Parshas Kedoshim
Holy Kitchen, Holy Sidewalk, Holy Workplace
This week’s parsha of Kedoshim deals with a myriad of topics, all of
which bear relevance to the central topic of the parsha – kedoshim
tihiyu – “you shall be holy and sanctified, dedicated to God’s service.”
The parsha deals with intimate matters, marriage, home and family. It
deals with monetary matters, commerce and business. It deals with
interpersonal behavior and challenges, with getting along with others
and not taking advantage of the “blindness,” handicaps and mistakes of
others It deals with purely ritual matters, with laws of sacrifices and
tithes and offerings in the Temple. It is one of the most
all-encompassing parshiyot of the entire Torah, leaving almost no area
of human experience and Torah ritual observance untouched. So, at first
glance, it looks like a hodge-podge of different rules all thrown
together, formless and disorganized, unconnected and even unfocused. But
that is far from being the truth of the matter. For the Torah here
emphasizes the essential wholeness and unity of the Jewish concept of
the service of God and of human dedication and holiness.
The home, the marketplace, the Temple, the dinner table and the kitchen
are all the places of holiness. One who restricts “holiness” to
specified places of holiness alone, does the Jewish concept of holiness
a great disservice. The synagogue and the house of Torah study are
special places of holiness but they are not the only exclusive places.
Holiness exists wherever Jews apply the holy practices of the Torah in
their everyday lives. It is never limited by space, time or circumstance.
This fundamental lesson that emphasizes the omnipresence and
universality of the Jewish concept of holiness needs to be repeatedly
emphasized in our personal and national lives. One of the great goals of
both the Chasidic and Mussar movements, in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries respectively, was to spread the idea of Torah holiness into
every aspect of human life and behavior. In Judaism, it is unthinkable
to be a pious person in the synagogue or study hall and a reprehensible
person in commercial or interpersonal relationships. I believe that this
tawdry situation is included in the famous statement of the Ramban in
his commentary to the parsha of Kedoshim that one can be an “obscene
person within the confines of Torah.” Anyone who limits Torah holiness
to matters of ritual, to the places of the synagogue and the study hall
exclusively, enters that obscene, treacherous realm.
The Torah does not grant us the luxury of compartmentalizing our lives
and our striving for holiness. If schizophrenia is a mental and
emotional disease in psychiatric terms, then this is the spiritual
version of that same type of disease. The Haskala in the nineteenth
century proclaimed that it could produce someone who would be a “Jew in
his home and a cosmopolitan human being, a citizen of the world in the
marketplace.” The events of the past century have proven that this
schizophrenic dream is untenable. Only the whole, holy Jew, who
practices holiness everywhere in life and in society can aspire to
fulfill the Godly challenge of kedoshim tihiyu – “you shall be
sanctified and dedicated unto God’s service.”
Shabat shalom.
Rabbi Berel Wein
Text Copyright © 2005 by Rabbi Berel Wein and Torah.org
Visit www.rabbiwein.com for a complete selection of Rabbi Wein's books and tapes.
