Kedoshim Tehiyu. “Be holy for I the Lord your God am holy.” So begins the second of this week’s two parshiyyot. What does it mean to be kadosh, holy?
According to Rashi, kedushah, holiness, involves the separation from the prohibited sexual unions listed in the end of the previous parsha (as well as the end of Kedoshim). But according to Nachmanides, being kadosh does not mean keeping the bare minimum of prohibitions assigned by the Torah; it means striving for more. As Nachmanides points out, it is easy for a person to be a naval bereshut haTorah, “a vile person within the permissible realm of the Torah.” It is easy, in other words, to officially keep all the laws of the Torah, but to nonetheless act in disgusting ways, to eat only permitted foods but to eat them in an uncivilized beastly manner. So the Torah added on this general statement – kedoshim tehiyu, to let us know that we should do more than the bare minimum.
Kedushah then has a kind of reaching quality to it. It is not quantifiable; it has no maximum. It is a process, a journey, an attitude of striving. This is the nature of many of the laws of Kedoshim – love your neighbor as yourself; show respect to the elderly; do not go around spreading gossip; leave the corners of your fields for the poor. These laws involve going beyond minimum neighborly decency; they offer us a picture of the kind of loving society we should be aiming for.
The nature of Kedoshim’s laws is highlighted by a midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 24:5) which draws parallels between them and the 10 commandments. Ari Hart on the Uri L’Tzedek website (a great new Orthodox social justice movement), commenting on this midrash, points out that the 10 commandments create a floor, a required minimum, for a functional society, while parashat Kedoshim imagines a people striving toward a higher goal.
Thus, while the 10 commandments prohibit false testimony against a fellow in a court case, parashat Kedoshim prohibits any type of gossip or slander. While the 10 commandments prohibit jealousy, Parashat Kedoshim says, “Wish for your neighbor what you would wish for yourself” (ve’ahavta le’reakha kamokha). Do more than not wish him evil; actively desire good for him. The 10 commandments say “Do not murder,” while Kedoshim says Lo Ta’amod al dam re’ekha – Do not stand by while the blood of your fellow is being spilled. One is a minimum call to not yourself commit a murder; the other is a call for active intervention on behalf of your suffering fellow in the world. Do not stand idly by if you can save him.
They say that the key to ending a culture of bullying among children is to change the culture of “bystanders,” to convince those who stand by and either support or simply watch the bullying to actively intervene in some way. This is the message of Parashat Kedoshim. Yes, the bare minimum is the 10 commandments; first make sure you yourself are not being the bully. But beyond that there is a world to actively fix. Being kadosh means doing more than you are required to do, not just refraining from evil action, but helping to create a culture of love and generosity.
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So beautifully and forcefully articulated and elaborated Ramban’s understanding of Kedushah! Yishar Kochech, Rachel.
ReplyDeleteThere's a tacit--and, I believe, correct-- premise in your excellent discussion: all of the examples cited of how one attains sanctity by exceeding the law's requirements pertain to commandments between man and man, not to commandments between man and God. To do more than the law requires when it comes to ritual matters seems unnecessary and is sometimes even regarded as pretentious (and criticized by the rabbis on that account); to do more than the law requires when it comes to ethical matters is to be holy. I've never actually seen that hypothesis articulated in so many words, but Maimonides makes a related point when he suggests that it's better to refrain from murder because you regard it as inherently reprehensible rather than only because God forbade it, but it's better to refrain from eating non-kosher food only because God forbade it than because you can't stand its taste.
ReplyDeleteJoel