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
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