Experiencing Your Own Tent of Meeting

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Experiencing Your Own Tent of Meeting

Modern scholars and traditional commentators alike highlight the positioning of Leviticus, as being literally at the heart of the Five Book of Moses. Such placement of Leviticus speaks to the centrality of its teachings in the Israelite experience, especially as they pertained to the sacrifices practiced by the Israelites in the First and Second Temple periods. Yet, just as its context in the biblical period spoke to the heart of the Israelite, so too does it speak to us in a profound way today. Our text opens: "And he called to Moses and God spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting.

Rashi (1040-1105) remarks that vayikra (Leviticus) (" he called") is "a way of expressing affection; for it is the mode used by the ministering angels when addressing each other, as it is said, and “one called” unto another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. For Rashi, to call out to another individual represents the desire to create a relationship just as the angels call out to one another as they praise God. Here, at the beginning of Leviticus, a voice calls out to Moses, deepening the covenantal bond that already exists with this prophet of prophets. Within our congregations we, like the angels, must call to one another and call to God, developing a common vocabulary of respect and a shared pursuit of holiness.

Rabbi Meir ben Barukh of Rothenburg (1215-1293) focuses on the unusual way in which the Hebrew word Vayikra is written, namely with a small aleph at the end of the word. In a teaching that he learned from his rabbi, the Maharam explains: "Moses, who was renowned for his humility, wanted to write the word vayakir, which denotes happenstance, as if God did not speak with Moses directly but rather appeared to Moses in a vision or dream. God told Moses to write Vayikra with an aleph meaning that God purposefully called to Moses. Moses suggested a compromise: I will write vayikra with a small aleph." Hence, the very first word of Leviticus contains within it a lesson of humility. Though this midrash speaks specifically to the person of Moses, it speaks universally to each of us as we approach our own lives. We will all come to recognize the voice of God as each of us journeys to our own “tent of meeting.”