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Parshat Kedoshim 5774/April 26, 2014
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912
Holiness: A Matter of Morality or Religion?
By Schubert Spero1
"The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them:
You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your G-d, am holy" (Lev. 19:1-2).
The opening verses of this week's reading, which present an extremely rare formulation in
the Torah, prepare the reader for a most important subject. Moses is commanded to gather
all the people—men, women and children—and convey to them the requirement, "You shall
be holy." This is apparently the highest level of human development and the object of all
the commandments.2 In order to thoroughly understand this important verse we must
distinguish between the questions that follow and deal with each one separately.
1
Dr. Spero is the Irving Stone Professor of Jewish Thought.
2
Being holy is the supreme objective of the people: "But you shall be to Me…a holy nation" (Ex. 19:6),
and of the individual: "You shall be holy people to Me" (Ex. 22:30); also in the scale of development
of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair: "Fear of sin leads to holiness, and holiness leads to the Divine Presence
being among us" (Avodah Zarah 20b).
1) What practical demands are made by this commandment?
Since holiness befits both G-d and man, it can manifest itself on a variety of levels and in a
variety of forms. The Sages (Sifra 151.2) related to the etymology of the word, interpreting
kedoshim (=holy) as perushim (=set apart), that is, separated and distanced. But the
question is distancing oneself from what? According to Rashi, this meant distancing oneself
from sexual impropriety; according to Malbim, "from all the ways of the material and natural
world."
More apt, in my view, is Nahmanides' interpretation that "You shall be holy" is a "general
commandment," that we also set ourselves apart from that which is permitted us so that we
not fall into the pit of observing the letter but not the spirit of the Torah. Of course the
concept of holiness includes not only "shunning evil" but also "doing good," that is,
distancing ourselves from that which is evil and moving towards the good and the G-dly, to
the point of always adhering to the ways of the Lord with all our might.3
2) What is "holiness"?
The key to holiness, it turns out, lies in the nature of the commandments that immediately
follow the verse quoted, most of which concern morality. Therefore Rabbi David Tzvi
Hoffman summed up:
"The concept of 'holiness' means the highest level of moral
perfection, aspiring only to good and spurning evil."4 His explanation is very close to what
follows from Nahmanides' understanding, because the entire matter of "making oneself holy
by that which is permitted you" and of "doing the letter but not the spirit of the Torah"
belongs to the realm of individual morality and virtue. The notion of acting "better than the
letter of the law," deduced by the Sages from the verse, "do what is right and good" (Deut.
6:18) and cited by Nahmanides in the same context,5 also belongs to the realm of social
morality.
However, this impression that holiness is fundamentally a moral value appears to contradict
an important tradition in the philosophy of our religion, that the term "holy" represents the
unique quality of religious experience and is specific to religion.
3
Therefore it is
The word kadosh can also be used to denote something set aside for evil. Cf. Rashi on Gen. 38:21:
"Kedeshah refers to a woman set aside (mekudeshet) for (cultic) prostitution."
4
See his commentary on Leviticus, as well as David S. Shapiro, "The Meaning of Holiness in Judaism,"
Tradition 7:1, p. 48.
5
"It is the way of the Torah to list details as well as to state the generality, and the like."
impermissible to transpose this term or devalue it by defining it in terms taken from other
realms.6
In truth, there is no difficulty here; the source and root of holiness and its manifestation as
the "Divine Presence" clearly is G-d, and the term "holiness" is taken from the world of
religion, as Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik has explained:7 "The concept of holiness is rooted in
the bond between man and G-d that exists in the context of actual life. According to the
Halakhah the sanctity of time and place is identical with the Divine Presence dwelling in the
context of the here and now." Accordingly, he interprets the verse from Isaiah (6:3), "Holy,
holy holy! The Lord of Hosts!" in accordance with Targum Yonathan, that the three
repetitions of "holy" allude to three realms in which holiness is manifest: holy in heaven,
holy on earth, and holy in time.8 Rabbi Soloveitchik explains:
Holiness begins in Heaven and ends in the eschatological vision of the End of
Days…But the hand that connects these two notions is the concept of
holiness in the Halakhah (i.e., practical instructions of the Torah). This
holiness, created by man…finds its fulfillment in observance of the
proscriptions against certain sexual relations, eating specific foods, and the
like.9
These commandments express individual morality and social morality. That holiness which
is created by man makes possible the Divine Presence over us: "Let them make Me a
sanctuary [a place of sanctity] that I may dwell among them" (Ex. 25:8). It is interesting that
even the sanctity of G-d is characterized as something moral, as evidenced by the text of the
Amidah prayer on the New Year and the Day of Atonement, in the benediction of the
kedushah, which begins as usual: "Holy are You and holy is Your name," but before
concluding with the words, "Holy King," inserts several prayers beseeching the Lord for
universal justice, such as:
"Therefore, let fear of You,…Therefore, give honor…, and
therefore may the righteous," and concludes with the deep and perplexing verse, "And the
Lord of Hosts is exalted [nikdash, sanctified] by judgment [tzedakah, righteousness,
charity?]" (Isa. 5:16).
6
For example: Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, Oxford University Press 1950.
7
"U-vikashtem mi-Sham," Ish ha-Halakhah—Galui ve-Nistar, Jerusalem 1979, p. 188.
8
In the prayer, "A Redeemer shall come to Zion…Holy in the highest heavens, the place of His divine
abode; holy upon earth, the work of His might; holy forever and to all eternity."
9
Ish ha-Halakhah—Galue ve-Nistar, Jerusalem 1979, p. 47.
Note that the most sublime prayers, expressing the hope that we may see mankind united
around moral values, were composed by the prophet specifically to G-d as the Holy Deity
and King, who is hallowed by moral values.
3) How are the beginning and end of the passage (Lev. 19:2) connected?
It is clear from the context that the word ki, "for," connecting the beginning to the end,
serves to give an explanation of the command, that is to say, "you shall be holy" because G-d
Himself is holy. But one can still wonder whether it serves to answer the question, why be
holy? Or, what authority stands behind the command: why must we be holy?
According to Nahmanides, insofar as G-d is Holy, the only way of adhering to Him is to be
holy. According to Sforno, the particular force of the command is that G-d Himself is holy
and therefore we must aspire to be like G-d. Sforno adds, "Just like His intention in creating
man, saying, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness' (Gen. 1:26)." The creation of
man in the image of G-d informs us that we are able to resemble our Creator; but our duty
to be like Him stems, according to the Halakhah, from the positive commandment, "walk in
His ways" (Deut. 28:9), as the Sages explain: "Just as He is merciful, so you, too, should be
merciful…just as He is called holy, so you, too, should be holy."10 This concerns the realm of
individual morality, characteristics of the soul.
Elsewhere the Sages interpret "walking in His ways" in practical terms: just as He clothes the
naked, so should you, too…,11 which is the realm of social morality. The main thrust of this
commandment, "walk in His ways," turns out to include the instruction, "you shall be holy"—
resembling G-d in His good acts by being kind and merciful, as well as upright and ethical.12
Thus from two different directions—analyzing the concept of holiness, on one hand, and
examining the command to "walk in His ways," which includes the commandment that "you
shall be holy," on the other—we reach a single conclusion: that the concept of holiness, be
it of man or of G-d, lies in the realm of moral values.
In conclusion we must ask what these general commandments add to all the specific
precepts explicitly stated in the Torah? What are we to learn from these commandments?
An answer regarding "you shall be holy" has been provided by Nahmanides. Regarding the
command to "walk in His says" Rabbi Elimelech bar Shaul writes as follows:
10
Sifre 11:22.
11
Sotah 14.1.
12
Mitzvah ve-Lev, Tel Aviv 1956, p. 182. See Sefer ha-Hinukh, commandment 611.
The special nature [of this command] is not new in the sense of introducing
a new theme, rather it is an innovation in terms of direction and criterion.
The specific moral precepts look to the other, and the well-being of the
other is the criterion; whereas here ("walk in His ways") the direction is
more sublime and the criterion more comprehensive—to resemble the
Creator.13
Now we return to the question with which we began: is holiness a moral or a religious
concept? Surely we must answer that it is both in the innovative sense particular to
Judaism, which from the outset has stressed the "religious nature of morality."14 In other
words, one should hold in high esteem moral values (such as righteousness, justice,
kindness, mercy, etc.) because these are the "ways of the Lord," not only because the Lord
wants human beings to walk in these ways but also because they are the ways in which the
Lord, Himself, walks. They are, as it were, part of G-d's "personality," even if they are
beyond human understanding.
Translated by Rachel Rowen
13
Ibid., p. 183.
14
On this precise expression see Daniel Statman and Avi Sagi, "Iyyunim be-She'elat ha-Yahas bein Dat
le-Musar be-Haguto shel Buber," Da`at, pamphlet 17.