Parshas Vayikra 5780
As the curtain opens on Sefer Vayikra, a strange new world appears on the Torah’s stage. Sure, we’ve read through a wave of Parshios at the end of Sefer Shemos that detail the construction of the Mishkan and its furnishings, not to mention the unusual vestments that are the Bigdei Kehuna. But Sefer Vaykira marks the transition from concept to reality. The Mishkan as it was actually occupied. The Kohanim as they really served. Not abstract structures and clothing, but real life. Korbanos brought to the Mishkan and then offered. Daily ritual actually being observed, actually being lived.
And it feels utterly foreign. Like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Personally, I’ve always had an easier time with the previous five Parshios. That a mizbeach must be constructed and that clothing for Kohanim must be produced is somehow easier to digest than the notion of sacrifices actually being offered on that mizbeach or that Kohanim would actually scurry about the grounds of the Mishkan or Bais HaMikdash performing the avodah. Individual objects and an unusual building are far easier to conceptualize than activity and a manner of life so different from our own.
I think this underscores one of the key problems in considering, anticipating, and hoping for the era of Moshiach. How do we truly long for something that feels so foreign? How do dream of something that stands at such odds with the reality we know?
The Gemara in Brachos 34b notes the opinion of Shmuel, that “אֵין בֵּין הָעוֹלָם הַזֶּה לִימוֹת הַמָּשִׁיחַ אֶלָּא שִׁעְבּוּד מַלְכוּיוֹת בִּלְבַד — There is no difference between the world in which we live and the era of the Moshiach, other than the issue of subjugation to foreign nations.” The Rambam codifies this version of the Messianic Era at the end of Hilchos Melachim and goes on to describe a time period that will parallel our own in so many ways. But even if the Yemos HaMoshiach will not be an end to the natural order, it will still be an order radically different from the one we experience today. The Bais HaMikdash. Korbanos. Kohanim. Purity and Impurity. It is this unfamiliar era that that is the subject of the Sefer we begin this Shabbos. And as we read, our heads spin in silent, somewhat abashed disbelief: How can we possibly go from here to there?
If upheaval of the old order is difficult to fathom, perhaps events of the past two weeks have expanded our imaginations. For many of us, the wild communal festivities of Purim were muted only slightly by the presence of Purel and latex gloves. We ate together, prayed together, danced together. I look back at those pictures now and they feel as though they were taken eons ago; part of a different world and different era altogether. And yet the intervening transition from then to now has lasted mere days.
Two weeks ago, the notion of shutting the doors to the shul as a means of curbing viral infection seemed absurdly foreign. Two weeks ago, the idea that otherwise healthy friends and family members would not be able to get together for the Seder seemed outrageous. How quickly once alien modes of living can come to occupy the present reality.
Living through an upheaval can provide many spiritual lessons. Lessons of humility and of dependence on G-d to escort us through a world that we’re woefully incapable of controlling ourselves. But it also provides a lesson of hope, of recognizing that a path from here to there–from somber present to brighter future–is not nearly as distant as it seems. We are living through an exercise in rapid global transformation of some of the most basic manners of social interaction and human behavior, a description that will one day prove accurate in describing the metamorphosis necessary to usher in the Messianic Era. The upheaval of today makes the upheaval of tomorrow feel so much closer at hand.
What appears foreign today? What seems outrageous? Most years I would sheepishly admit the difficulty in seeing a path from the present to the Yemos HaMashiach: the Mikdash, the Korbanos, the Kohanim, and all the other items Sefer Vayikra will begin to enumerate. This year, a revolution in how we live isn’t a theoretical future that needs to be imagined, it is the reality of the present.
The Midrash Lekach Tov on Megilas Esther notes, “ישועת ה׳ כהרף עין—The salvation of G-d comes in the blink of an eye.” I believe that this year more than I ever did.