April 23rd: Acharay Mot and Kedoshim
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
This week, we have one of the most important and most mysterious mitzvot in the Torah: “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” (Leviticus 19.2) It is a very inspiring verse, but the exact details of what we are supposed to do are hard to figure. We all know what the word holy means—until we try to define it.
Some would say the word means religious, and it is certainly used that way, but the specifics of religiosity vary widely. Some would say the word means good, but there are lots of definitions of goodness—and lots of differing opinions about what is good. Some suggest that it means sacred, but that is just using a synonym from the Latin word for holy.
The earliest use of the word kadosh / holy comes from texts talking about marriage—that, in marriage, the bride and groom set each other apart as special from all the other people in the world. So, perhaps set apart or special is the way to understand kedushah / holiness. But, the words special or set apart are particularly non-specific. None of these terms are specific enough to tell us exactly what God wants.
Some commentators see the verses following the “you shall be holy” mitzvah as an operating definition: revere our parents, observe the Sabbath, take religious rituals seriously, be generous to the poor, be honest and do not steal or defraud, etc., culminating with verse 18 which commands us, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Scholars even call this chapter The Holiness Code because it lists the ways God expects humans to behave.
In a conceptual sense, one could thus see kedushah / holiness as the process of drawing from within that part of us which is b’tzelem Elohim, the image of God, and bringing it forth into human actions. Since we are being asked to be like God—“You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy,” we can emulate behavior that God models: feeding the hungry, healing the sick, doing justice, etc.
The modern mystic, Rabbi Marcia Prager of Philadelphia, offers a very interesting possibility about what God wants. Rabbi Prager takes the understanding of kadosh / holy as different / set apart and magnifies it exponentially. When it says that God is kadosh, it must mean that God is more different than anything else in creation. Being infinite is one aspect of God’s profound specialness, but Rabbi Prager suggests another. Everything else in existence is either present or not present in any particular spot. Putting aside the conundrums of quantum physics, presence is a Yes or No quality. I am here; I am not there. You are where you are; you are probably not—given the pandemic—where I am. God, on the other hand is utterly different from anything else in the universe in that God is both present and not present in every location.
While we may think about God’s omnipresence as being consistent, the fact is that God can be ignored. It is possible for human beings, despite God’s theoretical presence everywhere, to ignore God’s presence and do remarkably ungodly things. Though we think of God as being omnipotent (all powerful), the fact is that God is dependent upon people drawing upon the godliness available within and bringing it forth into the world. In other words, we are a necessary part of God’s manifestation in the world, and Rabbi Prager sees this as God’s holiness. God is both present and not present in every place at every moment; God is both possible and block-able, and we are being asked to bring God into the world. “The Lord spoke unto Moses saying: Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God, am holy.”