This week, our sages speak to us down the generations by virtue of the Haftarah portion they so lovingly stitched to Parshat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim. In the second half of our Torah reading, Parshat Kedoshim begins with a statement that has been interpreted as being either descriptive or prescriptive: Kedoshim Tehiyu. (Leviticus 19:2) Many commentators elect the later prescriptive reading, translating, “You shall be holy.”
This rendering makes good sense considering that the maxim in question directly follows a number of laws dealing with sexual impropriety and precedes a discrete section known as the Holiness Code which pertains to social ethics more broadly. Rabbi Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl (1730-1797), known as the Me’or Einayim, however takes an alternative tact. Rather than reading, “you shall be holy,” instead, the Me’or Einayim illuminates, “you are holy.” In either reading, the distinction of the nation of Israel is clear. Whether it be the quality of or capacity for holiness, we are endowed with a particularity that might enable us to play a unique role in the world. Lest we become too haughty or sanctimonious, our sages chose Amos 9:7-15 as the Haftarah for Parshat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim. Amos directly challenges the idea that holiness connotes superiority, speaking with God’s voice, “To Me, O Israelites, you are just like the Cushites—declares the LORD. True, I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt, but also the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir.” (Amos 9:7) This than is the tension we must hold: though we might be holy, there is still work to be done. Rabbi Arthur Green interprets Kedoshim Tehiyu “more as a plea from within than a commandment on high.” If we are to manifest the latent holiness within each of us, then we are compelled to prune the excesses that distract us from our central mission of establishing that same holiness throughout the world through righteous action. Only then can we realize Amos’ prophetic vision, “And I will plant them upon their soil, nevermore to be uprooted from the soil I have given them—says Adonai your God.” (Amos 9:15) Even as we rejoice this week in the celebration of the State of Israel’s marking 75 years of Independence, we are wholly aware of the fact that Israel has heretofore not lived up to the holiness it is capable of embodying. Each one of us, in holy partnership, is accountable to the actualization of the full potential of the Jewish-democratic state as articulated in the visions of its founders: “The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” (Israeli Declaration of Independence, 5th of Iyar 5708) It is with these sentiments inscribed on my hearts that I offer you this Prayer for North American Jews on the 75th Anniversary of Israel’s Founding by Rabbi Ayelet Cohen.
