Parashat Vayikra: On Connection

Vayikra el Moshe. He [God] called to Moshe. Thus begins the third book of the Torah this week. Commentators hone in on this call, pointing out that there is something deep and special here. God, in choosing not just to relay information, but first to call Moshe to come close – “Come here, Moshe. I need to tell you something” – tells us that what He is looking for is not just a messenger, someone to do His bidding, but a relationship, a partner, intimacy.

Rashi relates this call to the call of the angels we say in the kedushah prayer – vekara zeh el zeh ve’amar. “They call one to the other and say.” The angelic song of praise to God – kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, “Holy, holy, holy” – is made up of back and forth calls between the angels. They sing, they exist, in relation to one another, zeh el zeh; they are intimate partners in the work of God.

Similarly, it seems that Rashi is implying, God’s call to Moshe is one which invites Moshe to engage in an intimate partnership with God [!], to join Him in a zeh el zeh relationship that will do the work of God on earth.

This first call to come close to God is actually what the whole book of Vayikra is about. The word for sacrifices, discussed in such detail here, is korbanot, from the root karov, close. Their purpose is to bring one close to God, to create a bond between oneself and the divine. In order to bring a korban, one must step out of one’s own sphere and come into relation with Another.

Nor is the Other always God. The book of Vayikra, in addition to containing many sacrificial and priestly laws, also contains a large number of ethical laws about how to treat one’s fellow. Indeed, the terms akhikha, re’ekha and amitekha, “your brother,” “your fellow” and “your kinsman” appear frequently in this context. The most famous of these laws is ve’ahavta le’re’akha kamokha. “Love your fellow as yourself.” You should consider yourself to be in intimate connection to these others, feel that they are in some way “like you,” a part of you, that, as with the angels, they are the zeh to your zeh.

The call, then, is a call to come out of the self and into connection with others, the Other, as well as all those others around you that are a piece of Him. Such connections are the true korbanot.