In an early article I mentioned that one of my Beth Emeth congregants asked me why I didn’t bow lower for the Aleinu. As I wrote, “Because I’m not that humble.” That, believe it or not, is relevant for this week’s Torah portion, Vayikra, which begins the third book of the Torah, named, yes, Vayikra.
The first word is Vayikra but is written differently than you would expect. The last letter, the aleph, is written smaller in every scroll. Why is this the case? Well, of course there were probably many, many interpretations, but the one that stands out has to do with humility.
Without the aleph the word would be pronounced ‘Vayikar, which means “and He happened upon, as opposed to it meaning, “and He called,” the “He’ in both of course referring to God. The rabbis, taking a good look at where Vayikar is found in the Torah, point to Balaam who is prominent in the book of Numbers. Balaam was a pagan so any connection with God would require Vayikar. While Balaam had some good qualities, the sages considered him evil. God, therefore, wouldn’t “call” him; God would just happen to come upon him “with,” as the rabbis say, “reluctance and in a contemptuous manner.”
The rabbis said that when Moses wrote the Torah he purposefully left out the aleph. He, say the rabbis, was so humble that he didn’t want readers to think that there was so close a relationship between himself and God; “and God came upon him” was good enough, hence Vayikar. But that wasn’t how God looked upon it, insisting
that Moses add the aleph. There was a compromise, Moses writing it much smaller than the rest of the letters in Vayikra.
Take it or leave it…that’s the usual interpretation.
As I wrote in my series, “Lessons from Leviticus,” we’re leaving the first two books behind; we’re leaving behind the books with narratives, all of which teach many lessons. We’re ready to take on the new rituals that were required in the just-built mishkan, the wilderness tabernacle. Thus, this is a priestly book which contains mitzvot, chukim and mishpatim, laws and statutes and ordinances. And scholars say that this book is so different than the others, it was written by what they call the “P” author (“P” standing for priest).
There was one aspect of Leviticus that always intrigued me. When offerings were burned on the altar, the text tells us that there should be a reiach nichoach l’Adonai, a sweet or pleasant smell that reached God. The belief back then was that the animal offered would return to its original form if God was happy with its odor. This is, as you can imagine, an ancient relic of thought that surely was not the exclusive property of Hebrew theology. When we read it in Torah study in the past, most people didn’t blink, but when I mentioned how archaic the concept was there was always the question as to how the Torah could incorporate such foreign ideas. The answer is we lived with neighbors, those who also offered sacrifices to their deities. We like to share. This idea made sense to them though it surely doesn’t make sense to us.
Now why it intrigued me was that the German word for “it stinks“ is es riecht. Note the similarity in words reiach in Hebrew, riecht in German. I’ve never checked it out but perhaps riecht was the word
introduced by the Jewish community way back when…or maybe it’s just coincidental.
May your ties to the Eternal One be in the realm of Vayikra, God “calling” you, and not Vayikar, a chance meeting with no particular concern for who you are.