We’ve been talking so much lately about being a sacred community, and this parasha is all about that. Kedoshim begins with God speaking to Moses saying, “Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them: Be holy, for I Adonai your God am holy.” And this whole section, known as the holiness code, is about how to be holy and create a holy community:
Revere your mother and father.
Keep Shabbat.
Leave the corner of your field for the poor.
Do not steal, deceive, or withhold the wages of your laborer.
Don’t insult the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind.
Be fair in decision making.
Don’t take vengeance or bear a grudge.
Respect boundaries in relationships.
Respect elders.
Love the stranger.
Love your neighbor.
It’s all the basic stuff of being a holy person and creating a holy community when everyone shares these individual commitments to being holy together.
It seems simple and beautiful and straightforward enough. But it also seems kind of naïve and utopian that everyone is just going to go around loving their neighbor all the time, especially when there is distress in a community, when there is a tear in the fabric of a holy community, when people are upset or hurt or angry or doubting the whole community or doubting the whole concept of a holy community in the first place.
This is one of those times. For some, their faith has been rattled. For some, their whole foundation has been shaken. Some have talked about how everything that made Kol Shofar a place of holy place of refuge, peace, and connection has been disrupted. Some have talked about how their relationships have been affected; people’s views of each other have become tainted. People have found themselves in various opposing camps, where it’s not so easy to love your neighbor in the other camp.
And then there’s just the grief and the loss. No matter your opinion on the situation or what camp you might have found yourself in, … this is an enormous loss felt individually and collectively. ... There is a huge tear in the fabric of our sacred community.
So, how does Kedoshim Tehiyu, Be holy, and love your neighbor, and create a holy community and all of that work when there is such a disruption in everything that makes the community holy? It seems to me that the Torah understands this very question and answers it.
It always strikes me that Kedoshim Tehiyu, Be Holy, often doesn’t stand alone; it comes as a double parasha, as it does this year with Acharei Mot. Acharei Mot means “After the deaths,” and it refers to the deaths of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, two priests who were killed inexplicably for offering strange fire. What’s interesting is that story of their deaths took place a few weeks ago, but for some reason, at the beginning of this week’s parasha, the Torah reminds us of this tragedy before launching into the whole holiness code. Rather than jump right in with “be holy and create a holy community in all these ways…” the Torah reminds us of a terrible and dramatic loss, a loss that leaves everyone stunned and spinning, a loss that turned a celebratory time of the dedication of the new mishkan into a tragic time of shock and bewilderment. Why does the Torah bring this up again here at the beginning of this parasha? It seems the Torah wanted us to understand that the whole holiness code applies even when times are difficult, perhaps especially when times are difficult.
We hear this even when we just say the name of this double parasha: Acharei Mot-Kedoshim. “After the deaths, be holy.” It’s short hand for “don’t just think you’re expected to be holy and love your neighbor and create a holy community when everything is good and easy and people are loving each other.” No, Acharei Mot – Kedoshim Tehiyu, “after a time of terrible loss and devastation when things didn’t turn out the way you thought they would, and everyone is all confused and upset, that’s when you really need to be holy.”
I’d like to ask you to think about what it might look like, about what people might do at this time to restore holiness where it has been damaged. I know I take a risk by opening it up for comments, so I’d like to ask people in this setting to really stick to answering the question (there will very soon be other venues for sharing all of our feelings about what’s taken place). So the question again is: what you could do to restore a sense of sacred community that might have been lost? What might you do to help restore someone’s faith, to help steady someone’s foundation that has been shaken? [discussion]
The other thing that always strikes me about this parasha is that it doesn’t just say “Be holy in all these ways.” It says, “be holy in these ways, I am God.” -Revere your mother and father, I am God. Leave the corner of your field for the poor, I am God. Don’t put a stumbling block before the blind, I am God. Respect your elders, I am God. Love your neighbor as yourself, I am God. Love the stranger, I am God. And when you read it, you hear this refrain and wonder why this repetition? It has to be more than God just saying “do this because I am God and I said so.” The way I read it is: God is saying, “if you do these things and be holy and create a holy community, then “I am God” is real, then we experience, Ani Adonai, “I am God.” God is saying: My Presence in the world depends on you being holy to each other and treating each other in these ways.
So, that’s what we need to do: to, each one of us, see ourselves as having that responsibility to bring “I am God” to the community, to restore the faith of another person, to create holiness and wholeness for someone else who is also hurting from this loss.
It’s interesting that the rabbis explain the command to be holy as: Perushim Tehiyu, be separate, because it seems that being holy also has the opposite meaning – be connected. Our lives are already filled with separation and disconnection; we’re Acharei Mot- the loss and pain naturally distances us. Because of that, we need Kedoshim Tehiyu, to be holy, to be connected to each other, to create holy community together, and to bring the Presence of God to each other.
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