Climbing Torah’s Ladder: Being, Becoming, Holiness
The finish line of Yom Kippur’s spiritual, ethical, and emotional marathon draws in sight as we reach Mincha. But even if we’re feeling hungry, thirsty, and exhausted at that point, with apologies to Robert Frost, we have miles to go before we eat. While the traditional Torah reading is from Leviticus 18, regarding forbidden sexual relationships, the Reform machzor, Mishkan HaNefesh, offers alternatives, including excerpts from Leviticus 19 from Parashat Kedoshim, commonly called “the Holiness Code.” It begins, “You shall be holy, for I, your Eternal God, am holy.”
In addressing this powerful demand, it helps to clarify what holiness is not. The story is told of Shlomo, a faithful, meticulous Jew, never committing a sin or omitting a duty. At the end of a long, flawless life, Shlomo dies and presents himself at heaven’s gate. To his dismay, he is denied admission. He insists, “There’s been a terrible mistake! I led a perfect life!” The angel in charge replies, “Shlomo, you don’t understand. There are many luminaries here — Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha. None of them was perfect. All of them sinned. They’d be very uncomfortable having you around.”
The portion does not begin, “You shall be perfect.” Perfection is an aspiration, an attribute of the Divine, not the Torah’s expectation. Otherwise, why would it provide for atonement and forgiveness? The pathos, drama and redemptive power of Yom Kippur lie precisely in its understanding of human imperfection and our need to struggle and come to terms with it. Growing in goodness is a lifelong journey of steps, stumbles, and stages.
Kedoshim’s stirring call to holiness is rooted in Parashat Bereshit, the Torah’s creation narrative, which declares that human beings are created in God’s “image.” We can well understand the astonishment of the Psalmist that the Creator of a vast, majestic universe would be mindful of mere mortals and endow them with such stature. But in asserting our likeness to the Divine, the Torah affirms two things unequivocally: human intellectual, creative, and moral capacity; and the uniqueness, and innate, equal dignity of every person, without distinction. It lays a foundation of eternal values for all that follows.
The implications of that audacious affirmation found expression in the Reform machzor’s chosen Yom Kippur morning portion from Parashat Nitzavim. By contrast with Bereshit’s universalism, it emphasizes Jewish particularity: the brit, our collective and individual responsibilities as a People living in covenant with God; and the alah, our sworn oath to fulfill them. Anticipating our lack of confidence in our ability to do so, it assures us, “This mitzvah…is neither beyond you nor far away. Lo bashamayim hi… It is not in heaven…nor across the sea…No, it is very near to you – in your mouth and in your heart to do it.” So, while Bereshit sees resembling God as an intrinsic aspect of human nature and potential, of our being, to Nitzavim, godlikeness derives from actualization in deeds, from our Jewish becoming.
Kedoshim moves from being and becoming to holiness. It synthesizes the universal and the particular and concretizes the inspiring and lofty abstractions of Bereshit and Nitzavim. From the outset, it contradicts a common misconception that religion is principally defined by worship, rituals, and sacred occasions. These, and text study, too, are vital; they enrich and elevate our lives. But ethics, righteous conduct, is at the heart of Jewish religiosity and spirituality. For example, the passage forbids rumors, gossip, and grudges, and all manner of dishonesty, exploitation and bias.
Holiness informs even seemingly secular matters, like measures of length, weight and capacity, liquid and dry. It instructs, “You shall have an honest balance, honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin.” Honest, honest, honest, honest. I’m guessing that the last time you bought a quart of milk or a 5 lb bag of flour you took it for granted you’d receive exactly that amount and weren’t thinking about holiness, but the Torah sees the matter exactly that way. And it urges us to do the same. Indeed, the Talmud teaches that the first question God will pose to us after our death is “Did you conduct your business affairs honestly?” To the Torah, integrity in financial and commercial dealings is more than just; it is holy.
Holiness involves especially how we act toward those who are vulnerable or broken: the poor, persons with disabilities, the elderly, those who are hungry or barely subsist, who have suffered a loss or injury or have a grievance. Above all, it forbids standing by idly while others suffer. Our rabbis understood being like God to mean emulating God’s example, fulfilling a verse from Isaiah, “Thus says [the Holy One],’ I dwell on high in holiness, yet [also] with the…lowly of spirit, reviving [their] hearts.”
The Talmud’s Rav Hama found in the Torah numerous instances of God’s compassion in action: clothing the naked, as God did by providing Adam and Eve with garments when they were expelled from Eden; visiting the sick, as God did when Abraham was ailing; comforting mourners, as God did Isaac after his father’s death; and burying the dead, as God did Moses. In doing likewise, our holiness echoes and magnifies God’s own. Some 18 years later, I still recall how ICU nurses brought us God’s comforting presence and their own when my parents lay dying. Heaven is not the sole abode of holiness. It is within us and among us when we become its instruments.
In his epic book, Man’s Search for Meaning, written largely in Auschwitz, Viktor Frankl disputed the idea of a universal “meaning of life.” Rather, he wrote, the primary question of human existence is “What is the meaning of my life?” And the answer is not something we discover but something we choose as we respond to the large and small dilemmas life presents. Even in a death camp, Frankl found, the one freedom that could not be taken away was “the freedom to choose one’s way.” The Torah speaks in the idiom of obligation, but it is profoundly volitional. It seeks to guide our choices, exhorting us to “Choose life” and blessing. It seeks to guide our choices, from monumental to otherwise minor. It is teaching us that each day, in every place, circumstance and encounter, we can choose to act in a holy way, and it details how.
The most profound and challenging element of holiness is love – to love neighbors and strangers kamocha, “as yourself.” The Torah knows that emotions like love are involuntary and cannot be evoked on command. By “love” it means that we must act lovingly by showing others the same respect, consideration and compassion we want them to show us. Rather than “as yourself,” kamocha might best be translated as “like you.” Thus, the verse is saying: You shall love your neighbor. She is like you. You shall love the stranger. He is like you.
Affirming the fundamental likeness of all persons is particularly hard and important with those, be they neighbors, strangers or others, with whom we feel little or no connection, with whom we differ, perhaps even vehemently, or toward whom we feel antipathy. Kamocha is a timeless summons to an ethic of empathy in place of indifference, hard-heartedness, and hostility. Hence, the Torah’s oft-repeated reminder that we “know the stranger’s heart,” having ourselves been strangers in Egypt. “Like you” invokes our shared humanity and destiny. It reminds us that if God’s image is found in ourselves it necessarily abides in everyone else, even those in whom it is hardest to discern.
In the post-October 7th world, we might ask if the commandment to love the stranger includes our mortal enemies. Suffice it to say, they’re not the strangers the mitzvah intends. Even as it enshrines seeking peace as an ultimate value, the Torah knows that evil is real. And it justifies killing those who actively seek to kill us, even preemptively, as self-defense. Jewish tradition calls such a war “milchemet mitzvah,” a commanded war. But we are forbidden to rejoice in our enemies’ deaths, just as God is said to have rebuked the angels who sought to celebrate the drowning of Pharoah’s charioteers who pursued our ancient ancestors into the Red Sea. Murderous strangers are made, not born. They, too, once bore the image of God. And as to the death of innocent civilians, a tragic consequence of every war, they diminish God’s presence in the world.
Egypt was but first of countless places in our long history where Jews have been regarded as outsiders and subjected to disrespect, discrimination, and much, much worse. And as Daniel Gordis recently observed, history came calling this past year, the year that Brett Stephens says, “American Jews woke up.” For millennia, Jews have known and, sadly, we are learning anew, what it means to be thought of and treated as strangers, to be objects of hateful words and violent deeds in the streets, schools, workplaces and synagogues of our own country, against Israel, and throughout the world. Even in the face of burgeoning anti-Semitism, the Torah insists we refuse to be cowed or intimidated and, instead, stand up and speak up, celebrate and deepen our Jewish identity and support Israel’s right to exist in safety and security as a Jewish state, openly, with pride and tenacity, and to exemplify a higher standard.
With respect to both neighbors and strangers, the Torah teaches us to emphasize our inherent commonality, to respect and even cherish our differences, to assume the best rather than the worst of others, and seek to understand their feelings and fears. Building and sustaining meaningful relationships and healthy communities of all kinds requires time, effort, patience and humility, readiness to compromise, forbearance, and generosity in both seeking and granting forgiveness. President Lincoln called these attributes “the better angels of our nature.” The Torah calls them holiness.
We are climbing Torah’s ladder. Bereshit tells us we possess unique Godlike potential. Nitzavim assures us we can realize it. And Kedoshim confirms that holy deeds bring blessing to ourselves and others, endow our lives with meaning, and transform the world. That is the Torah’s solemn promise and, it tells us, is God’s will. May it also and ever be our own.