On the Holiness of Boundaries and the Sanctity of Community

^{5 Iyyar 5776 | May 13, 2016}

Parshat Kedoshim

Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler

Director of Spiritual Development

Advanced Kollel: Executive Ordination Track

Class of 2018

Parshat Kedoshim ​opens with a famous call to sanctity:

This injunction toward holiness is vague. How does one become holy? What is the meaning of kedusha​? Rashi offers the following explanation:

The very core of kedusha, ​on this interpretation, is separation. Build the proper barriers; distance yourself from illicit connections and prurient behaviors, and you will, of necessity, discover sanctity. The pursuit of holiness requires, above all, boundaries. Boundaries that keep the self in check and the other at bay. Boundaries that safeguard one person’s integrity and another person’s safety. Boundaries that respect the gap that always, always lays between two agents. There, in this controlled, ego-contained space of tzimtzum ​(self-contraction), perhaps room opens up for the Other (or other) to enter.

So foundational are these boundaries, says Rashi, that much of the Torah depends on them. Commenting on the words that precede the holiness command--

he writes:

This teaching of the primacy of prishut ​(separation) was so central to the project of the Torah that it had to be declared to the entirety of the people. Everyone had to hear the message because nearly everything of import flows from it. Boundaries are the ​fundamental building blocks of relationships of kedusha.

This paradoxical assertion of the necessity of distance for closeness was heard by our ancestors more than once, always at times of peak intimacy. When Moshe met God at the burning bush, for example, he was invited both to approach God and to stay away.

"Moshe, Moshe​"--come close, says God. "Al tikrav​"--but not too close. For you are in the presence of holiness which demands a crack of distance. Similarly, at Har Sinai, the nexus of sanctity, connection, and boundaries appears.

At the moment of greatest contact with the divine, the people must be reminded that they cannot fully approach the divine--not in a bush, not on a mountain, not anywhere. Boundaries must be drawn to remind them and us that it is precisely in the gap between humanity and divinity (and between human beings) that relationships are built and that kedusha ​blossoms.

And yet, there are limits to these limits, of course, because as much as boundaries can build, they also can block and alienate. The Maor V'Shemesh, ​Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman HaLevi Epstein (1754-1823), offers a beautiful twist in this vein on Rashi's initial insights. He writes:

The absolute push toward boundaries as the basis of relationship is here given its own boundaries. Citing Maimonides, the Maor V'Shemesh ​concedes that separation from sin, prishut, ​is core to the pursuit of holiness. We must do all we can to escape the forces that keep us away from the deepest calling of our souls, the people and places that keep us down. But this isolation, this running from​, brings only first-order holiness. To achieve "kedusha elyona​," second-order "higher holiness," one must run toward ​something together with ​others. For this, one must actively seek a community of seekers.

For the Maor V'Shemesh, ​the very call to boundaried living--to "kedoshim tehiyu​"-- is simultaneously a charge regarding the imperative of relationality. Prishut ​is only a check on the necessity of kahal ​(community) in the pursuit of "rov gufei Torah" ​(the fundamentals of Torah) for ha-kol "teluyah ba​." Everything, spiritually speaking, depends on our connections to others, on our ability to draw near.

When God said "el kol adat bnei yisrael,​" "to the entire congregation of the children of Israel," to be holy, God did so to reign in the message and to clarify it. Holiness indeed requires boundaries, but let that not stand in the way of the cultivation of intimacies. Let those spaces only enable relationships to grow healthfully. Let our rightful caution and respectful distancing not make us afraid of coming close, but rather guide us toward greater connections to God and to those who seek sanctity.