Kedoshim 5631 First Ma'amar

How to Lead Holy Lives in a Physical World

Our parasha begins with a commandment to be holy.  “דַּבֵּר אֶל־כָּל־עֲדַת בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתָּ אֵלהֶם קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אֲנִי ה' אֱ-לֹהֵיכֶם/Speak to the entire community of the children of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy for I, God, your Lord, am holy.” (VaYikra 19:2)  The pasuk seems to be instructing us to emulate God.  Just as He is holy so too, must we be holy.  But how can we possibly be holy like God?

The pasuk itself gives us a clue.  The pasuk could have ended with, “כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אֲנִי/for I am holy” and stop.  Why does it add “ה' אֱ-לֹהֵיכֶם /God, your Lord?”  The Midrash[1] on the first few words of the Ten Commandments, “אָנֹכִי ה' אֱ-לֹהֶיךָ/I am God, your Lord” (Shmos 20:2) explains that even though He is the Lord of all the nations, God dedicated Himself specifically to the nation of Israel.  Of course God gives life and existence to the entire Creation.  Still, He is more manifest in us.  So God makes a point of telling us that we can be holy specifically because not only is He holy; He is also our God.  The life force of every Jew, is actually a part of God, as it were.  By separating us from the nations and bringing us close to Him, God gave us the ability to emulate Him and become holy.  Chazal are teaching us that this pasuk is more than a mitzvah.  It is a promise.[2]    

What does being holy mean?  The Hebrew for holy – קָדוֹשׁ – connotes separated, a nuance that is lost in translation.[3]   In this sense God is holy since He is separate from everything.  Paradoxically, though, He fills the entire Creation.  This idea is found in the Midrash[4] on this week’s parsha explaining the pasuk in Tehillim (92:9), “וְאַתָּה מָרוֹם לְעוֹלָם ה'/You are always on high, God.”  The Midrash explains that God’s hand is always on top.  The word “לְעוֹלָם/always” also means “hidden” and “world.”  This Midrash is teaching us that God’s hand is hidden in this world.  He is separate and yet hidden within the universe giving life to it.  It follows that every action has a spiritual Godly force that gives it existence.  Because of our closeness to God, we, too, can become holy by connecting to the spiritual within our physical actions.

Since all Jewish souls are connected to God, they are perforce connected to each other as well.  In fact, Chazal tell us that all the souls of the nation of Israel together comprise one mega-soul called, “כְּנֶסֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל/the congregation of Israel.”[5]  This mega-soul is a powerful spiritual force. 

For this reason, the Torah makes a point of telling us that the mitzvah of “קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ/you shall be holy” was said to the entire community.  Chazal tell us that Moshe Rabeinu taught all the mitzvos to the entire nation.[6]  Why does the Torah single out this one?  According to what we have said, though, it is clear.  By instructing Moshe Rabbeinu to gather the entire nation together to hear this particular mitzvah, God is teaching us how to perform it.  When we cultivate a sense of identity with the nation of Israel, when we recognize that we are a part of the mega-soul of “כְּנֶסֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל/the congregation of Israel,” a part of God Himself, as it were, we are able to live in the physical world and yet connect to the spiritual.  We can connect to the spiritual power of our actions, revealing the hidden Godliness, the holiness in them, thus becoming holy ourselves.

---

[1]Shmos R. 29:4

[2]VaYikra R. 24:2; Zohar 3:81a

[3]For example, the Hebrew word for marriage – קִידוּשִׁין – has the same root as the word for holy because a married woman is separated from all men except one.  A nazarite is called holy because he must keep away from wine and things that would defile his pure spiritual state.

[4]VaYikra R. 24:2

[5]See Nefesh HaChaim 2:17 in Hagaha all the sources in Chazal.  We usually think of the soul as being in the body.  However, according to Chazal only a small part of the soul is in the body.  Most of a person’s soul extends from the body up through many spiritual realms to its source.  It is at the source that we are all connected in “כְּנֶסֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל/the congregation of Israel.”

[6]Eiruvin 54b

Pesach 5631 Second Ma'amar

What Should We Think when Performing Mitzvos Whose Reason We Do Not Know?

In the Hagadah the wise son asks, “What are the testimonies, statutes and laws that God our Lord commanded you?”  The Sfas Emes understands that the wise son is asking to understand the reasons for the laws, not the actual laws.  It is to be assumed that he knows the laws.  The question arises, how can he ask for a reason for the statutes?  Statutes do not have a reason.  Included in statutes, for example, are the red heifer, sha’atnez (garments made from wool and linen) and eating non-kosher animals.  These mitzvos have no apparent reason.  How, then, can the wise son ask for the reason for these mitzvos?

David HaMelech, though, taught us, “מַגִּיד דְּבָרָיו לְיַעֲקֹב חֻקָּיו וּמִשְׁפָּטָיו לְיִשְׂרָאֵל/He told his words to Ya’akov, His statutes and laws to Israel.” (Tehilim 147:19)  We see that really, statutes have meaning as well.  How can we come to know the reasons for the statutes?  The Sfas Emes explains that the way to attain an understanding of the statutes is by doing them even without understanding but with the faith that they have meaning.  By performing these mitzvos without knowing or understanding the reason, we will merit knowing the reason as well.[1]  

The mitzvah of eating matzah alludes to this.  Matzah is made of nothing but flour and water.  It contains no additional spices or flavors.  It has no additional taste.  In Hebrew the same word is used for taste and for reason – טַעַם.  We eat the matzah without adding any other flavor to it to show that the mitzvah itself, sans any reason, is enough for us.

Appropriately, the answer we give the wise son is, “one is not to eat any dessert after the Pesach-lamb.”  He wants to know the טַעַם/reason for the mitzvos including the statutes.  We tell him that the way to know the reasons is to do them without knowing the reason but with faith in God who commanded us.  We give him a hint when we tell him not to add to the טַעַם/taste of the Korban Pesach.”

Even though we do not bring the Pesach lamb as a sacrifice today, this halachah applies nowadays as well.  We eat matzah at the end of the Seder to commemorate the Korban Pesach.  We do not eat anything after the matzah so that only the taste of the matzah lingers.  This year let us contemplate, as we eat the Afikoman, the words of the Sfas Emes.  Let us associate the טַעַם/taste of the Afikoman with the טַעַם/reason for the חוּקִים/statutes and may we merit understanding them as well.

---

[1]See Parshas Parah 5631 First and Second Ma’amarim 2 for more detail on the reasons of חוקים/statutes.

Shabbos HaGadol 5631 First Ma'amar

Why the Shabbos before Pesach is Called Shabbos HaGadol

A Novel Understanding from the Chiddushei HaRim

Why do we call the Shabbos before Pesach, Shabbos HaGadol – The Great Shabbos?  Various reasons are brought.  The Chiddushei HaRim[1] gives two answers.  The first one follows.

The Chiddushei HaRim associates this question with a similar question we find in a Gemara[2] regarding the name of the assembly of Torah greats that functioned during the Babylonian exile and at the beginning of the second Beis HaMikdash.  

R’ Yehoshua ben Levi asks, “Why are they called Anshei K’nesses HaGedola – Men of the Great Assembly? Because they returned the crown to its former glory.  Moshe said, ‘God, the great, the strong and the awesome.’  Yirmiyahu said, ‘Gentiles are cackling in His sanctuary.  Where is the awe?’  (Therefore), he did not say, ‘the awesome.’  Daniel said, ‘Gentiles are enslaving His children.  Where is His strength?’  (Therefore), he did not say, ‘the strong.’  They came and said, ‘Just the opposite.  His strength is because He overcomes His anger and displays patience to the wicked.  His awesomeness is because if it weren’t for the fear of God, one nation (Israel) would not be able to exist amidst all the others.”

We see though, that Yirmiyahu and Daniel never removed the appellation “great” and it therefore never had to be returned.  It is true that the Anshei K’nesses HaGedola returned, “the strong” and, “the awesome” but why is this a reason to call their assembly, “great?”  The Chiddushei HaRim explains that the Anshei K’nesses HaGedola did more than give a novel definition to God’s awesomeness and strength during the exile.  They realized that God’s patience towards our enemies and the trying circumstances in which we survived the exile were the very key to making the subsequent redemption complete.  After the redemption from our enemies in Persia and the miracle of Purim, it became clear that everything that we endured – that His “awesomeness” and “strength,” – were indications of God’s great love for us.  This realization was understandably missing during the tribulations of the exile.  For this reason, they were called the “great” assembly.  They really returned the understanding of God’s greatness – His great love for us.  

What is the connection between this and Shabbos HaGadol?  The Chiddushei HaRim applies this same concept to the Creation.  The Creation is an expression of God’s glory.  However, this only became apparent when the Creation was completed, on Shabbos.  On the first Shabbos it became clear that the entire Creation is really one integral system, each part of which works toward the common goal of revealing God’s glory.  

When we say that it became clear, the meaning is that it became clear to man.  God created the world for man to recognize Him through it.  Before the nation of Israel accepted the Torah, only individuals recognized God in the Creation.  The first time that an entire nation collectively recognized God as the Creator was on the Shabbos before the Exodus when we performed the mitzvah of taking the lamb in preparation for the Korban Pesach.  This mitzvah represents the first time in history that God commanded an entire nation to perform an act and that nation submitted to God’s command.  In terms of recognizing God in the Creation, this Shabbos was the culmination of Shabbos Breishis.  On this Shabbos, it finally became clear to an entire people that everything that happened until this point in history including the Creation itself was the hand of the Creator.  God’s greatness was finally revealed in the Creation.  We commemorate the revelation of God’s greatness on this Shabbos by calling it Shabbos HaGadol – the great Shabbos.

---

[1]Chidushei HaRim Shabbos HaGadol

[2]Sotah 69b