Leviticus 1:1-5:26
Addressing Our Loved Ones
While God commands Moses, He also calls to him affectionately.By Rabbi Ismar Schorsch
I never heard my parents address each other by their first names.
They showed their mutual affection, which remained palpable till late in their lives, by using pet names. My father called my mother "Mutti"(from the German word for mother--Mutter) and my mother always called him "Schatzi" (from the German word for treasure--Schatz). As my father aged, he developed the habit of saying "Mutti" to himself audibly and often, without ever intending to attract her attention. Alone in his study, he would emit the sound of her name when he rose from his desk to get another book or just reclined to rest for a moment. She was clearly the anchor of his life.
A Seminary Story
It was only when I came to the Seminary as a student in 1957 that I realized that "Schatzi" was a common name of endearment among Jews from Germany. Adele Ginzberg (affectionately known to students as Mamma Ginzberg) had never called her late renowned husband, Professor Louis Ginzberg, anything but "Schatzi". Seminary lore recounted that whenever she attended his class in Talmud and interrupted with a comment, as was her wont, she would address him unselfconsciously as "Schatzi" much to the students' delight.
This is the manner in which the rabbis handle an evident redundancy in the first verse of our parashah. The book of Leviticus opens with God instructing Moses on the nature of the sacrificial system to be used in the just finished tabernacle: "The Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of Meeting, saying...(Leviticus 1:1)."
Our rabbinic ancestors, unlike impatient modern readers, tarry on the "inelegance" of two verbs--"called" and"spoke," where one would have sufficed. Two separate acts are involved, they insist. First, God addresses Moses by name, intimately and affectionately, and only then does the conversation ensue. The force of the verb "va-yikra--and the Lord called" conveys a longstanding relationship. The call is an invitation to resume contact, to begin the dialogue afresh. Moses has done his task exceedingly well. The way God pronounces his name intimates divine satisfaction. We can usually tell what iscoming by how someone initially pronounces our name. The prepositional phrase "to him" suggests that God turns to Moses alone. No one else is privy to what will be said.
A Seminary Story
It was only when I came to the Seminary as a student in 1957 that I realized that "Schatzi" was a common name of endearment among Jews from Germany. Adele Ginzberg (affectionately known to students as Mamma Ginzberg) had never called her late renowned husband, Professor Louis Ginzberg, anything but "Schatzi". Seminary lore recounted that whenever she attended his class in Talmud and interrupted with a comment, as was her wont, she would address him unselfconsciously as "Schatzi" much to the students' delight.
This is the manner in which the rabbis handle an evident redundancy in the first verse of our parashah. The book of Leviticus opens with God instructing Moses on the nature of the sacrificial system to be used in the just finished tabernacle: "The Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of Meeting, saying...(Leviticus 1:1)."
Our rabbinic ancestors, unlike impatient modern readers, tarry on the "inelegance" of two verbs--"called" and"spoke," where one would have sufficed. Two separate acts are involved, they insist. First, God addresses Moses by name, intimately and affectionately, and only then does the conversation ensue. The force of the verb "va-yikra--and the Lord called" conveys a longstanding relationship. The call is an invitation to resume contact, to begin the dialogue afresh. Moses has done his task exceedingly well. The way God pronounces his name intimates divine satisfaction. We can usually tell what iscoming by how someone initially pronounces our name. The prepositional phrase "to him" suggests that God turns to Moses alone. No one else is privy to what will be said.
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