From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2005 2:35 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Vayikra, 5765




                                                
                                                 The Pity of it All     
                    
                   By Rabbi Joshua (submissively known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


Special thanks to Rabbi Chaim Crupar, of Kingsbridge Jewish Center, and Al Gordon, of Talkline Communications Network, for the suggestions and ideas which they contributed to this week's Netvort.  

This week's parsha, in which God informs Moshe of the laws of sacrifice in the mishkan, begins with the words, " And He called to Moshe, and God spoke to him from the tent of meeting saying" (Vayikra 1:1). The midrash, in Toras Kohanim, notes that whenever God spoke to Moshe, He first called to him, as an expression of endearment, but it is only noted in the Torah three times - when God first spoke to Moshe, at the burning bush (Shemos 2:4), when God spoke to Moshe before the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai (Shemos 19:20), and here, in the Tent of Meeting. Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin, in his Oznayim LeTorah, explains that these three times are singled out, because they constituted, respectively, the first time God spoke with Moshe, the first time God spoke to both Moshe and Yisroel, and the first time He spoke to Moshe from the new location of the Tent of Meeting.

Rabbi Sorotzkin also notes that the word for 'and he called' - vayikra - is written with a small aleph at the end of the word. Many explanations, he says, have been given for that, but none of them explain why it is only here, of the three places where the expression of 'vayikra'  is used in connection with God's speaking to Moshe, that the aleph is written in that way. He suggests several answers to this question, of which I will mention only one. Rabbi Sorotzkin writes that the aleph is small here as if to indicate that Moshe barely heard the entire call before he jumped into action, in contrast to the first time God called to him at the sneh, and bid him to go to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let his nation go to the wilderness to serve Him. Moshe saw the divine reaction to that refusal, and understood that because of it, he lost the priesthood - the kehunah - and was now giving it over to his brother Aharon and his sons. That is why he now jumped to action, because he was now implementing the order which resulted from his initial refusal. This explanation, however, does not explain why the aleph is not missing when God called to Moshe at Mt. Sinai. I would therefore like to offer a different explanation of both the reason for the Torah singling out the three places it did to mention that God called to Moshe, and through this connection to explain why there is a small aleph only in this third instance.


The midrash tells us, in parshas Shemos, that the reason God chose Moshe to be his agent to redeem the nation from slavery was that when he was leading the flock of his father-in-law Yisro, one sheep broke loose, looking for water, and Moshe ran after it to find it. The sheep ran to Mt. Sinai, and it was there that God, seeing the compassion that Moshe had for the stray lamb, spoke to him, from the burning bush, bidding him to act as His messenger and lead the Jewish nation out of Egypt and to that mountain, to receive the Torah. The word for bush - ' sneh' - says the midrash, cited by Rabbeinu Bachya in his commentary to Shemos, is related to Sinai, and it was there that God would ultimately give the Torah to His nation through Moshe. The reason God chose Moshe to lead his people out of Egypt, and to give them the Torah at Sinai, then, was because he displayed compassion for a lamb, which God saw as an indication that he would certainly show compassion for his people. Ramban, in his commentary to parshas Terumah, writes that the main purpose of the mishkan was to transfer the experience of Sinai to a structure that would be with the people on a constant basis. With these factors in mind, we can now offer an explanation of the small aleph in the word 'vayikra' as it appears in our parsha, and understand why it appears only here, and not in the other two places that 'vayikra' is mentioned.


Many commentators - most notably Rabbeinu Ya'akov ben Asher, in both his Ba'al HaTurim and in his longer Torah commentary - write that the small aleph is an indication of Moshe's humility. The word 'vayikra' without the aleph can be read as 'vayikar,' which is an expression of happenstance, or impermanence, the kind of expression used in connection with God's communications with Bilaam (Bamidbar 23:4). Moshe in his humility, asked that the word not be written in full. God agreed, in part, to his request, and had the aleph written as a small letter, as if it were not there. Perhaps we can offer a variation of this explanation by saying that Moshe obliterated his own personality in this instance of God's calling. Why did he do so? As we have seen, he merited prophecy because he showed compassion for a single sheep, and the prophecy he had at that time was the beginning of a process that culminated at Sinai. Now, at the tent of meeting, God was calling him in order to present him with the laws of sacrifices. The sacrificial order involved the daily slaughtering of animals, and constituted an institution that a person sensitive to the rights of animals may object to. However, as the Rambam writes in his Mishneh Torah, at the end of his Laws of Meilah, ultimately we must view all of the laws of sacrifices as chukim, or laws of God whose reason is not easily comprehended by us. Even though Moshe merited his prophecy because he showed compassion to animals, he understood that compassion is in place as long as it does not contradict the command of God.  Therefore, he did not let his feelings for animals, which were brought out so starkly when he tended Yisro's flock, come into play now, when God spoke to him in the tent of Meeting, to give him the laws of the sacrificial service.

By reacting to God's calling in the way that he did,  Moshe avoided the mistake later made by King Shaul, as recorded in the haftarah reading for this week, that of parshas Zachor, taken from the first Book of Shmuel. Shmuel, imparting God's command to Shaul, says, ".. go and strike Amaleik and destroy everything he has, have no pity on him ; kill man and woman alike, infant and suckling alike, ox and sheep alike, camel and donkey alike" (Shmuel 1, 15:3). Shaul proceeded to fight Amaleik, and defeated them, and captured their king, Agag. However, in the battle that he proceeded to fight, Shaul did not carry out God's command to destroy all of Amaleik. Rather, as we read, " Shaul and the people took pity on Agag ; on the best of the sheep and cattle, the fatted bulls and the fatted sheep…...and they did not destroy them" (15:9). Because Shaul did not carry out God's command exactly as he had received  it, he lost his kingship. He did not learn from Moshe that one cannot question the command of God, even if that questioning arises from one's sense of pity and compassion. We need to surrender our own thoughts of morality to the ultimate wisdom of God, as Moshe did when he received his calling at the Tent of Meeting. (see also Netvort to parshas Tetzaveh, 5758, available at Torahheights.com., for more on this theme).



Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

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