A second thought on the first / title word of parashas Vayiqra…

וַיִּקְרָ^א אֶל מֹשֶׁה וַיְדַבֵּר ה אֵלָיו מֵאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד לֵאמֹר.

And He called to Moshe, and Hashem spoke to him from the Ohel Moeid, saying.

– Vayiqra 1:1

 

“וַיִּקְרָא אֶל מֹשֶׁה” – (יומא ד’ ת”כ) הקול הולך ומגיע לאזניו וכל ישראל לא שומעין יכול אף להפסקות היתה קריאה ת”ל וידבר לדבור היתה קריאה ולא להפסקות ומה היו הפסקות משמשות ליתן ריוח למשה להתבונן בין פרשה לפרשה ובין ענין לענין ק”ו להדיוט הלומד מן ההדיוט

“And He called to Moshe”: The voice went and reached his ears, and all [the rest] of Israel didn’t hear.

[You] could [have thought] that even for the pauses there was a calling. Therefore it says “vayidaber — spoke”. For speech there was a calling, but not for the pauses.

And what [purpose] did the pauses serve? To give Moshe time to contemplate between parashah [paragraph] and parashah and between topic and topic. All the more so [they are necessary] for a normal person learning from a[nother] normal person.

– Rashi ad loc, quoting Tr. Yuma

Notice that our sages’  default assumption is that the pause between topics, that whitespace between paragraphs of the chumash, would be that G-d would call Moshe when it was time to review, contemplate and work out the material He already taught, just as He did for the teaching itself.

Why?

Rav Reueven Leuchter, opens his series on Concentration (first va’ad) contrasting between using the mind to problem-solve, and using the mind to create and refine an idea. People think of thinking in terms of knowing how to solve problems. But an idiot savant can solve math problems well beyond the reach of normal people. Problem solving isn’t a measure of being an ideal human being. Where the mind is spiritual is in its ability to hold and create intangible entities, ideas.

Picture it as circling the idea, seeing it from every angle. For example (his example), assuming you’re exploring the verse, “Da lifnei Mi atah omeid — Know before Whom you stand.” Turn it around…. “DA lifnei Mi atah omeiad. Da LIFNEI Mi atah omeid… Know before WHOM you stand. Know before Whom YOU stand. Know before Whom you STAND.”

Polish each facet of the idea to a good shine. Make the idea real, massive. (Mass: someone who is contemplating a weighty thought can’t simply be pushed aside by the allure of a shiny object or other distraction around him.) Make it a fine brick in a palace you build in your mind. A piece of a whole world of spirituality.

I would like to suggest that Chazal assumed that the pauses would require Hashem’s calling because this kind of creating has such holiness. But instead the pasuq tells us to dismiss the idea. The beauty of each “stone” of the palace within the soul is very much that it is our creation, not gifted from the Almighty.