Weekly Torah portion: Haharei Mot - kedoshim
In a number of midrashim, the sages draw a parallel between parashat Kedoshim and the Ten Commandments. For example, Leviticus Rabba asks why the verse refers to “the whole Israelite community”. On suggested answer is:
Because it comprises the Ten Commandments: “I the Lord am your God,” and here it says “I the Lord am your God”; “You shall have (no other Gods),” and here it says “Do not turn to idols or make molten gods”; “You shall not swear falsely,” and here it says “You shall not swear falsely by My name”; “Remember the sabbath day,” and here it says “You shall keep my Sabbaths”; “Honor your father and your mother,” and here it says “You shall each revere his mother and his father”; “You shall not murder,” and here it says “Do not profit by the blood of your fellow (literally: You shall not stand upon your fellow’s blood)”; “You shall not commit adultery,” and here it says “the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death”; “You shall not steal,” and here it says “You shall not steal”; “You shall not bear false witness,” and here it says “Do not go about as a slanderer”; “You shall not covet,” and here it says “Love your fellow as yourself” (Leviticus Rabba (Vilna) 24).
The midrash appears to point out a simple parallel, but upon more careful examination we find that the matter is more complex. There is a difference between forbidding murder and requiring positive moral conduct. The commandment for bidding theft in “You shall not steal” and requiring honesty and good faith in “You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another.” The same holds true for the parallel between the prohibition“You shall not covet,” and the commandment to “Love your fellow as yourself.”
The renowned Lutheran theologian Rudolf Otto (Germany 1869 – 1937) rejected any attempt to identify holiness with morality, and sought to define the true, unadulterated nature of holiness free of any ethical element:
‘Holiness’ – ‘the holy’ – is a category of interpretation and valuation peculiar to the sphere of religion. It is, indeed, applied by transference to another sphere – that of ethics – but it is not itself derived from this…The fact is we have come to use the words ‘holy’, ‘sacred’ (heilig) in an entirely derivative sense, quite different from that which they originally bore. We generally take ‘holy’ as meaning ‘completely good’; it is the absolute moral attribute, denoting the consummation of moral goodness…But this common usage of the term is inaccurate. It is true that all this moral significance is contained in the word ‘holy’, but it includes in addition – as even we cannot but feel – a clear overplus of meaning, and this it is now our task to isolate… ‘holy’…denoted first and foremost only this overplus: if the ethical element was present at all, at any rate it was not original and never constituted the whole meaning of the word (Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, 5).
R. Max Kadushin (United States 1895 – 1980) rejected Otto’s approach to the concept of holiness, viewing the ethical component as essential to the Jewish conception of holiness:
The experience of holiness is a mystical experience. Some have declared it to be an experience entirely separate from any other and something that has no relation whatever to normal experience…Our study disproves this contention, so far as rabbinic experience is concerned. The concept of Kedushah has connotations which project it into the sphere of the normal and the practical. It connotes the idea of imitating God in being merciful and gracious; it demands the withdrawal from what is impure and defiling – from idolatry, adultery, and the shedding of blood (Max Kadushin, The Rabbinic Mind, 176).
1. Does the commandment “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy” assume that divine holiness and human holiness are identical? Are the concepts the same? In what manner is a person commanded to be like God?
2. Is it possible that the commandment assumes that divine holiness and human holiness are essentially different? If so, in what way are we supposed to be like God? What sort of holiness are we supposed to achieve by “imitating” God? How does one “imitate” God?
3. Are we commanded to behave better than is required by the law? Is that what the midrash suggests? Can our conscience be commanded? Does the command to be holy deprive us of freedom of choice?
Iyunei Shabbat is published weekly by the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, The Masorti Movement and The Rabbinical Assembly of Israel in conjunction with the Masorti Movement in Israel and Masorti Olami-World Council of Conservative Synagogues.
Chief Editor: Rabbi Avinoam Sharon
