HEBREW TEXTS  .  HEBREW LANGUAGE  .  JUDAISM

Greatness and humility. It doesn't sound easy, and sometimes they even seem incompatible.

Vayikra invites us to enter a world of ritual and offerings to achieve closeness to the Kadosh Baruch Hu, the Lord, in order to bring about a spirituality that seems to be lacking in our everyday lives. Our parashah summons us to pause a little with our tasks and concerns to make room for something more.

Comenzamos un nuevo libro.

Y éste es uno de los más complicados de la Torá. No es que sea difícil, no. No es que tenga vericuetos que nos lleven a mundos ocultos que no entendemos; tampoco.

We are starting a new book: Vayikra.

And this is one of the most complicated in the Torah. It's not that it's hard, because it really isn't. It is not that it has twists and turns that lead us to hidden worlds that we do not understand at all. Vaikra lacks the charm of Bereshit, the book of Genesis, that seduces us with the secrets of the origins, and the first stories of humanity and our people. Vayikra does not have the captivating story of Egypt with Moshe growing in image and leadership who traps us behind the column of our ancestors coming out of slavery and beginning a journey that will be endless for them.

This week we begin the third book of the Torah.

Vayikra means "and he called". According to the text of the Torah, it is another moment of a call from God, in this case addressed to Moshe. But we must consider that according to the midrash, God's voice is not a faint voice. Today we read and sang psalm 29: "Kol Adonai bakoach", "Kol Adonai Shover Arazim" and "Kol Adonai yachil midbar", which wants to express that "the voice of God generates strength, breaks the cedars and makes the desert tremble.