MARCH 21 • 2024 | 51
J
N
feel this is your meaning and
mission in life. This is what you
were placed on earth to do.
There are many such calls
in Tanach. There was the call
Abraham received, telling him
to leave his land and family.
There was the call to Moses
at the Burning Bush (Ex. 3:4).
There was the one experienced
by Isaiah when he saw in a mys-
tical vision God enthroned and
surrounded by angels: “Then
I heard the voice of the Lord
saying, ‘Whom shall I send?
And who will go for us?’ And
I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’”
Isaiah 6:8
One of the most touching is
the story of the young Samuel,
dedicated by his mother
Hannah to serve in the sanctu-
ary at Shiloh where he acted as
an assistant to Eli the priest. In
bed at night, he heard a voice
calling his name. He assumed it
was Eli. He ran to see what he
wanted, but Eli told him he had
not called. This happened a sec-
ond time and then a third, and
by then Eli realized that it was
God calling the child. He told
Samuel that the next time the
voice called his name, he should
reply, “Speak, Lord, for Your
servant is listening.
”
It did not occur to the child
that it might be God summon-
ing him to a mission, but it
was. Thus began his career as a
prophet, judge and anointer of
Israel’s first two kings, Saul and
David (1 Samuel 3).
When we see a wrong to be
righted, a sickness to be healed,
a need to be met, and we feel
it speaking to us, that is when
we come as close as we can in
a post-prophetic age to hear-
ing Vayikra, God’s call. And
why does the word appear here,
at the beginning of the third
and central book of the Torah?
Because the book of Vayikra is
about sacrifices, and a vocation
is about sacrifices. We are
willing to make sacrifices when
we feel they are part of the task
we are called on to do.
From the perspective of
eternity, we may sometimes be
overwhelmed by a sense of our
own insignificance. We are no
more than a wave in the ocean,
a grain of sand on the seashore,
a speck of dust on the surface of
infinity. Yet we are here because
God wanted us to be, because
there is a task He wants us to
perform. The search for mean-
ing is the quest for this task.
Each of us is unique. Even
genetically identical twins are
different. There are things only
we can do, we who are what we
are, in this time, this place and
these circumstances. For each of
us God has a task: work to per-
form, a kindness to show, a gift
to give, love to share, loneliness
to ease, pain to heal or broken
lives to help mend. Discerning
that task, hearing Vayikra, God’s
call, is one of the great spiritual
challenges for each of us.
How do we know what it is?
Some years ago, in To Heal a
Fractured World, I offered this
as a guide: Where what we want
to do meets what needs to be
done, that is where God wants
us to be.
This still seems to me to
make sense.
The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
served as the chief rabbi of the
United Hebrew Congregations of the
Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teachings
have been made available to all at
rabbisacks.org.
CONVERSATIONS
• What makes you happy?
• What makes your life
meaningful?
• How do you plan to make it
more meaningful?
• Do you have a sense of what
your calling in life is?
• How do we find out what our
calling is? Where did Moses find
his calling from? Can we find our
calling from the same source?
A Leader’s
Attributes
T
his week’s portion
talks about God
commanding Moshe
in the different sacrifices
brought in the Temple. We
are taught that the
real sacrifice is when
we are willing to look
within ourselves and
amend our character
toward our self-
betterment.
At the time of this
portion, there are
three active leaders
of the Jewish nation,
each in their own
way. Moshe, who
would look at each
person for who they
are and where they
are and meet them
there with encouragement
and mentorship toward
growth, like the theme of
our parshah with sacrifices.
One way we see this
quality embodied is via the
manna which is attributed
to Moshe. The manna would
come prepped for each
person according to their
individual spiritual standing
and need, as well as the taste,
matched by each person’s
personal preferences.
Then we have Aharon,
Moshe’s brother, the high
priest. Aharon is famous for
his love and unconditional
acceptance for everyone.
Aharon saw each person for
the essence of their soul.
This essence is the same in
each of us. One example
is the clouds of glory that
surrounded our nation
in the desert, which is
attributed to Aharon. These
clouds surrounded us all
equally.
The third leader of our
nation while we journeyed
through the desert is
Miriam. Miriam, the sister
of Aharon and Moshe,
the one that watched
and guarded Moshe
when he was a baby
floating in the Nile,
the one that led the
celebrations after kriyas
yam suf (splitting of
the sea) and the one
that is attributed with
the stream of water
from the rock, while
our nation resided in
the desert. Miriam’s
quality and approach
in her leadership was
to infuse people with
hope and motivation.
Each of these approaches
are integral to leadership:
creating a culture of inherent
safety and belonging,
driving people toward their
unknown potential, and
inspiring and connecting
those that look toward us.
The Torah’s purpose is to
teach us how we can and
should express ourselves.
One such lesson is how
each of us is a leader in
our different communities,
and we have the ability and
responsibility to utilize these
three tools and approaches
toward bettering the world
around us.
This world needs you to
create a world that only you
can envision; you were chosen
just for that purpose.
Rabbi Yarden Blumstein is the teen
director at Friendship Circle in West
Bloomfield.
TORAH PORTION
Rabbi Yarden
Blumstein
Parshat
Vayikra:
Leviticus
1:1-5:26;
Deuteronomy
25:17-19;
I Samuel
15:2-34.