thing in modern times to what cattle was back then.

One could imagine the Torah demanding those of us who wish to bring a voluntary offering to God to bring a perfect, unblemished, highly polished Mercedez Benz that would then, before our somewhat astonished eyes, be dismembered, with their outer panels hauled off to a trash heap, while the 450 horsepower engine would be stacked and melted down in a fiery furnace. Now this would be a site to behold – and most likely how one felt 3,000 years ago seeing a perfect young bull  sacrificed on the altar (1:6-9)

By contrast, the almost insignificant meal offering was treated far more gently, and was shared with the officiating kohanim. And yet this was the “holy of holies” of volunteer offerings rather than the BMW of bullocks.

אדם, the giver of the bullock is an ordinary, earthy and very earthbound mortal (the word אדם comes from אדמה, earth). Clearly he is prosperous, certainly prosperous enough to make a gift to God of his primo head of cattle. Surely, such a gift was not made anonymously, but rather with great fanfare.

One does not give God such a gift without getting a bit of kovod in return. Perhaps this is why God demands that the animal sacrifice be dismembered, eviscerated, its pieces stacked on the pyre.

Seeing one’s Ferrari taken apart piece by piece and junked on a furnace might prompt a bit more humility in the donor, and make him realize that, at the end of the day – be it a prize bull or a prized performance car – it’s all ephemeral. And we all end up pretty much the same, our lives terminated, our parts consumed.

The meal offering, however, is brought by a נפש, a soul which, unlike אדם, is eternal. The bearer of this gift is not coming with a brass band, a hundred relatives in tow, and accompanied by all his poker-playing cronies from the country club. He comes alone for the sole purpose of connecting to the Almighty in private humility. His gift is truly a “holy of holies,” one fit for priestly consumption.