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 . . .