This Week's Parasha Is Kedoshim, Which Refers to Holiness. It Begins

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Parashat Kedoshim Leviticus 19:1-20:27 This week’s parasha is Kedoshim, which refers to holiness. It begins with G-d instructing Moses to tell the people: Be holy, for I your G- d am holy. Chapters 17-26 of Leviticus comprise what is called the Holiness Code and it includes the section we read this Shabbat. But what does kedusha - holiness - mean? In much of Jewish text, both biblical and liturgical, holiness refers to that which is separated or kept apart. In the Havdalah ceremony we praise G-d hamavdil bein chodesh l’chol, who separates holy from ordinary. Yet many of the commandments in the Holiness Code are about very ordinary, mundane matters. In this week’s reading we hear that it is forbidden to withhold money you owe your employees, that it is commanded to leave the corners of the fields unharvested for the poor, and that scales must use honest weights. Many commentators have concluded that it is only through paying attention to the commandments in our day-to-day lives are we able to enact holiness. Throughout the ages, there has been much commentary on the commandment in Leviticus 19:18 that we must love our neighbor as ourselves. Rabbi Akiva taught us that it was the all-encompassing bedrock principle of the Torah. The Rambam, ever practical, identified specific acts that must be performed to show such love. Among other activities, he said this commandment includes the requirements to visit the sick, comfort mourners, to prepare for a funeral, bring joy to a bride and groom, and bury the dead. A modern psychological approach might focus on the need to truly love oneself in order to fulfill the commandment. Haftarah Amos 9: 7-15 The Haftarah makes an interesting contrast with the Torah reading. The Torah reading for this week speaks of Israel as a holy people, a people set apart. It connects G-d’s special treatment of the Israelites, bringing the people out of Egypt, with the requirement that they set themselves apart by following the commandments in the Holiness Code. By contrast the Haftarah begins by saying that Israel is a people like others and that G-d has rescued other peoples and taken them away from oppressive lands. The Haftarah goes on to prophesy destruction of the wicked among the people, with the image of shaking a sieve – the wicked falling through the holes. The second half describes the great fortune in the future of the others, the good ones who stayed in the sieve. Particularly evocative is the image of the plowman meeting the reaper and those who squeeze juice from grapes meeting the one with the bag of seeds. The images depict an endless harvest where the bounty of fruit and grains continues even as the new planting season commences. .

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