Kedoshim

James Sevitt, May 3, 2003, 1 Iyyar, 5763

In this week's parsha, Kedoshim, which has been revered and reinterpreted by numerous Jewish scholars, we read about the fundamental values and laws of k'dusha - holiness. In fact, perhaps more appropriately, it should be said, that throughout Kedoshim we listen to God address us, and outline a framework through which one can aspire towards holiness. Holiness is presented as that which we are obliged to embody, it is a way of being and acting, of distinguishing what is holy from what is not.

At the same time, as the Jewish tradition teaches, holiness is the act of emulating a God who is without form or body, and whose holiness we can never wholly reproduce. As I will endeavour to explain further, holiness is that which is always possible and necessary, but also that which remains elusive and distinct.

In Kedoshim - which is regarded as the core of Jewish law and ethics -- we encounter what appears to me as the paradox of holiness, as we enter upon a terrain that is at once empowering and daunting. From the very opening verse of Kedoshim the limitless potential and the pressing demands of k'dusha - holiness -- are evident.

Through Moses as an intermediary, God instructs the people of Israel: "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am Holy." Clearly distinct from the mortality of human beings, God offers us the possibility of holiness. It is an unwavering offer that infuses Jewish tradition with an ethics, a responsibility and a purpose.

As the Torah teaches us, we, as human beings, are fashioned in the image of God. God is an endless source of holiness, from which we emerge as human approximations of such a lofty ideal. In this vein, the French Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, reminds us of a rabbinical saying that recounts how we are like the individual "who breathes in the perfume of the cedar tree-and whose joy takes nothing away from the cedar. Or like the individual who draws water from a spring. Or like the individual who lights their flame from a flame. Through Levinas' imagery we are reminded of the insatiable quality of God's holiness.

Seen from a different angle, Rabbi Art Green interprets this insatiable quality as a holiness that is never satisfied and is always determined in the future to come. In looking at the text, he notes how God speaks to us in the future tense, imploring, "You shall be holy". As Rabbi Green resolves, one is obliged to continually add holiness to holiness.

In this way, Jewish customs and practices act as a reminder of the possibility of holiness, inspiring us to set ourselves apart in certain ways and celebrate who we are and the values that sustain the Jewish tradition. By celebrating a particular holiday or performing a certain ritual one is reminded of who one is and where one comes from. In this way, holiness never achieves closure, but is an expression of gratitude and humility, a process of reflecting and taking stock.

But still it seems necessary to ask more questions: How one can one actualize holiness? In what ways does holiness make us different and in what ways does it bring us together? Where are these boundaries and limitations? In what way are they unquestionable and in what ways must they be redrawn?

The answers to these questions are not simple. Indeed, it is their complexity that makes them so powerful, challenging us to conceive of adequate responses.

As a traditional egalitarian synagogue, I would suggest that our community is essentially founded upon finding answers to these difficult questions. It is a community within which one's responsibility, compassion and judgment are constantly tested. Narayever, like many other communities within and outside of the Jewish community, continues to be rooted in and committed to a tradition that it simultaneously feels compelled to reinterpret anew. This is a process inspired by holiness and also striving towards holiness. It is the act of a community carving out a new space within an ancient source whose infinite magnitude incites us to wonder about the mysteries of our origin.

Engaging in such a process can provide great strength for a community, yet as we also know, it can also require a community to confront fragility and divisiveness. These are delicate boundaries that, unfortunately I believe, force us at times to choose between judgment and compassion. Between acting for oneself and acting for another.

Yet, as parsha Kedoshim teaches us, this choice is not absolute. Judgment and compassion are not mutually exclusive from one another, but, in fact, draw great strength from each other.

The celebration of Pesach last month and the commemoration of Yom Hashoah last week, both provide two illustrative examples of compassion emanating from judgment.

They speak of a Jewish moral sense whose attentiveness is kept alive by centuries of inhumanity. It is a morality, that although still undercsored by vulnerability, compels one to appreciate what one has and how one can help others who are in need. We are chosen not for exceptional privileges, but rather for exceptional duties.

Accordingly, Chapter 20, verse 34, reads: "The stranger that sojourns with you shall be unto you as the homeborn among you, and thou shalt love them as thyself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord."

Thus, from the experience of both our enslavement in Egypt and our dehumanization within the Shoah, we learn of the absolute necessity of respecting rather than punishing difference. We learn that because we were marked out and punished for being the Other, we ourselves have a ceaseless responsibility towards all others. Furthermore, we must be judged by the same standards as all others, requiring us to be self-critical when necessary.

For me in particular, I believe the devastation and incomprehensibility of the Shoah, urge us to question and contemplate how we relate to those that our different from us and part of another community. Indeed, it is necessary to move beyond thinking of the stranger as a stranger, and instead, as an equal whose difference is celebrated as diversity, as an expression of the dignity and holiness of difference.

This is a holiness that is distinct but not detached, that is unknown but always beckoning. Holiness is the moment where one, somehow, deciphers the extraordinary within the ordinary. Holiness is our responsibility. It is also an offer that may require our entire life to learn how to embrace.

As an excerpt from Bamidbar Rabah reads:

Entrances to holiness are everywhere. The possibility of ascent is all the time. Even at unlikely times and through unlikely times.

May we all continue to search for holiness, as individuals and as a community, Shabbat Shalom.