Saying thank you is not just polite, but holy

A few months ago, I noticed that my kids often weren’t saying thank you to people in service roles — baristas, cab drivers, librarians. I tried gentle reminders with mixed results. So one day, I sat them down and explained a concept from Jewish tradition: Kiddush Hashem.

The phrase literally means “sanctifying God’s name.” When people observe a committed Jew living with integrity, the Talmud explains, they should declare: “Fortunate is his teacher; fortunate is his God.”

This reframe changed everything. Now, when we leave a store or step out of a cab, I whisper “Kiddush Hashem” to my kids and they light up. They say thank you with real gusto, even a sense of purpose.

At first, I was just grateful it worked. Only later did I begin to understand why.

* * *

I’ve never found “holy” to be a particularly usable word. When someone dies, we speak of them as kind, generous, principled — but rarely as holy. Holiness tends to register as irrational or out of reach.

The anthropologist Richard Shweder describes the “ethic of divinity” as a framework in which human beings are seen not just as autonomous individuals, but as vessels of the sacred. In much of the West, this ethic has faded. In its place is the ethic of autonomy: be yourself, and do no harm. In such a framework, holiness is almost unintelligible.

Yet, in the heart of Leviticus — at the beginning of this week’s second Torah portion, Kedoshim — the Torah delivers one of its most radical commands: “You shall be holy.” Not as a dream or as an ideal, but as a duty.

For years, I searched Leviticus for echoes of modern sensibilities — the social justice of caring for the vulnerable, loving your neighbor, building a just society. But lately, I’ve been drawn to the ways Leviticus doesn’t fit our categories — the demands it makes that feel unfamiliar or uncomfortable. I’ve begun to ask more seriously: What does it mean to be holy? And why does the Torah demand it?

The Hebrew word for holiness — kodesh — is notoriously difficult to translate. It shows up across the Jewish tradition in strikingly different contexts. Shabbat is kadosh, set apart from the six ordinary days that precede it. A marriage is formalized through kiddushin, a ritual that sanctifies exclusivity. In synagogue, we recite kedusha, one of our most central prayers, proclaiming God’s holiness. The opposite of kodesh isn’t evil. It’s hol — mundane, everyday.

At the beginning of Kedoshim, Rashi defines holiness as separation from immorality, particularly in sexual conduct. Nachmanides goes further, arguing that holiness means elevating what is permitted — not living coarsely, even when we technically could. The Sages in the Midrash take it in another direction: kedusha means imitating divine traits.

With so many definitions, holiness can seem too vague to be useful. But I don’t think it is. My claim is this: despite the diversity of interpretations, there is a thread that runs through nearly every use of the term. Holiness marks something as consequential. Kedusha is what we call something when it matters at a different level.

Shabbat isn’t holy because the weekdays are profane. It is holy because it gestures toward something beyond — a rhythm that interrupts our ownership of time. A marriage isn’t holy because other relationships are meaningless. It is holy because it binds two people in a covenant that is especially consequential.

And the radical claim of our Torah portion is that this can happen not just with sacred rituals, but in nearly any domain of life. Kedusha rests on the belief that everything can be elevated and made meaningful. That we can consecrate conversation, intimacy, even commerce.

The Torah’s exhortation of “Kedoshim tiheyu” — You shall be holy — is not a spiritual status we inherit. It’s a charge. A possibility. We can choose to make something holy. The Torah’s version of holiness is one of the most human-affirming ideas we have inherited: that God has given us the ability to make ordinary things matter.

And that, I think, is what Kedoshim is trying to teach us. Holiness isn’t a feeling. It isn’t a private spiritual state, or a label reserved for religious virtuosos. Kedusha is treating life like it matters — the belief that our time can become sacred.

C.S. Lewis once wrote: “How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, it is irresistible.”

Holiness makes life feel thick with purpose. When we encounter the real thing, we don’t want to walk away.