The Invitation |
Of all the books of the Torah, Sefer Vayikra is the most mysterious and seems the most foreign. Concepts like קרבנות-sacrifices, טהרה-purity, and כהנים-priests are all difficult to comprehend individually, let alone in the context of the twenty-first century. Even beyond these complex concepts, this book is perplexing from its very beginning:
וַיִּקְרָ֖א אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֑ה וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר ה’ אֵלָ֔יו מֵאֹ֥הֶל מוֹעֵ֖ד לֵאמֹֽר: (ויקרא א:א)
And He (God) called to Moshe, and Hashem spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying…(Vayikra 1:1)
This is the beginning of a book, but it is the middle of a story: The calling of Moshe into the Tent of Meeting, the Mishkan, is the direct continuation of the events with which Sefer Shemot concluded:
Moshe was unable to enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud rested upon it, and the glory of Hashem filled the Mishkan. (Shemot 40:35)
Enter the beginning of Parashat Vayikra: God summons Moshe. With this Divine invitation, this place was no longer out of bounds; Moshe could enter. Why does Sefer Vayikra start like this? There are only four transitions between the books of the Torah. All the others do what books should do: they start at the beginning and end at the end. Yet, Vayikra starts in the middle of a story.
To help shed light on Sefer Vayikra in general and the beginning of this week’s parasha in particular, we need to understand the focal point of both: the Mishkan, the forerunner of the Beit HaMikdash. For brevity, I would like to focus on just three of their most striking features:
First, the........