When I was studying Biblical Hebrew in the first year at Leo Baeck College, we were taught about the grammatical difference between the imperfect tense and the future tense. Whereas the future tense suggests an action that has not yet started (“Tomorrow, I will study Torah”), the imperfect, as J. Weingreen puts it “generally denotes an incompleted action.”[i]
This week’s parashah takes its name from the fourteenth word in it (is this a record?) – k’doshim – which precedes the verb tih’yu, so, how might we best translate the phrase K’doshim tih’yu? The usual translation into English is “You shall be holy …” which suggests an aspirational future tense. However, bearing the above grammatical comments in mind, we could also legitimately translate the phrase, “You are (and continue to be) holy …”
So, you might ask, what difference does this make? Let me offer some thoughts. Firstly, much of English translation follows the earliest, Christian translations of the ‘Old Testament’. These come laden with a theology that is not ours, most obviously including the existence and superiority of the New Testament, but also including the doctrine of “The Fall”. As you probably know, the doctrine of the fall is based on the Christian understanding of the temptation of Adam and Eve and their subsequent sin by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Genesis chapter 3. The everlasting consequence of this fall from grace is that every human is born into sin, which is only cleansed by baptism. If you subscribe to this doctrine, then any reading of Leviticus 19:2 that suggests humans are inherently holy is impossible.
However, a more Jewish understanding of the story in Genesis 3 is to see it as the giving of free will to humanity with all the consequences – both good and bad – of this authority. We could have remained, child-like, in the Garden of Eden, or we emerged from it and were able to achieve our full human height, while also, sadly, able to plumb the depths of what humans might do. In passing, your reading of this, possibly, on the eightieth anniversary of VE Day is a stark reminder of those depths and also the heights.
Our Judaism sees every human being as b’tzelem Elohim, created in the image of God, as per Genesis 1:26 – 27. If you couple this thought with the phrasing of our core verse, Leviticus 19:2, then just as God is in an undoubted permanent state of holiness, it is possible to see humans as being holy.
Secondly, as some of you will know, I am a proud grandparent. I am very conscious of how positively affirming so much of our speech is to babies, toddlers and little children. We treat them as holy: special, unique, wonderful. We praise each step, literally and figuratively, they take as they develop their range of human faculties. However, all too often, as they grow older and begin to exercise their free will, we can, as parents and grandparents, shift our responses to them towards criticism, and downgrade or forget the holiness inherent in them. Sometimes, our task is to remember their holiness before we speak or act.
Thirdly, we might cite Sifra, which paraphrases 19:2 “As I, God, am set apart (parush), so you must be set apart (p’rushim).” To be holy means to be distinctive or, as I put it just above, special, unique, wonderful. That could be taken as a collective ‘set apartness’, given that this instruction is to the whole community of the people of Israel, but it could equally be taken to mean that each and every one of you is holy in your own unique way, and you contribute to the collective holiness.
Fourthly, and finally from me, what follows in this chapter is seen by the rabbis as being a full representation in a different order of the Ten Commandments, plus a variety of other ethical and ritual laws that show how each person might sustain and live out their life as a holy being. This begins by revering one’s parents and keeping God’s sabbaths, and it continues to include everyday rules that, if kept, improve the individual’s life and society as a whole.
It is sufficiently important a Torah portion that we Progressive Jews will always encounter it twice a year, on its regular Shabbat and again on Yom Kippur – morning in Reform synagogues, afternoon in Liberal ones). This importance led my father (z”l) to choose it to be my Bar Mitzvah portion some fifty-one years ago and it continues to resonate with me whenever I encounter its array of laws and rules. They do provide us with inspiration to make our lives special through making habits of everyday good practices.
Right at the beginning of this chapter, the whole congregation is, I believe, told that each and every individual is holy, bestowed with their own uniqueness. It is each person’s task to live up to that holiness by appreciating that every other person is also holy. As Pablo Casals put it, “You are a marvel. You are unique … can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel?”[ii]
While we might yearn for these messages to be heeded by national leaders around the world, we might spend our time better working on our own holiness and how we respect the holiness of everyone else we encounter in our daily lives. K’doshim tih’yu we are told at the beginning of this week’s portion. Let’s continue to be holy in any way we can.
Rabbi Richard Jacobi
Rabbi to the East London and Essex Liberal Synagogue and Lecturer at Leo Baeck College in Leadership and Management Skills
[i] p.75 J. Weingreen, Hebrew Grammar, 2nd Edition, Oxford 1957
[ii] Cited in Siddur Lev Chadash pp.319 – 320
The views expressed in this D’var Torah do not necessarily reflect the position of Leo Baeck College.