Kedoshim 5774 - English

By Rabbi Daniel Kripper
Beth Israel Aruba

“Speak to the children of Israel and say unto them, ye shall be holy.”

This chapter of Leviticus, with its enunciation of the very essence of the Torah, significantly begins with the command to our people to be holy. We differ from other religious approaches in that we don’t have a class of “saints,” men and women distinct and set apart from the rest of the people by their superior degree of sanctity.

Sanctity, according to Rashi, was not meant to be a prerogative of a privileged minority, but was to form the distinctive characteristic of “the entire congregation.” So it was that “Moses commanded us as a Law, an inheritance of the assembly of Jacob” (Deut. 33:4).

It is interesting that in place of the normal term for “inheritance,” yerusha, the somewhat unusual expression in that verse is morasha, in hifil, or causative conjugation. This indicates that the Torah shall be “bequeathed” as a mitzvah, to the “assembly of Jacob,” who enjoy a beneficiary right to it. “Of the assembly,” says the verse, not of one section any one section of it.

But one might ask about the special status accorded to the Cohanim, descendants of Aaron, who ministered to the people in the sanctuary. It is true that they were required to maintain a higher standard of purity and more stringent measures were enacted to safeguard and preserve their degree of ritual cleanliness. But holiness was not intended to be confined to the Cohanim, for were not the Israelites as a whole denominated “mamlechet cohanim v’goy kadosh, “ a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6)?

We live in an age of expertise, with its concomitant assignment of functions specialists. But Judaism does not espouse any doctrine of vicarious atonement, and in the realm of conscience and spirit no man is his brother keeper.

Our faith is as a democratic faith from the very beginning, and became more so over the centuries-“Would that all the Lord’s were prophets, that the Lord would put His spirit upon them” (Num. 11:29)- such is the anguished cry of Moses, the greatest of the prophets.

The strength- indeed, the very survival- of a faith is dependent on the dedication and commitment to its teachings of its rank and file, not only of its leadership. 

And so the command of “Kiddush ha-chayim”, the sanctification of life goes forth to “all the congregation of the Children of Israel.”

Rabbi Daniel Kripper

Beth Israel Aruba