Do You Hear the Calling?
The opening verse of the third book of the Torah, the book of Vayikra {Leviticus} reads:
And He called to Moses, and the Lord spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying.
This verse raises several grammatical questions. (1) What is the meaning of the double expression "he called" and "spoke"? The verse could have simply stated: "the Lord spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying"? (2) Why does the verse say "He", without stating explicitly that it was Hashem who called; whereas regarding the expression "spoke" the verse states clearly that it was "the Lord" who spoke?
Rashi, the preeminent Biblical commentator, explains that the Torah writes "And He called", in addition to "spoke ", because it is an expression of affection. As Rashi tells us:
Every [time God communicated with Moses, whether it was represented by the expression] "And He spoke," or "and He said," or "and He commanded," it was always preceded by {the expression of} calling {to Moses}. "Calling "{Vayikra} is an expression of affection, the {same} expression employed by the ministering angels {when addressing each other}, as it says, "And one called to the other…" (Isaiah 6:3).
There is a Chasidic explanation for why the Torah uses both expressions "He called" and "Hashem spoke.
The word Vayikra, "and he called," is written in the Torah scroll with a small Aleph {ויקרא}. The letter Aleph, which is the numerical value of one, is related to the word "Aluf," which means leader or ruler, referring to Hashem, the ruler of the universe. The letter Alef is small because although we often hear a Divine call - something inside us is stirred, we feel moved and inspired to change and improve, or we feel that the life we are living is lacking - the Aleph, the Divine source of the call, is hidden. We feel drawn to something, but we are not sure what we are drawn to, we sense our soul yearning, but we don't know what we are yearning for; we hear the calling, but the caller is hidden.
The third book begins "and He called," concealing the identity of the caller, because when Hashem reaches out to us, he does not overwhelm us with his awe-inspiring presence. Instead, He calls to us through a guise of nature, circumstances, or the yearning within ourselves. If, when we hear the call, we continue to explore, we will discover that, in reality, it is Hashem who is calling us. We then reach the second clause of the verse: "the Lord spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying", we will come to the tent of meeting, the temple which housed the ark and the Torah. In the Torah, we will advance from hearing the disguised call to understanding and appreciating the holy words of the Torah, which articulate Hashem's words to us.
Hashem is calling you. The Torah will help you understand the calling.
Adapted from the Meiras Einayim