The Garden Within | VAYIKRA וַיִּקְרָא - Portion 24

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Teachers of Torah have coined the Hebrew term PaRDeS (פרדס – a word literally meaning “garden” or "orchid") to refer to a four-tiered system of biblical interpretation, which reveals that each word, verse, and story in the Bible could be simultaneously understood on four different levels.  

Through this year-long course, we will explore the very words of God from these levels of the garden.  The name The Garden Within was chosen for this teaching series because it adopts the PaRDeS system of learning and because it delights in the spiritual pleasure through reaching new understandings and being pierced by lightning flashes of the intellect. The pleasure gained, of course, also refers to the nearness we feel to God when learning His Word.

One of the primary goals of The Garden Within is to demonstrate that the “stories” in the Torah are not merely one-time occurrences, temporal incidents undergone by specific individuals long ago. Rather these stories are archetypal in nature, reflecting or representing various physical and spiritual energies ever present in all aspects of reality and within each and every person.  That is, the Torah is deeply personal and speaks directly to each individual reader for where they are in their life.  So, come, take a walk with God in the Garden of the Torah!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Good evening, everyone, Air of Tov. Welcome to the Garden within. As we continue our journey through the Torah, walking through the garden of the orchard, the pardays. And this brings us this week into a new book, and in many ways, the central piece of the Torah. And we'll talk just a little bit about that and maybe some of that, the implications of that, a little bit as we discuss the book. But let's get started with the blessing before the study of Torah. We pray. Baruch Ta'denai, Elohenum Elakwailaam, Ashekidishano Bomisvita, Vesivano Le Sogbidivre Torah. Blessed are you, Lord God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with his commandments and has commanded us to be immersed into the words and the matters of Torah. Amen. So this week is the 24th portion of the Torah's 54 portions, brings us to what is known as Seifer Valikra, that is the book of Leviticus. And that covers Leviticus chapter 1, verse 1, and goes through chapter 6, verse 7. And so Vyikra is not only the name of the book in Hebrew for Leviticus, but it is also the name of the portion. Vaikra is a verb in Hebrew, third person masculine singular. That means, and he called, and God would be the subject of this, meaning God calling out to Moses. And we're gonna spend quite a bit of time this evening looking at uh Leviticus chapter 1, verse 1. Just the first verse, and in many ways, uh just this first word, um, because there's quite a bit to unpack there. Uh but that is what is uh ahead for us. Uh the title Leviticus, you can um in English, you can see uh the first part of that. You see Levi in there. That title derives actually not from the Hebrew title of the book, but from the Greek Septuagint. Um, the Greek Septuagint, of course, is that translation of the Hebrew Bible that is a BC translation, and it was very influential in the early church. It was very influential for uh the uh many of the apostolic writers and so forth. But the idea why it's called the Septuagint, uh which means 70 in Greek, is uh many of the Jews had begun have gone out into diaspora, they'd been scattered out, and they no longer spoke Hebrew. And so there was a need for the the Torah to get put into uh the language, uh the most spoken language, which at that time was Greek. It would be like translating something in English today. And and so the legend is that 70 independent sages, rabbis, scholars secluded themselves and they translated the Torah individually, and then they came together and they compared their translation, uh, and all 70 of their translations were identical. And so they took that to me. It was inspired. Uh, it was an inspired translation, and so that became the Septuagint. Uh, the Septuagint and the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church, that is the official version of the Old Testament. They do not see the Hebrew Old Testament as the authoritative version, they see the Greek uh Old Testament, the Septuagint as authoritative. Um, and it calls this book, this third book of the Torah, Leviticus, because of the content of it, right? It's so much of it is laws pertaining to the priesthood and to those who are in the tribe of Levi, uh, and is primarily concerned with Levitical rituals. But the older original Hebrew name for the book is Vahikra, uh, which means he called. And again, it's the first Hebrew word of the book where the Lord calls to Moses and speaks to him from inside the tent of meeting. The book of Leviticus describes the sacrificial service and the duties of the priests. It also introduces ritual purity, uh, concepts like the biblical diet, the calendar of appointed times, uh, so like the Hebrew calendar, the calendar that we somewhat follow in uh the garden within, right? That comes from uh the book of Leviticus. Uh there are other rules, laws of holiness, laws relating to redemption, vows, and ties. And in addition, Leviticus discourses on ethical instructions and just other matters of separateness, holiness. Uh the 24th reading from the Torah shares the name of the book that it introduces, again, Vaikra. Um, Leviticus was the traditional book and still is to teach children how to read. So if you want to picture a young little Jesus, right, when he was around three, four years old, and it was time for Mary and Joseph to begin to teach little Jesus how to read, they would have begun that process from the book of Leviticus. Um, and it's also uh part of that is the book of Leviticus is the book where uh Torah learning begins. You don't begin to learn the Torah from Genesis, right? You don't learn from the beginning, so to speak. You learn starting in Leviticus. Uh so you learn to read from it, you learn your Bible starting from it. Uh, and why is that? Because at its core, it is about holiness, it is about being set apart from for God and for the purposes of God, it is about being uh a unique people for God, being God's people in this world. Uh, and so because of that, it has that very unique role. And because of that, that is why if you think about the Hebraic mind, which part of that is a very mathematical mind. If you've got five books, what is the central book, right? You got two, and then boom, and you go from the end, you go to boom, the central book, the centerpiece of it all is Leviticus, right? It's the showpiece, it is the piece of holiness. And so it's a very, very important book, uh, even still for us. And so uh, just want to continue to kind of talk about that theme uh as we enter into this book uh in the garden within, the idea that it is the heart of the Torah. So Leviticus chapter 1, verse 1 says, Then the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting. So Leviticus, as I just discussed, was is bracketed on both sides by two books of the Torah. It is the center book, the center scroll of Moses. Now, that does not necessarily imply that the material contained in Leviticus is by its nature more important than the material of the other books, but it does mean from a Hebraic worldview, it does suggest that the material in Leviticus is critical to the overall structure of the Torah. Unfortunately, Bible readers uh have a natural aversion to Leviticus. Genesis, Genesis is easy to read, right? And if you're starting a Bible in a year campaign, I mean you're you're excited to get started and you're eager to begin. And so you just have that kind of uh inertia, right? And it begins with like the foundation of the universe, and it is mostly narrative, and you can follow the narrative, and they are even from just a literary perspective, they're engaging stories and they're good stories and they're interesting characters, and it can be fun just to read and and fun to learn and just good to engage in, right? Exodus, it also has a very natural, good narrative progression. Uh, even a couple of great movies have been based upon it, right? So you can always go check out those movies while you're reading through Exodus and see how they compare and think through it and so forth. So you can easily read Genesis and Exodus with great enthusiasm and think this reading the Bible in a year is going to be a great, great thing, right? And then you hit Leviticus and you get mired down in the priestly legal system that seems archaic, it seems foreign, and it can even seem barbaric to our sensibilities. Many a determined believer has set out with that noble goal of reading cover to cover, only to find themselves derailed here in this third book. And the material, it can be complex, it can be obscure, it can be far removed from our modern religious experiences, but that does not mean that we should ignore it or move on from it, or that it is somehow not relevant to us. If anything, it suggests that this material should demand our greater attention. If it's weird, then it's important. That's an axiom that I want you to remember. In fact, I probably need to update the Hebraic toolbox and add that in there. If it's weird, it's important. If it's bizarre, it's important. If it seems really archaic, barbaric, outdated, uh completely irrelevant and distant from our society and culture, then it is incredibly important. And this uh I think can be compared to uh a student studying and learning mathematics. So maybe you've had this own frustration, but if you've ever had the experience of having a kid go through mathematics when they get into high school, you've probably had this conversation, right? Everything is going fairly well. Everything seems logical until they finally start taking algebra. And then suddenly the student is dropped into this confusing world of variables where all of a sudden they're doing mathematics, but they aren't dealing with numbers. They've been replaced with letters of the alphabet and complex formulas that seem to conspire and confound all reason. And then the young student is tempted to close the textbook in frustration and declare, do I really need to learn any of this? I mean, none of this is really relevant to me, anyways. When will I ever need to know how to solve a polynomial equation, right? And on one level, maybe that's true. Maybe depending on the field that he or she chooses, this particular individual may never, ever need to use complex algebraic equations. But then again, somewhere along the line, they might, or they certainly may need to use the logic that they learned while learning how to solve those equations. And more importantly, algebra lays the groundwork for all of the higher math and science that they will ever take. And in a similar way, Leviticus lays the groundwork for all further Bible study, and it very much underlays the narratives you find in the Gospels. It very much underlays the words and the narratives of Jesus, and it very much underlays his redemptive work. In essence, you cannot fully appreciate who Jesus of Nazareth is, what he did, what he accomplished, and who he actively currently is as a priest in the order of Melchizedek, if you do not have an active working knowledge of Leviticus. And so hopefully a study of Leviticus as we walk through the garden will shed some light on how this book is still central to what it means to be a holy people, to be set apart for the service of God, for what it means to be a royal priesthood, for what it means to be clean or unclean, for what it means to be separate, for what it means to be mundane or holy, clean and unclean, pure or impure. All of these concepts, again, they find their ways into the gospels. So just for instance, when you get into the gospel of Mark, and you see that in Mark's Gospel, Mark never refers to the spirits that Jesus engages as evil spirits. Even if your English Bible very naughtily translates it that way, and I will say that is a naughty translation, because that's just a flat-out lie if your Bible translates it that way. Mark always calls them unclean spirits. That goes straight back to a concept from Leviticus. What does Mark mean by calling these spirits unclean? Right? And so you need to have a working knowledge of what does Leviticus mean when it calls something unclean? Or think about all the times Jesus encounters lepers, right? Well, there's a whole portion in Leviticus dedicated to leprosy, right? So much of Jesus' ministry is engaging and encountering concepts from Leviticus. So, like algebra, believe it or not, is foundational to biochemistry or, you know, any kind of higher science or mathematics, Leviticus actually functions that way for biblical theology. Um, and it also has quite a bit to say for our own personal lives and what it means to be people of God. So just kind of keep that in mind as we kind of work through Leviticus in the garden, and you know, maybe make use of the archives that's on the website, whether that's Torah 1.0 or Torah 2.0 or Sun in the Scriptures or Echoes of Eden or some of the other archives that are there, just to kind of give a bigger perspective, a broader view of some of the things going on in Leviticus. But just resist the temptation to think it's just irrelevant, archaic, it doesn't matter to us. It's central. And that's why it's it's centered in the Torah. All right. Uh look at this here. Speaking of values. So admit it, it is fun to gossip, isn't it? Right? Because when we gossip, at least at first, at least initially, right, it makes us feel better about ourselves. Again, at least at least for a minute, we feel pretty good until until we feel like slime on the inside for slandering when we actually knew better. But boy, that initial rush, sometimes sometimes we almost think it's worth it, don't we? As entertainment gossip is still the choice of millions, because, well, it's free, it's easy, and it's very accessible. Besides a little harmless fun, well, I mean, it doesn't really hurt anybody, right? Or does it? We live in a culture that really doesn't seem to value words. Fewer and fewer Americans actually read books, and our literacy rate is dropping with each passing year. This is something that as I teach eighth grade religion, each year still shocks me when I have them. I wouldn't even say write an essay because I don't think it qualifies for that title. But like their inability to spell, their inability to form cognitive sentences like on the fly where they can't use AI, where they can't use Google, where you just say get out a piece of paper, get out a pen, and you have five minutes to write something, and you only got your brain, that pen, and that piece of paper. What comes back really shows they don't read. They don't read books, they don't engage on that level anymore at all. Like the art of wordsmithing things, our vocabulary, you know, none of those things really have a priority in our society anymore. Our politicians, well, they offer an abundant of promises during their campaigns, but we don't even need the opinion polls to tell us the fact that none of us actually expect them to fulfill their promises. Like, right? You don't expect them to do what they say, do you? Are you shocked when they don't? Are you shocked that they're potholes on our roads? Right? Fix the roads. I'll leave out the expletive there, right? That was not this election cycle, but the previous election cycle and probably the previous 40 other election cycles, right? You're not shocked because you know the words mean nothing. We lie in large ways and we lie in small ways. We shade the truth, we exaggerate, the web of distortions and the subterranean insults bind us in ever-tightening grips. It becomes harder and harder to see the best in each other and in ourselves. But here's the reality: even though our society doesn't value words, words do matter, and words do count, and words are sacred, and words do create whole worlds, and words do destroy entire universes and lives. Words matter as much now as they ever have. And the Torah knows that words matter, and permitting Adam to name the animals, the Torah is acknowledging the power of words to not only identify, but to mold character. And perhaps that's why God's holiest name isn't really a word at all, but it's all vowels like breath itself. And that's also one of the reasons why the Torah tradition has always placed a strong emphasis on what's known as Shmirat Halashan. That is, we are to guard our speech. We are to go to great lengths to guard our speech, and we are to do whatever we can to prevent what's known as lashan harrah. And that is a malicious speech, evil tongue. Because the statement, the teaching of the Torah is that when we gossip, when we slander, when we commit what is known in Hebrew as Leshan Hurrah, we've not only committed murder once, but we've committed murder at least three times. Because when we've committed the gossip, we've murdered the person we're talking about, because we've murdered their character, we've slandered their character. And their reputation and who they are. We've murdered the person we're saying it to because now it's in their ears and it's in their head. And no matter how you try to undo it, no matter how what you say, it's been done and it's in their ear. So damage is done, the dagger has been hoisted. And then you have, in essence, killed yourself because you are inflicting that wound yourself. And that's at least because if the person who's heard it goes and says it to someone else, that's one more victim. And it can keep on going. And so there is great teaching in Shmiat Le Rashan, guarding the tongue. In the very beginning of the book of Leviticus, in the very, very first verse, we even see this. The book of Leviticus outlines each different type of sacrifice made in the tabernacle and eventually in the temple, who is to bring it, how it's to be carried out. But even in the midst of all of this description of ancient Israelite worship, the sages saw evidence of God's insistence on using speech in order to heal and nurture. And so looking at the very first verse, you have this. And again, it doesn't matter what translation you're using, you'll see the repetition. You see the repetition of calling out to Moses and speaking to Moses or saying to Moses or something of that nature. But obviously, if he's calling out to Moses, he's speaking to Moses. You don't have to repeat that. So if it's odd, if it's repetitious, if it's redundant, it's important. Okay? And so here the Torah is trying to teach us something. And so why the ancient teachers wondered is that extra saying here. What is God trying to teach us by this superfluous word? We learn that if you said something to your neighbor, that neighbor must not spread that news or that word or what they've heard without your consent, says the Talmud. When we learn an act of what is called Derek Erich from this verse, even though it was quite clear God transmitted this message to Moses so that Moses would then pass it on to the children of Israel, Moses still needed God's explicit permission, God's instruction before repeating these words to the people. Later tradition incorporated this concern by insisting in the words of the safer Mikvot Gadol, if someone tells something to a friend, the friend is not allowed to tell others unless they have been specifically instructed that they can tell these things to others. In other words, you should always see and assume your conversations as private. You shouldn't ever have to say, this is just between us, right? Right? It's always to be assumed it is just between us. Instead of having to assure each other that it's just between us, following this Torah understanding, it would mean that when we didn't mind something that is repeated, that you could share it with others, we would indicate that to our confidant. We would let them know that they could say it. And that's what's being hinted at here. God speaks to Moses and then he speaks again. He lets them know you can say this to the people. What he said to Moses, he then says, say to the people. He gives Moses the permission, the instruction. What I'm saying to you, you can now say to the others. And if we don't get that permission, then we can be sure that the conversation goes no further. As a pastor, I often counsel people on sensitive or painful issues. And I'm struck by the fact that people still feel the need to tell me that I'm not to repeat that conversation with anyone. Even in the heart of my study, people feel that their words aren't safe there. And that's sad. And I imagine that that paranoia has kept a lot of painful secrets buried within, causing more pain, more shame, and more damage. And I can feel their relief when I assure them that the conversation is their property and that they can do with it what they choose, but that I regard it as their property, not mine. If Moses needed God's explicit permission before repeating God's words, words about public matters issued in the tenth of meeting, then how much should we care about the words of God's creatures who have been uttered to us in confidence? Ours is an age in which trust is a luxury few can afford and even fewer deserve. Yet without that trust, decency becomes a sham and a cover for vindictiveness. If we hope to shine the healing light of Torah in a dark and dreary time, if we intend to live as God's ensigns and image bearers in this war against pain and despair, then we had best be prepared to wage that war on the front lines in our own harsh words and our own careless chatter. There is a Yiddish saying Shashil, which means God's listening. Meaning whenever you speak, whenever you speak, God hears every single word that you say. So Shashid. Then the Lord called. That's Vaikra in Hebrew. So now you know where the name of the portion in the book comes from. The Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying. So you can catch that. Called, spoke, saying, right? The emphasis on the speaking and so forth. So in the Torah scroll, the letter Aleph at the end of the word vayikra in the Torah scroll is written small. So there's your niggas, that's what it looks like. So even if you don't read Hebrew, I think you can tell which letter is written small, right? So this is what's known as a jot. So in the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus is talking about the Torah and the prophets, he says, not one jot or tittle will pass away. That's what he's talking about. So in other words, it isn't just the black letters on the white page that were inspired by God, but it's also the way they were written on the page that was inspired, according to Jesus. Because all Torah scrolls have these. And one of those is that this particular word, Vagyikra, that its last letter, the Aleph, is written small. If it's weird, it's important. If it's small, it's important, right? If it's odd, it's important, and that's odd, right? That's there is no other word with an aleph at the end where it's small. There are other words that have small letters in them and so forth, but not in like in this case. And so it's important. And this has obviously caused a whole lot of, for thousands of years, conversation, teachings on the darash level, uh, homiletical explorations on its meaning, and so forth. And um, you know, that's that's what it's intended for. And by Jesus intimating that that's part of the text, it intimates that that's part of what the text is for. Like it's it's there to help us dive in for that deeper extrapolated meaning. Okay, so the sages throughout the centuries, again, have offered several homiletic explanations of this diminished letter. The most well-known one explains that Moses felt unworthy of being singled out by God as he spoke from within the tabernacle. And so in his abject humility and the Torah itself, which again is kind of funny because Moses wrote it, but the Torah does say Moses was the most humble man that ever lived, but Moses kind of wrote those words. So, you know, I don't know. It's kind of like Paul being very braggadocious about his humility, but nonetheless, the inspired word of God does say Moses was the most humble man. That's in the Bible. And so the story says that Moses in his humility was embarrassed by this honor that God chose to speak with him on this intimate level. Like that Moses had this unique, you know, as it's described, face-to-face friend relationship with the Creator, right? And Moses was like, I'm not worthy of this, I don't deserve this. Uh he was approaching this with humility. And so when he records this incident in the Torah, when he goes to record what we would know as Leviticus chapter one, um, he does not write vayikra. Uh he changes the word to vayikar. So that would be va-a-y-i-k-ar, vayikar, which means not and he called out, but he encountered. So instead of, and God called out to Moses or God cried out to Moses, that God had an encounter with Moses. So it's close in spelling, right? Vayikra and Vajikar. I mean, you can even see it in English, he just flips the ending, right? Instead of R-A, it's A-R. Pretty much the same kind of trick in Hebrew as you would in English, and slightly softens what's going on instead of this direct, I'm speaking with God, as a man speaks to another man, he softened it to, well, I had some kind of encounter with the divine, right? And so he does that. It's a less intimate word. And it's a word the Torah uses, like in Numbers 23, verse 16, when God met the Gentile prophet Balaam. So by doing so, Moses was suggesting that he's no more worthy of hearing God's voice and having a conversation with God than say, Balaam, the pagan, uh the Gentile pagan. However, God objects to the deficient spelling, the little trickery of Moses, and insists that Moses write vayikra, divine inspiration. God says, no, you're not writing, you know, you're not writing vayikar, you're gonna write vayikra. Uh and so uh you're gonna be different than Balaam. You are different than Balaam. Our conversations are different than my conversations with Balaam. And so Moses acquiesces, but only reluctantly. And so the story goes, he wrote the olif really tiny to reflect that humility of Moses. And so the small olif is to reflect humility. And that's very common whenever you encounter a small letter to let it remind you of some type of humility lesson within that story. So, for instance, um, in my book Rider on the Storm, uh in Psalm 24, there's a word that has a small letter Vav in it. And I talk about how that's pointing to the humility of the Messiah in there and so forth. So it's really more about pointing to this lesson of humility. So it's this story about Moses and God arguing about vayikar, vayikra, did it really happen? Probably not, right? It's it's a midrash. Um, but it has its worth and a homiletic value. Uh, Reb Moshe Chaim Ephraim Sudkl, um, he explained the small Aleph along the same lines. He taught that after the divine presence, the Shekinah filled the tabernacle. All Israel considered themselves worthy to hear from God except for Moses. And because of his humility, Moses assumed that God would not call to him again, and that is precisely why the Lord did call out to Moses. Isaiah 57, verse 15 says, For the Lord dwells on a high and holy place, and he also dwells with the contrite and lowly of spirit. Reb Sutlov goes on to explain the small aleph by saying this, quote, With the same measure that a man uses, it will be measured to him. Just as Moses lowered himself through the attribute of humility, so too God lowered himself to speak directly to Moses from within the tabernacle. So according to Reb Surkov, the small Alef alludes to God, who is the master, which in Hebrew is aloof, which is very similar to Alef, right? Who is the alluf of the world, who lowered himself to the level of humans. And he says there is an allusion as well to the fact that every person should conduct himself in the attribute of humility. He should learn from the Creator, and therefore the word vaikra has the small aleph. All of this is implied in the text of the Torah, and it also points us to our Messiah, who is the greater Moses. And remember the axiom that the final Redeemer, the ultimate Redeemer, the Messiah, will be like the first Redeemer. So that those things that are true of Moses will also be true of Messiah, but even in a greater way. And so we see this trait of humility in Moses, and we're being taught these uh ethical lessons about Moses, the fact that he was willing to be humble and humble himself before God, humble himself unlike anyone else in all of Israel. And because of that, God responds to him by elevating him, then we should expect to see the same kind of thing in our Messiah. And so Moses really did conduct himself with complete humility, and God really did humble himself to stoop down to the level of a human being. And the humility of Moses really is why God singled him out for one of the highest levels of prophetic revelation. And what is more, the lesson we learn from the small Aleph also reminds us of the Messiah, who lowered himself to the level of humans. He humbled himself like Moses, yet was found worthy to be the vessel through which God spoke. So when I look at Leviticus each year, and I look at it in Hebrew, and I see the first word of the book of Leviticus, and I see that vajikra, and I see that small olif, one of the things that goes through my mind is this particular passage from the book of Philippians. That he, Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even at the death of the cross. And so it reminds me of being humble, but it reminds me of the humility of the Messiah. A sin offering on our behalf. Leviticus chapter four, verse thirty-five. The verse reads, Thus the priest shall make atonement for him in regard to his sin, which he has committed, and he will be forgiven. Now, the Hebrew word for sin offering is chata. And it is essentially the same as the Hebrew word for sin, which is chatah. In fact, the words are somewhat interchangeable. And this can help explain a difficult passage in Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21, the Apostle Paul writes this. Most translations write this: that God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God. What might be known as the great exchange, right? That he who knew no sin became sin. That's the most common English translation. But this passage should hopefully sound strange to your ears. How did Jesus become actual sin? How did the sinless one become sin? And if he became sin, then did he truly die as a sinless one if he became sin? But based upon this passage, it is sometimes taught that Jesus was reckoned as sinful when he went to the cross because God had made him into sin. But a simpler, less bizarre explanation is that Paul was actually invoking a Hebrew word play between chat and chata. The same word play also works in the Greek language. In Greek, the word amartia can mean either sin or sin offering. Therefore, if you have the FIV translation of the Bible, Second Corinthians 5 21 would read this way. In other words, he who had no chatah became a chat. He who had no a martya became a a martilla. It's a wordplay that doesn't exist in English. Therefore, it's better translated, God made him who knew no sin to be a sin offering on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. But as a sin offering, Messiah is far more efficacious than the sin offerings of the tabernacle. The sin offerings mandated by the Torah are only in regard to this world, and they did not cleanse a person, their conscience, and respect in the world to come. The sin offerings in the Torah also, if you read through Leviticus, you will find that they are intended only to pardon unintentional sin. Whereas the sin offering of Messiah is sufficient to cleanse us from all sin, willful and unwillful. And the sin offerings of the Torah needed to be brought continually, where Messiah is sufficient once and for all, for all eternity. God called. So let's just keep hanging out back in chapter 1, verse 1. So the book of Leviticus, it opens with the word Vaikra, he called. God called. Again, this is what the entire book is named after. The book of Exodus concludes with the glory of God filling the tabernacle on the day it was to be consecrated. Moses was standing outside of the tabernacle when God called to him. But this was not the first time that God had called to Moses using the term vayekra. So what I want to do now, again, this is an example, hopefully, that you can learn from and then follow when you study the Bible. I want to look at all the times God used vaikra to get Moses' attention. Right? So there's other ways like God vaidabared, he spoke, God voyomered, God said, right? And God vayikra, right? And God called out. Like there's different ways God he spoke, he said, he cried out, and so forth. So I want to look at all the times where God voyikrad and see if that tells us something about this particular verb, and in general, when this verb therefore is used, what God is really getting at. Okay? That way you need to understand when you're reading your Bible and you see it's using different words, that you think, oh, that's just a different word that means the same thing. That's sort of true, but it's not true. Like if it's using a different word when it could have used other words, or in other times it did use other words, it kind of mean the same thing? It's using the different word for a specific reason. So a good biblical study idea is to go, okay, where are all the times that this word was chosen? Like what makes this word special? So what makes vagra special when God is the subject and Moses is the object? And what's that really getting at? Okay? Because this isn't the one and only time it happens. So where does it first happen at? Okay, rule of first in your Hebraic toolbox. When God appeared to Moses at the burning bush, the Torah relates that when Moses first saw it, he said, I will turn and see this great wonder, right? Which shows Moses is paying attention, right? Um he sees a bush, it's on fire. He doesn't just ignore it, you know, see something, say something, right? He pays attention. It's like, I think it's been on fire a little bit. It's not, it's not burning down. There's no ash, right? So he sees it, he notices it, he realizes it. Like it's odd, so it's important. I will turn and I will see this great wonder, meaning I'm gonna check this out, I'm gonna investigate this. Why does the bush burn and it's not consumed? Then the next verse states that when God saw that Moses turned to see, when he sees that Moses is attentive to these kind of details, right? It's kind of like a leadership test. He vayikras him. He calls to him from within the bush. So that's the first place. The first place he vajikras him is from within the bush, but it's in response to Moses first noticing there's something going on in that bush, and I'm gonna find out what's going on in that bush. And so God vayikras him. Later at the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, Moses ascends to God, who then in Exodus 19, verse 3, Vagyikras him. In these cases, God was, in a sense, responding to what is known as an awakening from below. That is to say, it was an action or a state of mind on the part of Moses. In the first case, Moses was standing outside of the tabernacle that he and all of Israel, here in Leviticus, had labored intensely to build as a dwelling place for God among them, and now the time had come to consecrate the tabernacle. Moses, in a combination of existential humbleness and awe, found himself on the outside, and in this context, God calls out to Moses. In the case of the burning bush, God responds to Moses' curiosity and his willingness to investigate the mysterious appearance of a bush that was on fire but not consumed. Only when God sees Moses turn and approach the bush does he address him directly. When Moses ascends Mount Sinai again, we see him taking the initial step, making the first move. This idea relates to each and every person, the Moses within. This is the archetype. There is a Moses within us. Although there are times when there is an awakening from above, most certainly, particularly when it comes to our salvation, where there is no initial move on our part, where it is God being the initiator, we are also taught that there are times when we are the ones who need to approach the Almighty by taking the first step. When looking through the preceding Torah portions, we see the word vaiyikra is used in this aspect. In virtually every case where vajikra is used, it is employed in the context of an awakening from below and calling someone by name. The first time in the contextual headquarters for this term, outside of Moses. So where outside of Moses? Where is the first time in all of the Bible does God do this? It's all the way back in the Garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve, when they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and as a result, they tried to hide from God. And God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? The divine calling to Adam is, of course, not a question of where are you physically hide and seek? It's a broader existential question of where are you spiritually? It is a more hear it in the tone of, where are you? Like, where are you at, man? Like, have you ever wanted to ask somebody that? Like, right? They're just making a lot of bad choices in life, and you just want to say, man, where are you? That's what God asked Adam. He wasn't asking, where are you? Like, I can't find you in the bush, right? You're somewhere, oh, where are you? It was, man, where's your head? Like, where are you? What have you done? Here again, we see God is responding to an action below, albeit in this time, a more negative one. There is a verse in the Psalms, Psalm 125, verse 5, says, The Lord is your shadow on your right side. Of course, the straightforward explanation, the Peshat is God is always there to protect you. But we're walking in the garden. Balshem Tov had a more deeper explanation on the Rimes level. The nature of a shadow is what? What's my if I'm doing this, what's my shadow doing? It's doing the same thing, right? If I do this and my shadow doesn't do that, I'm probably in trouble, right? Or if I do this and then my shadow does it back in a different way, probably in trouble, right? So this is the brilliant thing about the Durash and Remez level. And even the Sod level. The SOD level is often hyper literal. The Lord is your shadow. Take that literally. Take that literally. What would that mean? Has to do with an awakening below, right? In other words, the Lord follows your move. That can be an amazing thought, or that can be a downright frightening thought. The Lord is your shadow. Right? The nature of a shadow mirrors every move of the one creating it. So the Bal Shem Tov explains that it's God who reacts to someone exactly according to how they are reacting and treating others. Again, that can be an amazing thing, or ooh, ouch. That can be not an amazing thing. This is the same as the dynamic in all of the above cases with vayikra, where God calls to a person for the positive or the negative, depending on their thoughts, their speech, and their action. An additional dimension in understanding the word vaiikra is that Rashi comments that this word is an expression of endearment and is the same expression that the angels in heaven use when they call to one another in order to praise their creator, like when the angels cry out to one another and the angels cry, hodi. They're vayikrying one another. Okay. And it's clear that each time God calls to Moses, he is inviting him to come close, to enter into a deep and intimate relationship, to be his partner. And even in the case of Adam, after he disobeyed God by eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God called to him with the intent of giving him a chance to explain himself, to repent, to enter back into that relationship. Just like probably when you wanted to ask someone like, Man, where are you? You wanted to ask them that to wake them up, right? Like, man, where are you? Like, get your head back in the game for crying out loud, wake up. When taking all of the occurrences of the word vajikra and the scriptures into consideration, we see the dynamics of relationship between people and God, and by extension between people as well. In a deeply paradoxical and mysterious way, it becomes apparent that God, although all-knowing and infinite and beyond all comprehension, still seeks a relationship with his finite, material, and very flawed creation, especially through his Messiah. The quality of that relationship depends greatly on our desire and the tenacity and faith that we have in seeking that relationship. The more we call to God, the more God calls to us. As Jesus' brother James wrote in James chapter 4 and verse 8, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Not by bread alone. But I'm sharing this with you mainly because this is where I had fun with my son. One of the things we do on Sabbath is whether it's my oldest daughter Kaziah or my wife Trisha will make the Sabbath bread, Kala, and then when we break it and eat it, we salt it. Okay. And ever since he was the littlest of littles, my son loved the salt on the bread. Like loved it. I mean, because in many ways, hot cala out of the oven with salt on it, I mean, guess what that tastes like? I mean, it tastes like a big old Bavarian pretzel. I mean, it just does. Like, I mean, it tastes like a big hot, soft pretzel. Like, and so, I mean, that's delicious, right? So he would love to do that. May he just dip that and all that. And so I think I've shared with you many times. Anytime my kids say a number or something, I'm like, oh, that's holy. That's a holy number. And they're like, yes, dad, we know every number's holy. And I'm like, yes, but you gotta know why that number, that number's holy, what that number's holy for. It's not just that it's holy, right? You gotta know why it's holy, what words it is, and what it's invoking and all of that. Well, he made the mistake one time of why do we salt our bread? All right. And there's one, there's a simple answer why we salt our bread. We'll learn the simple answer. All right. But why do, but I would do it three times. And um he's also learned, like, I rarely do anything. I don't do anything. There's very few things I do with no reason, right? So he's like, well, you always do it three times. So like, why do you do it three times? Oh, how he wished he didn't ask that question. Because there's a reason why. And so you're gonna find out that reason. But imagine you're a seven-year-old, son, you know, seven-year-old boy hearing this, all right. So there is a custom to dip bread in salt before eating it, not just on the Sabbath, but in general. So, um, I mean, if you carefully watch me enough, you'll see I I will you'll you will catch me doing that. Um, but it comes from the time of the temple when all meal sacrifices were brought to the altar with salt on them. So the reason you would do it now, there's no temple, there's no sacrifice, it's a way to remind yourself of the destruction of the temple, to briefly mourn that, but also to remind yourself as a believer in Messiah of what we have in Messiah, the gift we have in Messiah, what we've been given in Messiah, the bread of life that we have in Messiah, um, all kinds of good things that go with the symbolism of salt and bread with Messiah. So there's a whole bunch of reasons why you do this. But one of them, the very simple basic reason, is Leviticus 2, verse 13 from this week's portion. And you shall salt every one of your meal offering sacrifices with salt, and you shall not omit the salt of your God's covenant from being placed upon your meal offerings, and you shall offer salt on your sacrifices. So it's very common to understand the way you might say a blessing before you eat, right? It's understood that, like, hey, you're about to receive this bread for the nourishment of your body, like this is this is part of the blessing, right? You just remember you're offering that back to God, right? So, why though? The deeper reason. Well, this is where you might want to consult your sheet. Not only do the words for bread in Hebrew, which is lechem, if you take the letters and salt, melach, they have the same numerical value. If you add the letters, the three letters, they equal 78. They're actually the same exact letters, they're just permuted, they're just in different order. You can see that. So they have the same value, they're 78, they have the same letters. So there's a relationship between salt and bread. Additionally, the word for dream, chalom, and to battle, locham, also share the same three-letter root and therefore have the same numerical value. And so there is a saying in Judaism: some people fight for their bread while others fight for their dreams. And it's based on that connection. But there's also a custom to dip the bread three times in salt before you eat bread. That was Chalmer's question. If you take God's most essential name, the four-letter name, Yud, Hey, Vav, He, that equals 26. If you add yud plus a plus vav plus hey equals 26. 26 times three is 78. So you got Lechem, 78. You're doing it three times. Yudhe Vav He, three times is 78. This custom further connects to the following verse in Deuteronomy chapter 8, verse 3. Um, that no man lives by bread alone, but whatever comes from the mouth of God does man live. By repeating something three times, it's considered hazakha. An action that is made more concrete or lasting strengthens you. Thus, dipping bread and salt three times reminds us of the importance of elevating the physical act of eating from just an animal-like pursuit to a godly act of ingesting the very word of God, the very name of God, and making it into a spiritual unification. So it's taking the earthly and the mundane and elevating it into the heavenly and the spiritual. And so that is why we would dip our bread three times in the salt at the table. And to this day, it's hilarious to see him anytime he is at any table where there is bread, he gets out the salt shaker because he's it's just in bread in him. Salt with bread, but uh I doubt he remembers that explanation. But maybe he does. I'll ask him next time. Um but a little gumatria there for you, and to know, like, in some ways, um, you know, sometimes I'm I'm for me, I I'm thankful that I was raised with these kinds of traditions because like it's not that anybody has to do that, nobody has to do that. None of this is uh biblical, right? I understand that. But what it does do is it it man, it slows you down. Like, you know, like how many times do we just scarf our food? Right? The real reason behind that was so that you just elevate what you're doing. If you're slowing down and you're thinking, you're thinking of God's name and you're envisioning the actual letters passing before you and passing before you three times, right? And and connecting it to that and connecting it to the bread of life, and then and then eating like you've taken something that was just you were gonna do in three seconds just because you were hungry, and you've turned it into a spiritual act, right? And so again, it's just it's part of being mindful. It's just part of being mindful, and that is an important part of like when you study the Torah, when you study the that lifestyle, when you study that worldview, from a complete outsider's perspective, you might look at that and think, those are legalistic actions and all that. Nobody's thinking they're being saved by that. No one's thinking you gotta do that. No one and the inside is looking out and judging you for not doing that. You need to look in and go, oh, they're just being mindful. They're just slowing down, they're just paying attention to words, they're letting words matter, they're letting God enter into even the most mundane of things like eating a piece of bread. Um so um that's why I thought I would share it with you, just to kind of like you know, be mindful. Like m probably most of you probably do pray before you eat. Be mindful about it. Like don't let that become something you do in passing. Like be mindful of that. It's a way to be mindful of something you do before you eat. Like pray after you eat as well. You know, like let your words matter. Let your thoughts matter. Just elevate. Elevate. Because our world needs a lot of elevation right now. Alright, we will close there for this evening. We will pick it up next week. Same time, same place. Let's close with a blessing. Baruchata Adunai Noktain Hatura. Blessed are you, Lord God, who has given to us the gift that is the Torah. Amen. Shalom, shalom. Go in peace. Hi everyone. Thank you for engaging this teaching. You know, we at Emmanuel have as one of our goals to make our teachings available online to anyone, everywhere, at any time, whether that's through a podcast or our YouTube channel or an MP3 download. It is our gift to you, and we want you to use it however you see fit. Also, if you feel motivated or desired to support future teachings, you can do so with the donate button at the bottom of our teaching page. That's found at immlutheran.org forward slash teaching. Again, thank you for participating in our teachings here and hope to see you or engage with you somehow, some way, somewhere. God bless.