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Orchard of Delights Kedoshim

ourselves and the land to rest. While God wants us to play the role £Defining and Achieving HolinessDefining and Achieving Holiness
££Defining and Achieving Holiness
of being His partners in creation, we must realize that we are junior
partners. On the one hand, each individual, and humanity as a
whole, must strive both on the physical and spiritual planes towards
fulfilling the human destiny of being created “in the image of God,” Having established the centrality of holiness in Judaism, it behooves
but, on the other hand, we must avoid our natural tendency to think us to try to define this abstract concept. Perhaps, the easiest way
that “my power and the might of my hand has gotten me all this to define it is by exploring how holiness is attained. Within a legal
wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17). By resting on the Shabbat and the context, kedushah (holiness or sanctity) is usually attained through
Shemittah year, we concretize the message that God is directing and separation, self-discipline, and refinement. By distancing ourselves
perpetuating the world and only by His good graces do we have the from evil, impurity, and various worldly energies that block our
ability to accomplish anything. spiritual channels and sensitivities, we become proper vessels, capable
of receiving and radiating holiness. Indeed, one of the fundamental
On a socioeconomic level the implications of Shemittah do not end premises underlying the mitzvot is the constant requirement to
with the land owners allowing their fields to lie fallow for the entire separate and distinguish between good and evil, pure and impure,
Sabbatical year. In addition, biblical law mandated that all loans permitted and forbidden, holy time and mundane time, and holy
were remitted and whatever grew in the fields was deemed ownerless, space and mundane space. The final verses in Kedoshim spell out this
so that anyone could benefit from these crops. The natural moral relationship between holiness and separation quite explicitly:
impulse of helping the poorer classes in society was further stressed
by the command to declare every fiftieth year a Jubilee year following I am God, your God, Who has separated you from the
the end of every seventh Sabbatical cycle (forty-nine years). Jewish peoples. You shall distinguish between the pure animal
indentured servants were set free, and properties, fields, and houses and the impure, and between the pure bird and the
reverted back to their original owners. impure; and you shall not render your souls abominable
Torah society grants individuals the freedom to develop to their through such animals and birds, and through anything
fullest capabilities, while simultaneously guarding against excesses that creeps on the grounds, which I have set apart for
that lead those most successful from forgetting God’s role in their you to render impure. You shall be holy for Me, for I God
success and from gathering all the power, wealth, and property into am holy; and I have separated you from the peoples to be
their own hands to the detriment of the many. Within the context Mine. (Leviticus 20:24-26)
of enumerating the tithes for the cohen and the levi; the gleanings
and corners of the fields left for the poor, the widow, and the orphan; The nation of Israel is holy because God separated it from the other
and the general commandment to be concerned with the fate of peoples and it must maintain this holiness by, in this case, distancing
one’s neighbor – “And if your brother grows poor, and his means itself from impure animals and crawling things.
fail with you, then you shall relieve him, though he be a stranger or However, along with the notion of separation, holiness is also
sojourner with you” (Leviticus 25:35) – the Torah also commands associated with designating, assigning, and choosing. In the Temple
the land owner to remember that “the Shabbat produce of the land period, an animal or object that was chosen and then designated to
shall be food for you, and your servant, and your maid and your be sacrificed or donated to the Temple was called hekdesh (a word
hired servant and for the stranger that sojourns with you” (Leviticus which stems from the same root as “holiness” and which literally
25:6). Furthermore, the Shemittah and Yovel years become the

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