Leviticus Cycle 7 Kedoshim

 This teaching was given while leading services on a cruise ship traveling from Florida to Barcelona.

Kedoshim

The Root of Holiness 

In Kedushim (this week’s parasha) we, the Israelite community, receive the holiness codes. You will be holy, God says, because I am adonay elohechem and I am holy. This doesn’t mean you will be perfect or successful or even rich or brilliant. It means you at birth are given a holy foundation which allows you to catapult yourself to even a greater intimacy with Hashem. And to help others with the same process. And you can do this through vision, choice and behavior.  Your vision means a lot. But choice and behavior really clinch it. 

This is why the majority of the Torah’s essential laws are found here (Rashi).   They include honoring one’s parents and loving one’s neighbor.  They are well known for their poetic repetition of ani adonay elohechem  (I am the Lord your God).  And for the natural repercussions if we zig instead of zag and look away from our crystal clear holiness (Art Scroll). 

Why do I say crystal clear? Well, look at the Mediterranean. Look at the moon on the deck at night. Know that God created the moon and God created you. Look at the castles or the people getting ready for their processions in churches. Look at the huge welcome when you bump into new friends, at the miracle of your laugh, of your legs that carry you up the hills of medieval towns, at the exact beauty of the arches and the flowers and the tiles on the porticos of homes. 

    

What does kedushim mean though? The root word itself is formed from the letters kuf, dalet, shin. Here, it means holy and is an adjective.  This root word though carries many transformations within Torah and our liturgy. Depending where we look, it can transform to mean the sanctuary itself, the kedushah, a prayer formed by the merkavah mystics to show the angels praising Hashem, the blessing for Shabbat (Kiddush), and marking points within our liturgy (kaddish). 

This is what I see. The root word is (as the Sfat Emet says) with God or Divine Love.  And the root has many reaches and branches on earth.  It’s almost as if we as humans wouldn’t be able to swallow the concept whole so it’s gifted  in pieces.

    

And so too are the mitzvoth….the Jewish path, so to speak…our behavior. The root wood is with God. And the mitzvoth as well have many reaches and branches. The sacred document of the Torah is very specific about the precise mitzvoth. The rabbis of Mishnah and Talmud are very specific about showing us the process of finding the branches. While for them, that means adapting the mitzvoth to the Roman era, for us it means something very different. Given that we are a rabbinic as compared to a Biblical culture however, it’s important as we travel to remember that the interpretation of the mitzvoth, like that of holiness, is really about rabbinic process rather than exact fundamental readings. 

 In other words, it is this holy behavior, not fundamental interpretation, that helps us to be woven into not only our own community, past present and future, but the world community. Just ask Maimonides.

I’m going to give an example. My daughter and I went to see a castle near Grenada yesterday. I bumped into a woman I had met earlier in the cruise. She’s Christian and she explained how she is the God-mother of a baby about one years of age. She visits her often and it seems they are very close.  The baby’s grandmother (she explained) lives far away and only visits rarely.  Since she looks like the grandmother though the baby acts with great excitement when the grandmother herself can visit. It seems the baby confuses the grandmother for the God-mother. The grandmother than says how relieved she is that the baby can remember her. 

When I heard this I explained to the woman that she is doing what we call a mitzvah. She isn’t saying a word to the grandmother so all along the grandmother can believe that it’s because of her that the baby is excited.  This is a beautiful action, holy, not written in Torah or defined. But an action like this is a piece and part of the holiness code.

So may you have safe travels and may you know your holiness and act on it. May you see and uplift others as well. It isn’t easy. It’s natural. It’s natural to walk in God’s path.