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Leviticus 19:1-20:27

19.1 2 A​ donai spoke to , saying: S​ peak to the whole Israelite community ​ and say to them: You shall be holy, for I, your God Adonai, am holy. . . .

20.26 Y​ ou shall be holy to Me, for I Adonai am holy, and I have set you apart from other peoples to be Mine. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From Mishkan T’filah Holiness occurs when power and goodness co-exist in perfect harmony. Adapted from Mordecai Kaplan How shall we sanctify God’s name? By being holy ourselves. How do we accomplish this? Let our prayers bring us to sacred deed, to actions that promote justice, harmony and peace. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1) This is the first and only time in Leviticus that so inclusive an address is commanded. The Sages say that it means that the contents of the chapter were proclaimed by Moses to a formal gathering of the entire nation. It is the people as a whole who are commanded to “be holy,” not just an elite, the Priests. It is life itself that is to be sanctified, as the chapter goes on to make clear. Holiness is to be made manifest in the way the nation makes its clothes and plants its fields, in the way justice is administered, workers are paid, and business conducted. The vulnerable – the deaf, the blind, the elderly, and the stranger – are to be afforded special protection. The whole society is to be governed by love, without resentments or revenge.

1 What we witness here, in other words, is the radical democratisation of ​ holiness. All ancient societies had Priests. … The Priesthood was not ​ unique to , and everywhere it was an elite. Here for the first time, we find a code of holiness directed to the people as a whole. We are all called on to be holy.

In a strange way, though, this comes as no surprise. The idea, if not the details, had already been hinted at. The most explicit instance comes in the prelude to the great covenant-making ceremony at when God tells Moses to say to the people, “Now if you obey Me fully and keep My covenant, then out of all nations you will be My treasured possession. Although the whole earth is Mine, you will be for Me a kingdom of Priests ​ and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:5–6), that is, a kingdom all of whose members ​ ​ ​ are to be in some sense Priests, and a nation that is in its entirety holy.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

2) Parashat K’doshim teaches us that we cannot separate decent relations ​ ​ between humans from the commandments between a person and his (or her) Maker. Harming or insulting a person is the same as harming or insulting the image of God in that person; therefore, it is harming or insulting to God. Embezzling public money is not different from embezzling that which is holy to God. The reason to “be holy” is because “I, the Eternal your God, am holy.” The holiness of God requires that we lead a holy life.

Rabbi Dalia Marx

3) To be “holy” is only to be “different” or “separate.” Think of what we call holy: is holy; separate or different from the rest of the week because it is a day of rest. is separate from every other day of the year as we spend an entire day in synagogue, looking inward, accounting for our actions and how we might better make the mark in the coming year. When we participate in any life-cycle event, we know that nothing in our daily lives feels like the separate (holy) nature of a b’rit ​ milah, a wedding, a bar or bat mitzvah, a conversion, and even a funeral. All ​

2 of these are called holy because they feel absolutely different from anything else we do in life.

We humans resemble God, the most beautiful and distinct part of ourselves, when we act differently from the way we do ordinarily. That does not mean that there is something inherently wrong about how we act most of the time. It merely means that when we reach a bit higher in our actions, when we stop to do right, when we are intentional in acknowledging the depth of beauty around us, we connect to and maybe even act like the God that resides within every one of us.

Perhaps the greatest paradox of our existence is this: the potential for holiness within us, which is so distinct from our other aspects, is the exact piece that binds us with one another. Moreover, when we connect to that part of ourselves we stop being finite beings and, instead, connect to the infinite nature of the world. When we connect to the infinite and binding energy we might call God, we are then living the definition of what it means to be kadosh ...what it means to be holy. ​ ​ ​ Rabbi Matthew D. Gewirtz

4) When are we to be holy? The verb tense in verse 2 for the word — tihiyu ​ — is the present imperative/command form, "be [holy]," but also the future form, "you shall be [holy]." Holiness is a daily struggle in the here and now, as well as a future yearning.

Holiness seems intrinsically linked in to separateness, to distinctions: milk or meat, Shabbat or weekday, Jew or gentile, male or female.

A wonderful dichotomy now emerges. If holy means separate, a person might be led to believe that in order to become holy we must withdraw and remove ourselves from community. Yet this section was taught publicly, to ​ ​ communicate to us that the holiness we seek is found in community. If to be ​ ​

3 holy is, in some way, to be separate, then how can we do that together as a community?

That is why k'doshim tihiyu — "you shall be holy" — is one of the most ​ ​ ​ ​ difficult commandments in the . It asks us to celebrate the Divine spark within each and every separate individual, accepting that their separateness is part of their spirituality, and yet to consciously and purposefully — and always — frame that unique individuality within the enveloping shelter of the greater community. In today's society of the self, that may just be harder to do than any other mitzvah.

Rabbi Elyse Goldstein

5) … . After death … there is holiness. ​ Together, these words strike at the heart of what it means to be a Jew. That even in dark and deep times, there is the potential for holiness. How do we move through these very difficult and human experiences — death, loss, sadness and disappointment — and emerge on the other side with a sense of wholeness and holiness?

Martin Buber teaches that life is not divided between the holy and the profane, but rather it is divided between the holy and the not-yet-holy. Even when we feel most burdened with the realities of human life, Judaism and our Jewish thinkers give us the lens by which to see that the world is full of endless possibilities. Within everything and everyone is the potential for holiness. And, as is pointed out in the Torah commentary, Etz Hayim, “We can be as holy as we allow ourselves to be.”

Rabbi Amy B. Hertz

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