Dan's Interpretation of Parsha Kedoshim (Leviticus 19-20)

Shabbat Shalom everyone! I feel compelled to relate some Torah to you even though we are in the midst of Shabbos Koydesh. It was my last Shabbat with the JSU at Hampshire and it was a very moving experience, having to say goodbye to the community that sustained me this year, and realize that I would be leaving the community and the traditions we built together in order to live in a movement context next year. It was bittersweet. I will miss the community I am leaving and the weekly Shabbat Services we led and the weekly Torah study sessions we engaged in. I am already hoping that Anya and Zaq will agree to come with me and visit Hampshire next year on a Shabbes eve. Enough sentiment, now for Torah (although the Torah teaches us that everything is interconnected!)!

This week’s parsha is Parshat Kedoshim, or holies. It continues on the track of setting out the regulations of a holy life. It starts out with the declaration that we are holy because G-d is holy, which is a powerful statement that recalls Genesis, where it says that we are all made in the image of G-d. It goes on to list different things: restatements of some of the Ten Commandments, agricultural laws (these are cool and are the basis for the idea of tzedaka!), ethical and moral law, and religious laws. The sort of mixed bag of laws symbolizes that, in life, all of these things are connected. Everything that you do is interconnected. Religiosity, morality, and normalcy are all bound together and should guide all your actions. That is why it is taught that if you let religion influence your thought and actions, then everything you do is religious, and the sam with morality, and normalcy. 

This parsha is famous for an oft repeated phrase, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). Usually when it is said, it is said after somebody does something bad, and you ask them how would you feel if somebody did that to you. While this is a good question, and a good way of evoking empathy, I don’t think that is what the Torah is commanding us. That question and the way this phrase is normally evoked is the height of relativism. It is according to the individual. In the Torah, however, loving your neighbor isn’t some relativistic notion. It actually gives us guidelines. These come right before the phrase, in Leviticus 19:17 and 19:18. The first thing to do to love your neighbor is to “not hate” (Lev. 19:17). Pretty self explanatory. The next guideline is that “you shall criticize your fellow” (Lev. 19:17). Then it says that you shouldn’t seek revenge or hold grudges. This isn’t some relativistic thing, it is a commandment, and a commandment we should all strive to take seriously.

The reason I bring this up is because I feel like this notion of loving that is demanded of us in Leviticus 19:17-18 is the same way we talk about love in Habonim and in kvutza. When I saw that G-d tells us that in order to love, you must criticize, I was filled with happiness. This is where Martin Buber gets the idea of I-Thou relationships! I never knew that such a powerful concept was actually a commandment defined in the Torah! I feel like we should all strive to find the beauty of the Torah, and not be content with only what people tell you is in it. It is the root of the ideologies we hold dear and we should come to know where our treasured ideas come from. And lastly, I want to challenge all of us to have an I-Thou relationship with the Torah, reading it, accepting it, and demanding from it, and reaching together into the unknown of our souls. Shabbat Shalom.