“And He (G-d) called to Moshe” (Vayikra 1:1). “The ‘aleph’ of ‘and He called’ is small because Moshe wanted to write ‘and He happened upon’ (which has the same letters as ‘and He called,’ without the ‘aleph’), the way it’s said [regarding G-d’s communication] with Bilam (Bamidbar 23:4 and 23:16), [to make it seem] as if [G-d] only appeared to [Moshe] indirectly, [but] G-d told him to write the ‘aleph’ too, [so] he wrote it smaller.” This explanation, put forth by the Ba’al HaTurim, raises several issues, some of which I discussed several years ago (http://rabbidmk.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/parashas-vayikra-5771/“). I would like to discuss one of those issues further, adding another layer to it.

This is not the first time G-d called to Moshe (see Sh’mos 3:4, 19:3, 19:20 and 24:16). Why didn’t Moshe try to make the “aleph” of the word “and He called” smaller earlier? The source of the Ba’al HaTurim’s explanation, Midrash Rabbi Akiva ben Yosef al Osiyos K’tanos v’Ta’ameihen (Batay Midrashos II, pg. 478), says that the reason Moshe wanted to drop the “aleph” (and eventually made it smaller) was to differentiate between the way the angels are called and the way he was called. How did Moshe know the manner in which G-d called the angels? Spending 40 days and 40 nights atop Mt. Sinai, where he “ascended to the heavens” (see Shabbos 88b), Moshe was able to witness it first hand. After seeing that the angels were “called” by G-d, he didn’t want the way G-d initiated communication with him to be described in the same way.

When explaining what “The Book of the Covenant” (Sh’mos 24:7), which Moshe wrote down and read to the people (24:4) right before (or, according to Ramban, right after) the public revelation, was, Rashi (on 24:4 and on 24:7) tells us it was the Torah “from the ‘beginning’ (i.e, creation) until the point where the Torah was given.” Since Moshe wrote this down before he spent 40 days and 40 nights atop Mt. Sinai (see Rashi on 24:1), he was not yet aware that G-d “called” the angels, so had no reason to protest against his communication with G-d being described the same way. There was much communication between G-d and Moshe before then, and, if anything, the communication between G-d and Moshe was on a much lower level then. Yet is still described as “and He called,” with a full-size “aleph,” because when it was written Moshe didn’t realize its implication. Only later, when he understood that his communication with G-d would be compared to how He communicates with the angels, did Moshe try to correct that perception.

This explanation works for the earlier instances of “and He called.” However, Moshe being “called” to ascend Mt. Sinai for the public revelation (19:20), as well as being “called” to ascend for 40 days and nights (24:16), weren’t written down until afterwards (even though they had occurred before Moshe was aware that the angels were “called”). Nevertheless, his level of communication with G-d was certainly not worse in those two instances than those described earlier, so it would be inappropriate to differentiate between his earlier communication with G-d (including the one that had occurred just days earlier) and these two. However, the first communication that took place in the newly dedicated Mishkan, which was a prototype for all subsequent communication (see Rashi on Vayikra 1:1) and is therefore purposely described in the same way as G-d’s communication with the angels (ibid), provided Moshe with the opportunity to let everyone know that it was not exactly the same as it is with the angels. Even though G-d didn’t let him leave off the “aleph” completely (since Moshe’s level of communication with Him was so far above that of Bilam), He did allow him to make it a small one, thereby differentiating between the cherished way he was “called” and the cherished way the angels are “called.”