The book of Leviticus begins with God calling to Moses from the Tabernacle on Rosh Chodesh Nisan, instructing him in the service which would from then on be the focal point of all Divine service. The Book of Leviticus is called after the first word vayikra, "and He called," and the fact that it occurred on Rosh Chodesh Nisan is connected to the statement of the Sages: "Who is the wise one? One who sees the 'birth'" (Tamid 32a). "Birth" in a narrow sense means the birth of the new moon, but in a broader sense means - one who sees all subsequent events born from an initial act.
Rosh Chodesh Nisan, the new moon of Nisan, is called in the Midrash, "the day of the ten crowns," for it was on this day that Moses raised the Tabernacle in the desert, and the service of the Cohanim, the priests, on behalf of all Israel was begun. It was this service which was continued in the Temple, and later, after its destruction, became the basis of our prayers in the synagogue.
Rosh Chodesh Nisan is also the day when Israel received two year earlier, its first mitzvah as a people in preparation for leaving Egypt. This mitzvah established the month of Nisan as the first of the months of the year, along with the wisdom to arrange the Jewish calendar according to the secrets that God gave to Moses. The ability to become the masters of time was the preparation needed to come out of Egypt where we were slaves. We read the section describing this first mitzvah every year as one of the four special portions read between the new moon of Adar, the month of Purim, and Pesach.
Rosh Chodesh Nisan is one of the four New Years in the Jewish calendar. Kings count the years of their rule from this day. It also begins the cycle of the three major pilgrimage festivals - Pesach, Shavuot and Succot.
It is obvious that Rosh Chodesh Nisan manifests its importance in many different ways and therefore we must attempt to see how all the various aspects of this auspicious day are connected.
There is one more phenomenon connected to this day and that is the appearance in the Torah of a small letter alef in the word vayikra, the first word of Leviticus. We are taught that the 600,000 men between the ages of twenty and sixty who left Egypt represent the archetypal root souls of all of Israel. These souls are further connected to the 600,000 letters of the Torah, wherein every Jew has their particular letter, their special gate or pathway through which to understand the whole Torah. Who is the wise one - one who sees the whole Torah shining through every portion, verse and word, even every individual letter. As we will see the small alef appearing in the word vayikra, "and He called," can be seen as the connecting point of all the various aspects of Rosh Chodesh Nisan, bringing a deep understanding of the significance of the day for each Jew in every generation. For the small alef represents the service of God to which all Jews ultimately aspire. Even more than this, the small alef hints to the process of creation, its purpose, and the possibility of relating to an Infinite Creator within the temporal parameters of a finite world.
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The Zohar (2:161b) teaches that when God created the world He first looked into the Torah and then created the world. The seven days of creation as written in the Torah are more than the recorded history of the creative process as it unfolded, rather these very letters and words are the blueprint itself into which God "looked" and then "spoke" the world into existence. Similar to a scientist who relates to atoms, chemicals, and energy as the "building blocks" of creation, Jewish tradition relates to each Hebrew letter as a prototype of spiritual energy, the building blocks through which the world is built and maintained. God speaking the world into existence teaches us the connection between speech and the creative process. We are taught in Pirkei Avot (5:1) that God created the world through ten utterances - for example: "and God said let there be light and there was light" (Genesis 1:3). Similarly we recite daily in our prayers: "Blessed is the One who spoke and the world came into existence."
The first letter of the Torah is a large beit, whose numerical value is two. This symbolizes the dualistic nature of the world, i.e. infinite and finite, day and night, man and woman, sun and moon, life and death, spiritual and physical, soul and body etc. The question naturally arises - why does the Torah begin with the second letter beit, and not the first letter an alef.
The Zohar answers in the following parable (Introduction to the Zohar: 23). When God wanted to create the world, all the letters came before Him one by one, beginning with the last letter, asking that they have the merit of being the first letter in the Torah. Each letter had a good reason based on a positive word which began with itself, but God countered them one by one, exclaiming that a word signifying a negative idea also started with that letter and therefore the Torah could not begin with them. All the letters were disqualified till the letter beit came before God and said the word baruch, blessed, begins with it and through this word people will come to praise the Creator. God agreed to this argument and thus the first letter of the Torah became the beit. Then God asked the alef to present a claim. The alef, instead of objecting that it was not given a proper chance answered by saying that since it was already decided there was no need for it to present a claim. God replied that since the alef had so much humbleness, it would be the first letter of Anochi, the initial word of the ten commandments.
The two tablets containing the ten commandments were kept in the ark in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle and later in the Temple in Jerusalem. Even before Moses raised up the Tabernacle, God had told him that when He wanted to speak to him it would be from between the two cherubs on the covering of the ark. The Holy of Holies in the Temple represents the center point, the spiritual vortex around which the entire world revolves. It is from this place that God calls (vayikra) to Moses on Rosh Chodesh Nisan. The alef, which seemingly does not appear in its logical place in the creation of the world, significantly appears on this day in the holiest of places. The fact that the alef in the word vayikra appears as a small letter alludes to the great secret of tzimtzum, "contraction," as taught in the Kabbalah. Through this concept we can begin to understand the reappearance of the alef on the "day of ten crowns."
When the "thought" arose in God's mind to create the world, an allegorical problem arose as well. Since there was no reality other than the infiniteness of God, where, as it were, could He create "space" for a finite, "independent" world. The Arizal, the great 16th century Kabbalist, explained that God "contracted" Himself, so to speak, in order to create, a "vacuum" or womb like space in which a finite world could then be created. Into the "vacuum" God shone the first ray of light and the world came into being. It can be understood that the alef, representing oneness and the unity of God, and preceding the beit, signifying duality, contracted itself (only seemingly of course) to make room for the world.
The act of tzimtzum which allowed the world to come into being is the basic secret of the Temple in Jerusalem - the revelation of the Creator contracting His Infinite presence, as it were, in order to be to be perceived in a concentrated manner in a finite place. The small alef hints at our potential to actually experience this paradox of paradoxes.
Our life is spent trying to live within the paradoxical context of God both revealing and hiding Himself in the world. Jacob called the ladder, stretching from the earth to the heavens, in the very place where the Temple was eventually built, the "gate to heaven" (Genesis 28:10-17). A Jew must constantly be a ladder between eternal and temporal time, between infinite and finite space. "Who is the wise one? One who sees the 'birth'." The small alef, representing the paradox of creation beckons us to connect ourselves to the mystery of all life.
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The connection between the small alef of Vayikra and Rosh Chodesn Nisan can be better understood if we relate it to the discussion in the Talmud as to during which month was the world created - Tishrei, the month of Rosh HaShanah and the new year, or Nisan, the month of Pesach and the first of the months (Rosh HaShanah 11a). There are many proofs brought for both arguments, but according to one opinion, the world is created in potential in Tishrei and in actuality in Nisan. This sheds a totally new light on the significance of the erection of the Tabernacle on the very day that God created the world!
It is known that the construction and contents of the Tabernacle were intended to be a reflection of the upper spiritual worlds. Each of the measurements, colors, materials, arrangements, numbers etc, which appear in the Torah's explanation of the Tabernacle allude to the actual order and arrangement of the physical and spiritual worlds. It is on Rosh Chodesh Nisan that God manifests even clearer His offer made at Sinai: "And you shall be to me a Kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6).
At the revelation at Sinai we were passive, but in the Tabernacle we took an active role in becoming partners with God in the creation and maintenance of the world. The service to which God invited Moses and all Israel to partake for all time, on the day the Tabernacle was inaugurated, is reflected in what we say every morning in our prayers: "in His goodness He renews daily, perpetually the work of creation." The "ten crowns" of Rosh Chodesh Nisan are a manifestation of the ten utterances through which God created the world. This is represented by the simple meaning of Vayikra, "and He called," being similar to an utterance. Our service of God gives us the strength and creative ability to renew ourselves again and again, thus connecting our service to God and the power of creation itself.
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The first Rashi on the opening verse of the Torah begins: "Rabbi Yitzhak said: 'The Torah did not have to start except from 'this month will be for you the first of the months,' because this was the first mitzvah commanded to Israel." At first, this opinion is almost incomprehensible, even with understanding his reason that since the Torah is basically "instruction," we don't need to start except from the beginning of the commandments, which is Rosh Chodesh Nisan. If we understand though that his opinion alludes to the fact that the world was not created until Rosh Chodesh Nisan, then the opinion of Rabbi Yitzhak is much more understandable.
The first mitzvah given in preparation for coming out of Egypt connects the birth of Israel as a nation with the creation of the world. This idea is the manifestation of the statement of the Sages that when God "thought" to create the world "the thought of Israel arose first" (Bereishit Rabbah 1:4). Our slavery in Egypt is analogous to the tzimtzum preceding creation, while the exodus corresponds to the primordial ray of light piercing the void. The beginning of redemption is Rosh Chodesh Nisan and finds its ultimate expression on Shavuot with the giving of the Torah, when the alef appears as the first letter of the ten commandments. The ten commandments, intrinsically linked to the ten utterances of creation, manifests an even further revelation on the day of the ten crowns.
The small alef is also connected to the fact that Moses was "heavy mouthed," leading him to feel inadequate at first to fulfill the mission of taking Israel out of Egypt. Moses was truly humble, so much so that the Torah testifies that Moses was "the most humble person on the face of the earth" (Numbers 12:3). According to the Midrash, when God told Moses to write the word vayikra, Moses objected to this language of endearment being used in relation to himself and asked that the word be written without an alef altogether. A compromise of sorts was reached and Moses wrote the word with an alef, but as a sign of humbleness wrote it small.
An even deeper way to understand the small alef is that when God called to Moses to enter the Tabernacle he was unable to enter because the Glory of God filled the whole place. God, so to speak, contracted His Infinite Presence, as alluded to in the small alef, as in the beginning of creation, to make a place for Moses to enter into the service of God.
The paradox of the small alef is in fact related to all of the mitzvot, which allow us to experience the infiniteness of God within limited time and space. One who performs a mitzvah with a pure heart and intent is one who sees the "birth," connecting to the very purpose of creation.
