You Shall Be Holy - But How?

Here is my sermon from yesterday, May 10th, on parashat Kedoshim. Critical times that we live in, all around the world, and a powerful parasha with the highest of Jewish values from which to learn:

Today we read from Leviticus chapter 19, called the Holiness Code. It begins by telling us – all of us – that we should be holy as God is holy.

Why do we favor the widows, the orphans, the strangers? What do they have in common? (pause for suggestions) What does it mean to be holy like God is? The chapter goes on to tell us all the ways we can behave in a caring, sacred community. THAT is how God wants us to act in order to be holy. These are deep Jewish values.

Is this what it means to have been created in the image of God? Sages tell us it’s not enough to study the Torah; we have to implement its lessons in our daily lives. It’s meaningless if we don’t live out its teachings in our community.

We will start with two verses from our parasha:

Lev 19:33-34וְכִֽי־יָג֧וּר אִתְּךָ֛ גֵּ֖ר בְּאַרְצְכֶ֑ם לֹ֥א תוֹנ֖וּ אֹתֽוֹ׃ 

When strangers reside with you in your land, you shall not wrong them.

The strangers who reside with you shall be to you as your citizens; you shall love each one as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the Lord am your God.

We are told 36 separate times in Tanakh that we are obligated to care for the ger ("stranger," "migrant," "resident alien") in our society. People who live among us but are not (yet) citizens.

Here are two more from the Torah:

Numbers 15:15-16

There shall be one law for you and for the resident stranger; it shall be a law for all time throughout the ages. You and the stranger shall be alike before the Lord; the same ritual and the same rule shall apply to the stranger who resides among you.

Deut 10:18-19

He executes justice for the orphan and the widow and befriends the stranger, providing him with food and clothing. You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Keep in mind that this was all known in advance to God – when promising the Land to Abraham, God revealed the future to him, which would include living in a foreign land (Egypt) for 400 years before finally settling in their own land. If this was hundreds of years before Moses, this must have been pursuant to a plan that God had. Was it just to learn this lesson, which is repeated in so many of our prayers as well as throughout the Tanakh – that we have to treat strangers in our midst with compassion, remembering that we ourselves were strangers in a strange land?

Now we’ll go to a well-known commentator of only 1000 years ago:

Maimonides

Whoever gains honor through the degradation of his fellow human being does not have a share in the world to come.

(Read this a second time with greater emphasis.)

And here’s a commentator of our own times, who passed away only a few years ago:

Jonathan Sacks

I used to think that the most important line in the Bible was “Love your neighbour as yourself”. Then I realised that it is easy to love your neighbour because he or she is usually quite like yourself. What is hard is to love the stranger, one whose colour, culture or creed is different from yours. That is why the command, “Love the stranger because you were once strangers”, resonates so often throughout the Bible. It is summoning us now.

Other than this parasha and the times in which we live, what inspired me to speak this way today? As you know, I have been studying and practicing Mussar since 2015. (Give a brief explanation of Mussar and its goals and discuss Alan Morinis’ contributions to its modern study.) Our group met and agreed that we were experiencing great difficulty in working on compassion and lovingkindness, in particular projecting them toward people whose viewpoints differ drastically from ours. Who in this highly polarize world might experience contempt toward us and in some cases even treat us with violence. How can this be done?

I wrote to Alan Morinis and asked for his guidance. He responded that now is not the time to be working on compassion and lovingkindness. Now is the time for strength and courage and taking action. And so I share this message with you: Some times call for action, for standing up for our principles, not just for meditative self-improvement. This is such a time.