Distinguish Yourselves – Acharei Mot – Kedoshim – Vayikra (Leviticus) Chapters 16-20

Sometimes Torah is cryptic and hard to understand.  Parts of the Book of Leviticus are inscrutable as we try to put ourselves in the place of an ancient culture and see how a particular list of animal sacrifices would elevate us and draw us closer to God (the Hebrew korban, sacrifice, is derived from the root word k-r-b (karov) for physical proximity, closeness, to draw near).  Fortunately, such is not the case with this week’s double portions of Acharei Mot and Kedoshim.  They are pretty straightforward.

We may be familiar with Acharei Mot because we read it on Yom Kippur; it describes the ritual of the Kohain Gadol (High Priest) on the first Yom Kippur.  It contains the ritual of the original scape goat, a symbolic receptacle for the sins of the Jewish people.  Aaron, having just grieved the death of his sons for offering an inappropriate offering, is directed to seek atonement (sometimes interpreted as at-one-ment) for himself, for his own personal shortcomings, then for those of his family, and only after that could he be ready to seek atonement for the whole “House of Israel”.  This is a pretty awesome responsibility of leadership at a time of very emotional vulnerability for Aaron. 

For those still in synagogue Yom Kippur afternoon in congregations that read the traditional Torah reading for the Mincha service, you may also be familiar with the list of prohibited sexual relationships in Chapter 18.  There is a connection here between achieving communal holiness and personal holiness, and connecting to the chapter that follows, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves a bit, and the holiness is the important part.

So I asked a panel of experts (my 5^th grade Monday class at B’nai Tzedek) recently (last week) who can makes things holy, God or humans? We’ve talked before about what is holy; something separate, distinct, set aside, special.  The predominant answer was, everyone; God and humans can make things holy.  To prove them right (adults are not always to be trusted) I gave them two proof texts, Breisheet  (Genesis) 2:3 (“And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.”)  and VaYikra (Leviticus) 19:2 (You shall [must] be holy, for I, the Lord you God, am holy.”).

The text has been leading us this way over the last few weeks.  In Shmini we learned to distinguish ourselves by what we do and do not eat.  If we are concerned about what goes into us, and if like the popular maxim states, we are what we eat, then what we fuel ourselves with matters.  When we pause before and after we eat to show gratitude, we also distinguish ourselves from other consumers.  In Tazria and Metzora we learn about times and situations that distinguish members of our community for temporary exclusion – temporary because Torah always provides a method to become tahor, pure again, and rejoin the preferred state of being part of the community.

But Kedoshim begins with an imperative – You shall [or must, or will] be holy.  Children of Israel, you are special.  You have to distinguish yourselves by your behaviors, personal and communal, internal and external.  How you behave, what you do, not so much what you think, matters.  What you do inside your house, outside your house, for yourself (what you eat, who you associate with) for others matters.  Be righteous; be generous, be fair when you judge.  Take care of your poor.  Pay for the work you have done by others, be kind and sensitive to the differently abled among you (19:14 – don’t insult the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind).  Verse 18 leads us to the pinnacle, the thing we were meant to be modeling all along, that rule that is golden, the great rabbi Hillel said is the main thing in the Torah, that Robert Fulghum says we all should have learned in kindergarten: “V’Ahavta l’raiacha Kamokha” (Love your fellow as yourself).

There are big and easy ways to be holy, and very often we get to decide.  We can make a day holy by planning a celebration and setting that time aside.  We can make an artifact holy by treating it gently and using it for special occasions.  We make our relationships holy when we treat people well and with consideration. We make ourselves holy by how we act.  How to we respond when a friend is sick, or we hear bad news.  Do we click our tongues or pick up the phone to ask what we can do?  Bullying is in the news – do we disarm the bully and try to support the victim or do we turn our heads? We can distinguish ourselves by how we act - we can be holy.

It’s not uniquely Jewish to do these things.  We don’t have exclusivity here, but we do have an imperative – we are commanded to act this way.  It is an expectation, it’s what goes in to being a mensch, and it’s what we want for all of our people, adults and kids.