Adina Roth – Head of Jewish Life

Vayikra, calling in the name of love

God called (Vayikra) to Moshe from the Tent of Meeting saying:

With this somewhat bland statement, we begin the third book of the Torah, Leviticus. I know…I have you gripped! The truth be told that the third book of the Torah is the one no one wants their Bar/Batmitzvah portion to be in. God calls to Moshe to elaborate on those most remote of rituals for moderns; animal sacrifices. At best, the subject matter is hard to connect to and at worst, it’s offensive! It’s no wonder that since the times of the Talmud, 2000 years ago, this book was identified as the hardest book to study. And yet, here we are! 

As a teacher, I have the challenge of trying to find beauty, meaning and relevance in every portion of the Torah. And so, what would you say if I suggested that this opening Parshah of the most abstruse book of the Torah has one of the greatest love lessons to teach us?

The opening word of the opening parshah of the book of Leviticus is Vayikra, translated as ‘And God called.’ There are many words in the Torah to signify ‘And God said’ or ‘And God spoke.’ However, the word  ‘Vayikra,’ And God called, evokes a particular tone. This tone is identified by Rashi, the 11^th century commentator as Lashon Chibah, the language of endearment, or love. What Rashi hears in the word ‘Vayikra’ is God cooing, God calling to Moshe, in love! The Midrash, an ancient collection of commentaries elaborates on God calling to Moshe as an act of love: God didn’t just call to Moshe, but rather, God called out to Moshe by his name, ‘Moshe’, in a tone of affection and love. The Midrash explains that Moshe had many names, some with far more lofty meanings than the name Moshe and yet, on addressing him, God chooses to call him, ‘Moshe’.

Why does God choose to call Moshe by the name Moshe? It all comes down to who gave Moshe his name. In order to unpack this, we need to rewind a little in the Torah to Moshe’s birth. In the book of Exodus, we are told that while Pharaoh is targeting Israelite baby boys and throwing them into the Nile, a little boy is born and hidden by his mother. Famously, the daughter of Pharaoh discovers him and has an immediate affection for him. After giving him to an Israelite woman for nursing, the boy is returned to Pharaoh’s daughter. The text reads: “The boy was weaned and was brought to the daughter of Pharaoh. She adopted him as a son and she called him (Vatikra) Moshe, saying, ‘Because I drew him out from the water.’ ” 

Pharaoh’s daughter’s love for Moshe is an unconditional type of love. She found him in the Nile, she saw him, she felt for him and she loved him. It is the kind of love that has no questions or expectations attached. It just is. It is the kind of love that parents might remember feeling when their child is born and they name the child. We call our child a name with the full force of all our love behind that appellation, we want only good for the child and our heart swells with love as we call out their name. When God chooses to call out to Moshe using this particular name, we are taken back to the moment when Pharaoh’s daughter called him Moshe, to that moment of love and connection. There is some kind of connection between God’s love call to Moshe and Pharaoh’s daughter naming him, with love.

You might have noticed that when Pharoah’s daughter ‘called’ Moshe his name, the Hebrew word is Vatikra – the same word in the feminine that is used when God calls to Moses.

The Midrash is sensitive to sound and rhythm and it juxtaposes the two sentences to convey the similarity, “Vayikra el Moshe,” “God called to Moses” and “Vatikra et shemo Moshe” “she called him Moses”. The Midrash explains this similarity as follows: God said to Moses: By your life, of all the names that you have been called, I shall not call out to you except by the name that Batyah daughter of Pharaoh called you. Now the connection becomes clearer. The God of our ancient Rabbis is learning from Batya, Pharaoh’s daughter and modelling His/Her love for Moshe on her original, maternal expression of love. The God of Vayikra learns about love from an Egyptian, non-Israelite princess at her most maternal! 

To call out in tenderness is something so subtle that we might not often pause to think about it. I was listening to my young daughter playing many years ago and I heard her say to her doll, “What do you want, my darling?”. I recalled this to a friend who said, “she’s copying the way you talk to her”.  Before I misrepresent myself as the perfect model of mothering equanimity, let me be clear that I don’t always call out in words of tenderness to my children! I have lapses – many of them! Yet this little moment reminded me that the way we call to our loved ones, in words and tone, are crucial in how we show someone that they are loved.  Through this, we also teach them how to love.

The poet e. e. cummings captures the importance of these endearments when he writes, anywhere:

I go, you go my dear;
and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling.

Some of you might have read the beautiful love-story Call me by your name by Andre Aciman. In it one of the protagonists says to his love Elio “Call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine”. The story of these two lovers who experience a beautiful, intense and also fleeting love encounter captures the ways in which we find ourselves through loving another. On a very literal level, Oliver asks Elio to call him ‘Elio’ as an expression of how intertwined they are. However, expressed in the context of their love for each other, I would suggest that Oliver was talking about this very concept, “call to me as if you love me,” is what he was saying.

We may like to think we are above and beyond the obligations of sacrificial rites found in Leviticus. But our relationships and our lives with each other can very easily become filled with obligation and routine, that is detailed and tiring; routine that becomes a sort of rite. Did you take out the garbage? Have you cooked dinner? Did you finish your homework? Have we made plans for such and such? Like the book of Leviticus our lives are comprised of a series of obligations that help us to function, from wake up to sleep time. What this portion teaches us is that we can do all of this – with love. When the mundane and the routine and the obligation is predicated on love for each other, on calling to each other, in love, not much has changed and yet everything will feel different.

Shabbat Shalom