Vayikra / The Calling

5783

Vayikra, וַיִּקְרָא "And He Called" Leviticus 1:1-5:26

Vayikra / The Calling 5783

Poetic notes on Parashat Vayikra*

By the word of Hashem the heavens were made,

their starry galaxies by the breath of his mouth

What are the letters of this word of Hashem

that made the heavens and earth?

There is a letter, a Godly letter,

a letter of God’s word, a letter called Yod

It is the very crown of his name

With an expression of kindness,

with an extension of goodness,

the letter Yod becomes another letter,

a letter called Vav

And this Vav is the very heart of God’s name

Then they join together

A Yod above and a Yod below

join with a Vav between,

and then, by this, the letter Aleph is formed

Now, there is small Aleph˙*

And a large Aleph

and a mediating Aleph between

What holy Aleph is this?

Following it are twenty one holy letters

There is a letter Heh above with the Yod,

and a letter Heh below with the Vav

This Heh is, as it were, the hands and feet

of the very name of God

What are all these Godly letters?

What is their meaning?

What is the song of their voice in the word of God?

What is the choir of letters singing about?

Why should there be a small Yod above,

a larger Yod below,

and a mediating Vav between them?

This Godly letter they form

is the Aleph of revelation,

which is the invisible source and root

of all creation

Your dead will live, their bodies will rise

This Aleph is concealed for a moment

No sooner is it concealed

than the letter Bet appears

The beginning of heaven and earth appears

Come my people, enter our room

and shut the door behind you

Hide yourselves for a moment

It is the time of Hashem’s Passover

The smallest letter is Yod

The cusp of the Yod is its smallest stroke˙*˙

Yet it reaches to the highest height

So too does the humble spirit of Moshe

Which comes from the soul of Moshiach

Just as the glory of the crowning emanation

is hidden from all eyes,

so the top of the cusp of the Yod

is hidden in the hidden glory

That which is smallest

may contain that which is greatest

Israel is God’s newborn kingdom

God’s kingdom is his glory

The newborn is loved with the greatest love

This is the Godly source

This is the worth of the Jew

The holy pride of Judah is in the Yod of wisdom,

His prayer is in the letter Vav

at the centre of revelation,

whose heart is in the Heh of understanding

Whose home is in the Heh of the kingdom

What is this Heh?

It is a most mysterious and Godly letter,

in which is inscribed all giving and receiving

and every glory of love

Giant Adam named all the animals,

The angels rejoiced as they listened

But when he transgressed,

the hidden seed of Israel was conceived

to elevate the animal soul,

To redeem the angels from the death

of time and space

Every person is wonderful and beautiful

But if they sin, the sin is grotesque,

and certainly, their aura is not wonderful

Repelled from the Garden of Eden,

as they turned and walked away,

Adam heard a quiet voice calling

What did the sound of the calling voice

seem to be saying?

Fearful Adam and Eve heard the tone and timbre

of the strong and soft tenor voice

and the undertones and overtones sounded to them

like the voice was calling out the name, Abraham

Abraham was the first to answer that calling

And Sarah gave birth to a son in the midst of God’s happiness

And the word of God was joy

And the sound of all the twenty two Godly letters

was joyous laughter

And so in the latter years of his corporate life,

Adam sat himself down at Moshe’s feet

to learn the Torah of Moshe and Moshiach

And when he had learned every Godly letter,

the aleph to the tav, the first to the last,

Adam said to Israel, surely it is you

who have inherited the right to my name

And Adam and Eve were comforted

Attributions:

*Being a meditation on a Torah class on parashah Vayikra, delivered by Rabbi Baitelman of ChaBaD Richmond, B.C., based on the series, Torah Studies, by Rohr Jewish Learning Institute. Neither Rabbi Baitelman nor the JLI have reviewed or approved of the content of this post.

Footnotes:

˙* Vayikra ("And he called") is the opening word in the first verse of Leviticus. The last letter in the word is an aleph, א. In Torah scrolls, only at this place, in this word, the letter is written very small in contrast to all other letters, something like this: ויקרא . It is held that the reason for this is in recognition of the great humility of Moshe. In contrast to this small aleph in Leviticus 1:1, in 1st Chronicles 1:1, at the beginning of the name of Adam, the aleph is written twice as large at the other letters, something like this: אדם.

˙*˙ The letter, vav, is the first Hebrew letter (reading from the right) in the word vayikra, ויקרא . The letter, aleph, the last letter in the Hebrew spelling of the word, vayikra, is itself composed of the letter yod on top and bottom, with a stylized form of the letter vav between the two yods. The letter, yod, is the second Hebrew letter (reading from the right) in the word vayikra, ויקרא .

The small size of the letter, yod, can be easily seen. When written in the script of a Torah scroll, the letter, yod, has a cusp at the top of the letter which tapers to a point. In Kabbalistic teaching, the highest attribute to emanate from G-d as He spoke, commanding the creation of the worlds, is Keter, which means "Crown", and is the attribute of His Will. Immediately following this attribute is the attribute of Wisdom, Chochmah. In this understanding, the letter yod is said to represent the attribute of Wisdom, which has the quality of being potentially revealed, even if only to the most spiritual of human perceptions. The attribute of G-d's will cannot, however, be perceived by self-evidence in any way. It is possible to hear G-d's commandments but not to know His mind. It is said that the cusp and point of the yod reaches up from the attribute of Chochmah, Wisdom, to (and is hidden in) the will of the attribute of the crown, the Will of G-d emanated as an attribute of G-d into creation.

See graphics below:

Yod

The Yod, which is the first letter in the name of Israel's God, the Creator of heaven and earth, stands for the number 10 and is the smallest of all the Hebrew letters and yet contains the mystery of all revelation, the way a seed contains the mystery of all the life that will come through it.

Vav

The Vav, which is the third letter in the name of Israel's God, the Creator of heaven and earth, stands for the number 6, and, conveying the principle meaning of "connecting", contains the revelation of the divine and spiritual connection between heaven and earth.

Aleph

Aleph is not a letter itself in the proper name of the God of Israel, the Creator of heaven and earth. Aleph is, however, the first letter in the name, "Elohim", which is translated, "God", and essentially means, "Creator and Ruler of Creation". In English, the word, "God" is used in expressions like "the God of Israel", and in most other places when referring to the Almighty and Eternal One. The letter, Aleph, stands for the number 1 and has much in common with the letters Yod and Vav in the revelation which it contains. Indeed, it can be seen that it is composed of the letters Yod and Vav, with a smaller Yod pointing above and larger Yod formed like a foot below, divided or joined by a diagonal Vav between them, (or possibly two Vavs, inverse to one another and overlayed on one another).

Heh

The letter Heh is the second and fourth letter, (which is the last letter), in the name of Israel's God, the Creator of heaven and earth. The Heh as the second letter and the Heh as the fourth letter are connected through the Vav, which is the third letter. In this way, the letter Heh can be seen to represent the kingdom of heaven above and the kingdom of earth below, both kingdoms being one and revealing HaShem's will, as represented by the Yod, through the wholeness of the Name. In the form of the letter Heh itself there is a gap between the leg on the left and the roof of the letter. This gap has been expounded upon by the sages from the beginning of the divine revelation in the world to speak of the highest level of repentance. Although Adam transgressed right from the start, a way back into the Heh, the Kingdom and Presence of God, was already prepared in the eternity of God, in the very form of God's Name. When the kingdom of earth below has fully come to repentance the suffering caused to God and to God's Name by the transgression of Adam and by all sins will be finally over and God's name will be one. All suffering will be replaced by joy. As it is written, (Zechariah 14:9), "Yod - Heh - Vav - Heh (HaShem) will be king over all the earth. On that day HaShem will be one and his name one."

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse