Two Thoughts on Parashat Acharei-Mot/Kedoshim

#1: On Kedushah (Holiness)

According to some Hasidic commentators, kedushah refers not to the content of what you are permitted to do or to eat, but to the way that you go about doing or eating it. What is required by kedushah, they say, is to take every action b’yishuv hada’at , with a settled or centered mind, and not bebehalah, in a harried or rushed manner. 

What would it mean not to rush through our meals and our lives, but to lend each moment a sense of sanctity by inhabiting it fully without worry about the next moment?   To take each bite and each action with a feeling of calm, settling into this action right now with our full presence?   

The Hasidic commentator Mei HaShiloah defines the word kedoshim as mezumanim, ready, prepared or invited.  He explains that kedushah involves a mindset of understanding that at any moment God can and will light up your eyes, that at any moment God is ready to receive you and you should be ready to receive God.   To live with kedushah is to live with a constant feeling of expectancy.  Every moment has the potential for enlightenment -- for redemption --  if you are mezuman, called and ready for it, present to this moment’s fullness and richness in time. 

Indeed the word mezuman has the word zeman, time, in it, as if one aspect of holiness is having the right attitude toward time, having a sense of the preciousness and sanctity of the present moment in all its potential for connection and for the experience of true divine presence, always only felt in the present. 

Looking back at the first of our two parshiyyot, Acharei Mot, that parsha begins with a reference to time, too.  Aharon is instructed not to come into the Holy of Holies bekhol et, at every moment.  Literally what this means is that he is not to come all the time, but only once a year, on Yom Kippur; however, the Torah drags its feet in giving us this date, revealing it only 28 verses later.   What stands immediately opposite the term bekhol et, “at every moment,” is the term bezot , “with this.”  Don’t come bekhol et; only come bezot.   Here, too, the word zot has a literal referent -- this, meaning this sacrifice which is named later in the verse.  But taken as the parallel to bekhol et, the word bezot -- with all its deictic “this” strength -- feels like its own commentary on time and kedushah.   Here is my read:  Don’t come into kedushah, into the holiness of connecting to God, with kol et, with all of time on your mind, with a sense of the past and the future clouding your perception of the present; let go of the weight of all that time and just bring yourself into zot, into a sense of “this,” just this moment, just this action. Let go of worry about the larger whole, about what will happen next or what came before; those things will take you away from zot and therefore take you away from kedushah and from a true encounter with the divine.   

I can feel the great applicability of this idea for us, the great need we have to release ourselves from kol et, from the whole of time -- both the burdens we carry from the past, our own and our ancestors’, and the worries we have for the future.   Imagine putting those down when you sit down to eat and just engaging with the food in front of you and the dear people surrounding you, nowhere to go, nothing to do but dwell in the great kedushah of this moment.     

#2: On Love:

Ve’ahavta lere’akha kamokha      Love your neighbor as yourself.

What if I don’t love myself?  That is the question that inevitably comes up for us in any discussion of this commandment.   What does it mean to love someone else as I love myself if I don’t love myself properly?

It is the question of our age and of our culture, a question that comes out of a strong tendency among us to really not love ourselves, and very often, on the contrary, to stand in some position in relation to ourselves that borders on hatred or loathing.   What do we do with this verse in such an emotional context?

I think the verse speaks to this reality quite strongly, and offers us an important perspective:  love of self and love of other are intimately connected.  Read this way, the verse becomes less prescriptive than descriptive; the reality is that the two loves are intertwined; they mirror each other and grow in sync with each other.  We can learn one from the other and the other from the one.  They walk hand in hand through our lives and help us grow in love together.  

What do I mean?  One way of reading this verse is as follows:  Ve’ahavta le’reakha, love your neighbor -- this part comes first because we often do this more naturally, so begin here -- notice your love for your friend and through that love -- kamokha, “like you” -- apply it to yourself; learn to love yourself from the way you love your neighbor.    This process is an explicit practice of some forms of therapy like Mindful Self-Compassion, which suggest that when you are in a difficult position, you should ask yourself what you might say to a friend in such a situation -- maybe even write a letter articulating it -- and then try saying exactly those words back to yourself.   You might naturally be inclined to be critical of yourself in such a situation, but imagining the friend gives you some space and allows you to develop some love and compassion in your approach.  Be your own best friend, is the mantra, not as an alternative to being someone else’s friend, but as a way of learning how to love yourself from how you treat others.   Move from the beginning of the phrase -- re’akha, friend-- to the end of the phrase -- kamokha, yourself.

Or as IFS therapy suggests, sometimes it also helps to conceive of our own most difficult parts as separate little people inside us, very much in need of our love.  The part that is insecure and the part that is afraid, the part that is angry, the part that is hurt -- all those parts of ourselves -- if we imagine them as really just little beings inside us, little angel friends come to live with us -- then there is suddenly more room inside us to befriend them.  We wouldn’t offer them love if they were us -- for some reason that isn’t allowed in our internal systems -- but if we think of them as friends, we can shower love on them more easily.   Ve’ahavta lere’akha kamokha --  learn from the love of friends how to treat yourself and your own little inner friends.  

The self-other love cycle works in the other direction as well of course, the more natural meaning of the verse.  As we grow in self-love and especially in love of these parts of ourselves, there is more love flowing through our system that naturally overflows and makes its way outward to others.   The movement is both outward to inward and inward to outward at the same time, in a kind of spiral effect.  We learn to love ourselves from how we love others and as we grow in love of ourselves, we spiral back to sending it outward, but this time on a higher, deeper level; knowing how to love our own vulnerabilities helps us see and love and befriend those unwanted parts of those around us.   

The Torah understands that love is not a zero sum game but like light, can spread without further cost, and like fire, grows exponentially the more we kindle it.    Ve’ahavta le’reakha kamokha.   Learn from how you love others to love yourself, and then let that love of self burst back out into a world thirsty for it.