Cross-posted at Streetprophets
Parashat Kedoshim marks the centerpoint of the Torah, falling approximately halfway between the primordial Void and the death of Moses. Translated, it means something like holy matters, holy things, holy beings or holinesses. Kedushim is plural in the same way Elohim is plural: many attributes of One God; many individual ways to be holy within one Jewish nation. Kedushim means us, struggling to be righteous in the wilderness.
Kedoshim opens with God ordering Moses, "Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them 'You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am Holy.'"
Most mitzvot, or commandments, instruct us to act a certain way. A few order us to feel a certain way. This commandment, kedoshim, instructs us to be a certain way.
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Mercifully, the Lord expands upon this mysterious behest with a series of concrete rules to follow, a veritable recipe for holiness. The mitzvot fall into two kinds of admonition: a set of things to do, and a set of things to feel. (More on this difference in a little while.)
Unlike previous iterations of the law which begin by telling us how to relate to God, this version opens with rules telling us how to relate to one another. It is aimed at the entire Israelite community, rather than just the priestly class, and it teaches us to be holy by treating eachother, the strangers in our midst, the least among us and indeed, the whole world as we would like to be treated.
Interestingly, God's first command, after ordering us to be holy, is "You shall each revere your mother and your father and keep your Sabbath. I, YHVH, am your God."
Unlike other recitations of this portion of the Decalogue, God puts the mother first. The Sabbath takes place in the home. Judaism is passed in Jewish law through the mother, whereas the priesthood is inherited through the father. Kedushim sanctifies the mother, the home, the community, and the ordinary aspects of our lives. Holiness is sanctification of the mundane.
We sanctify God's name by following what would, in the days of Herod, become Hillel's golden rule: don't do to others what you would not want done to you...Which brings to mind the famous midrash about Rabbi Shammai and Rabbi Hillel.
One day, about 70 years before the birth of that other internationally famous Jewish educator, a mischievous gentile knocked on the door of the learned, dignified and extremely dour Rabbi Shammai with a challenge. "I will convert to Judaism if you can recite for me the entire Torah while standing on one foot."
"What chutzpah!" exclaimed Shammai. "I've got things to do and you are obviously a shvantz! Get out of here so I can study.
Apparently this particular gentile enjoyed pestering Rabbis because he went straight to Hillel with the same request.
"That's easy," said Hillel, and he lifted one foot in the air like a schmendrick. "Don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you," he admonished. "That is Torah. All the rest is commentary. Now go and study." Then he put his foot down.
The gentile was so impressed that he converted to Judaism, became a great scholar, and never again toilet papyrused anyone's house or egged a chariot on Saturnalia.
In the midst of Kedushim, the middle of the middle, God commands: "You shall not hate your kinsman in your heart. Reprove your neighbor but incur no guilt because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. I am the Lord."
This brings us to the relationship between commandments that instruct us to act a certain way with commandments that instruct us to feel a certain way. The latter is a reward for the former. If we resolve ourselves to not steal, to maintain fair weights and measures, to not commit adultery, etc., then we won't covet and we won't hate our neighbors in our hearts.
And if we don't do the things we are not supposed to do, and don't feel the things we are not supposed to feel, we will be close to God.
Holy. Fit for ritual. Ritual doesn't make us holy. Holiness is the state we must achieve to perform ritual without profaning HaShem, the Name.
And holiness is a state of being that can only be achieved within community.
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