Friday, April 23, 2010

Holiness Part 3

Contemporary rabbi Elyse Goldstein now makes her comment on Rashi's commentary in The Torah: A Women's Commentary:
Rashi's definition of kadosh (holy) as "separate" presents a fundamental feminist challenge.  The challenge is evident as well throughout rabbinic Judaism wherre authorities have portrayed the mitzvot as drawing lines between "us" and "them," lines that demarcate who is in (for example, circumcision marking a Jewish boy) and who is out (for example, the halachah of not counting women in a minyan).  While feminist have challenged specific mitzvot, finding a way "in" through creative rereading and even reinventing, we have not yet sufficiently challenged the very notion of mitzvot that rest upon the "spirituallity of separation."  This notion is at the heart of much that Jews do--including kashrut, Shabbat, and the marriage ceremony, just to name a few.  Redefining the mitzvot as connectors rather than as boundaries, as dialogue rather than answers, is a first step toward addressing the question of how we as women will be kadosh.  Although we are still at the beginning of exploring what a fully developed feminist notion of being holy mihgt look like, the opening words of this parashah--k'doshim tih'yu--cary both a command for now and promise for the future: we can and we will finds ways to be holy.
Amen.  Shabbat Shalom.
 

More on Holiness

Ramban disagrees slightly with Rashi.  Holiness is not only about keeping yourself separate form forbidden sexual relationships.  Here are some of his comments on Lev. 19:1-2:
In my opinion, [holiness] does not refer to keeeping 'separate' from the sexual trangressions, as Rashi thinks, but to the separateness ascribed throughout the Talmud to people it calls 'Pharisees,' that is, 'Separatists,' meaning those who exercise self-restraint.  You see, the Torah proscribes man and wife, eating meat, and drinking wine.  So there is license for a man of appetite to steep himself in lust with his wife (or his many wifes), or to 'be of those who guzzle wine, or glut themselves on meat' (Prov. 23:20), or to discuss all sorts of vile things, as long as they involve something that the Torah does not explicitly prohibit.  One could therefore be a scoundrel with the full permission of the Torah. [emphasis is mine] 
And now Rabbi Louis Jacob's commentary on the Ramban's commentary (don't you love Jewish learning?  We have commentary on commentary.):
Holiness, according to Nahmanides, and he is followed by other Jewish teachers, is the attitude of the Jew who has no wish, in his pungent expression, to be “a scoundrel with the full permission of the Torah.” Nahmanides’ point is that the rules and regulations of the Torah constitute the bare minimum of decent behavior expected of every Jew, a standard below which none should fall. But an essential part of the Torah discipline is that the Jew is obliged to go beyond these minimum rules. For this there can be no hard-and-fast rules, since all depends on individual character and temperament. What may be modbid indulgence, leading to a softening of the moral fiber, for one, may be a necessity for another. For all its insistence on rules, Judaism, according to Nahmanides, acknowledges that there is a whole area of life, the area of the licit, where man’s freedom of choice must operate in determining those things which will help him to live more worthily and those which can pollute his soul.
So, according to the Ramban, if one followed Rashi's definition of holiness, one could be striving to be holy like God is holy, and still be a jerk.  For the Ramban, holiness is an ongoing process of self discipline and refinement.   

Thursday, April 22, 2010

What is Holiness?

In preparation for my sermon this week for the double portion of Acharei Mot-K'doshim, I have been searching for the meaning of "holiness."  K'doshim opens with the command, "The Eternal spoke to Moses saying: Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them: You shall be holy, for I, the Eternal your God, am holy" (Lev. 19:1-2).  The first place I usually look for quick references is myjewishlearning.com, and there I found a great article by the late Rabbi Louis Jacobs  about holiness.  He states, "The Hebrew word for “holiness,” kedushah, conveys the twin ideas of separation from and dedication to something and hence holiness as a religious ideal refers to the attitude and state of mind in which certain activities and thoughts are rejected in order to come closer to God."  In the article, he mentions three great commentators ideas about what it means to be holy.  The three are Rashi, Ramban, and Moshe Hayyim Luzzato.

Rashi's comments on our verses, "You shall be holy.  Keep yourselves apart from the forbidden sexual relationships, even from the thought of transgression.  Note that wherever sexual limits are mentioned, holiness is also mentioned" (Translation is from "The Commentators' Bible: The JPS Miqra'ot Gedolot" by Michael Carasik).  This parashah spends many verses on the sexual sins of the Torah.  Rashi is saying that to be holy, one must be very scrupulous about the sexual prohibitions of the Torah.  Jacobs writes, "On this reading, holiness is synonymous with obeying the laws of the Torah and has no special connotation of extraordinary cultivation of sanctity."

More on holiness in the next post . . .  

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The Coal Miners Prayer

One great thing (among many) about our Classical Reform predecessors is that they had a way with words.  Their english liturgy were some of the most moving piyyutim I have ever read.  One in particular, often called "The Coal Miners Prayer" I especially like.  It was called that by later generations of Reform Jews who said that it didn't speak to contemporary Jews, especially when Gates of Prayer was published in 1975.  I think the prayer is very fitting especially with the coal mine disaster of this month in West Virginia.  Here is the prayer from Newly Revised Edition of the Union Prayer Book of 1940:  
O Lord, Though we are prone to seek favors for ourselves alone, yet when we come into Thy presence, we are lifted above petty thoughts of self.  We become ashamed of our littleness and are made to feel that we can worship Thee in holiness only as we serve our brothers in love.
How much we owe to the labors of our brothers!  Day by day they idg far away from the sun that we may be warm, enlist in outposts of peril that we may be secure and brave the terrors of the unkonwn for truths that shed light on our way.  Numberless gifts and blessings have been laid in our cradles as our birthright.
Let us then, O Lord, be just and great-hearted in our dealings with our fellowmen, sharing with them the fruit of our common labor, acknowledging before Thee that we are but stewards of whatever we possess.  Help us to be among those who are willing to sacrifice that others may not hunger, who dare to be bearers of light in the dark lonliness of stricken lives, who struggle and even bleed for the triumph of righteousness among men.  So may we be co-workers with Thee in the building of Thy kingdom which has been our vision and goal through the ages.