You shall be holy because I, Hashem your G-d, am holy. (Vayikra 19:2)
The parshah begins with the mitzvah to be holy. What does it take to be holy, and thereby fulfill this mitzvah? Our Rabbis taught that we should not make do with just avoiding known aveiros such as forbidden foods and forbidden gender relationships and other such prohibitions. We are rather commanded to go beyond this, and sanctify ourselves even in permitted matters.
What does this mean?
It means living a life of kedushah as befits the Chosen People, as befits Hashem’s beloved children. Hashem wants to be proud of us and how we live our lives. So we should separate and abstain even from that which is technically permitted but is not consistent with living a life of kedushah.
In fact, the Torah says even more than this. It says: קדושים תהיו כי קדוש אני ה’ אלקיכם – “You shall be holy because I, Hashem your G-d, am holy.” The Torah compares our holiness to Hashem’s holiness. Hakadosh Baruch Hu said: Since you were sanctified to My Name before I created the world, you shall be holy like I am holy.
Even before the world was created, the sanctity of the Jewish people was destined to be.
But what does this idea add to the mitzvah of קדושים תהיו? Why is Hashem’s holiness the basis of the mitzvah?
The Dubner Maggid explains it by way of allegory. A rich man lived in a little village among simple people. He had an only daughter, and he wanted to seek out a bridegroom who was a great talmid chacham. He traveled a long way until he came to a leading yeshivah, and the rosh yeshivah there picked out the top talmid for him. The rich man put out a fortune to take this brilliant and dedicated young man, who learned day and night, as a bridegroom for his daughter.
After the marriage, the rich man noticed that his new son-in-law had become lazy about his learning. He only learned an hour or two a day. The rich man was perturbed by this, and said to him, “Why is it, my son, that you are not a masmid like you were before?”
The young man replied, “What do you mean? Just ask the shamash of the beis midrash if there is anyone in this whole village who opens a sefer even once a month. I may be a bit lazier about my learning than I was before, but I still have way more Torah erudition than you will find in all the villagers here!”
The rich man said, “Wait a minute. You know very well that I didn’t take you as my son-in-law because you were the best among the villagers. I met you when you were learning in a leading yeshivah, among talmidei chachamim, and you were the top talmid there. I am not satisfied with you just being the best Torah learner in this little village. I want you to dedicate yourself to your learning like you did back in the yeshivah, because that is context in which I chose you as a fitting husband-to-be for my daughter.”
This throws light on the mitzvah of קדושים תהיו.
A person might be tempted to consider himself “holy” as compared the average guy nowadays. In our generation, moral standards are not very high, and denial of Hashem is pretty prevalent. But the Torah tells us not to apply relative, “modern” standards.
We were sanctified to Hashem’s Name before the world was even created, before this lowly generation came into existence. We are called upon to be holy like Hashem is holy. His sanctity is not relative. It is not as compared to someone less than Him. Hashem’s kedushah is inherent and absolute. This is how we, too, should be.
In our lowly generation, a person is liable to allow himself all sorts of things that every normal Jew would have held in detest in former times, and say to himself that by today’s standards, his lifestyle qualifies as holy. This is a mistake. Hakadosh Baruch Hu asks of every Jew, in every generation, to be inherently and absolutely holy. Just as Hashem’s kedushah doesn’t change from generation to generation, so the kedushah of the Jewish people should retain its original beauty for all time.
