It’s a lifetime project, a lifetime of work, because the perfection of Hashem is endless. There are so many ways of behavior, of attitudes and ideals that we have to pattern our lives after. Tonight, however, we'll study just one of them, one of the most fundamental Mindsets, kavayachol, of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And it’s expected of us that we should acquire that same mindset so that we too should be kadosh.
What is it? You’ll be surprised. It’s what we’re going to say soon in Maariv, in the second brachah of Shema. We say אַתָּה בָּחַרְתָּנוּ ה' אֱלֹהֵינוּ בְּאַהֲבָה, the One Who loves His people Yisroel. אֲהַבְתִּי אֶתְכֶם אָמַר ה' – I love you, He says (Malachi 1:2). It says openly, black on white, that He loves Jews. Again and again we’re told that אַהֲבַת עוֹלָם אֲהַבְתִּיךְ, that Hashem loves us forever (Yirmiyahu 31:3).
Now, if that’s so, we understand that one of the ways that we are expected to resemble Hashem, to emulate and imitate Him, is by being an אוֹהֵב עַמּוֹ יִשְׂרָאֵל like He is. Included in the perfection of Hashem is His ahavas Yisroel, and קְדֹשִים תִּהְיוּ means therefore, ‘Become perfect like Me by loving the Am Yisroel.’
