Y-H-W-H spoke to Moses, saying: "Speak to the entire community of the children of Israel and say to them: 'You shall be holy, for I Y-H-W-H your God am holy.'" (Lev. 19:1-2)
Why did this commandment require such an assembling of the Community of Israel? Our sages taught, as is well known, that the most important bodies of Torah's teachings depend on it (Va-Yikra Rabbah 24:5).
The main purpose in God's creating the world was for the sake of Israel, who arose in the divine Mind, in order to bring about the great joy and pleasure that God would receive from the souls of the righteous. They have the great power to liken the creature's form to that of the Creator (Kohelet Rabbah 2:26).
The nature of this matter lies in their clarity of mind, giving them the ability to perceive the sublime lights that spread forth from the highest rung and penetrate even the lowest, such very human pleasures as eating, drinking, sleeping, and all the other forms of this-worldly delight. In their righteousness, acting always out of wisdom and awareness, they are able to conceive the upper through the lower. Not concerned with their own pleasure at all, they raise up those flowing lights to their Source and Root, the place where all is one. These righteous ones have the power and the perception, wherever they look, to see only the divinity that is garbed there. In doing so they necessarily strip away the corporeal and dress it in the form of spirit. This is what it means to "liken the creature's form to that of the Creator."
A person who does this deserves to be called holy. But even such a person, acting with all that wisdom and awareness, raising all to the Root, can only conceive up to the level where that soul is attached to the stature [body-like form] of shekhinah.
Each soul of Israel has a particular place in that form to which it is attached; that is where it can affect its work of restoration. It is from there that it can return the lights to the place where they are all one. "One does more, another less, as long as they turn their hearts to heaven" (b. Menahot 110a). Each in accord with that bit of mind and grasping will still be called holy. It is a matter of how you make your own senses pure and holy, fashioning your own entire form into a dwelling-place for God's presence. This is how you come to be called holy.
From the day God created human beings on earth, there have never been two people who stood on exactly the same rung. There are multiple and varied level of holiness; each person among us Israelites has our own point of attachment among those many rungs. That is what we can attain through our deeds and efforts, and not a hairsbreadth more.
Y-H-W-H spoke to Moses, saying: "Speak to the entire community of the Children of Israel -- from the greatest to the least -- and say to them: 'You shall be holy.'" They are to acquire the name of holiness as we have said, even though they are unequal in the measure of their service of the Creator. Some have mighty, strong consciousness, faithful in spirit unto the end, while others are the smallest of the small. How can we seem to put them all on the same rung by calling them all holy? Their awareness is not at all alike!
Scripture responded to that objection by saying: for I Y-H-W-H your God am holy. The phrase your God seems superfluous; the verse would make good sense without it. But it comes to say that I [am Your God; I] pronounce My godliness over each one of you. Indeed we find that every one of Israel, from the least to the greatest, claims God as his own in prayer, saying, "Y-H-W-H my God." How do we not hesitate to do so? Are we not grasped by fear and trembling in saying "my God?..."
But this is God's way, extending his divinity and holiness across the whole community, making I Y-H-W-H your God am holy refer to each and every one. "The entire community is holy and Y-H-W-H is in their midst" (Num. 16:3)! Truly "the Compassionate One desires the heart" (b. Sanhedrin 106b). "One does more, another less," as long as we all bend our necks in the yoke of our Lord's service. Then even we of little mind may be called holy.
Why did this commandment require such an assembling of the Community of Israel? Our sages taught, as is well known, that the most important bodies of Torah's teachings depend on it (Va-Yikra Rabbah 24:5).
The main purpose in God's creating the world was for the sake of Israel, who arose in the divine Mind, in order to bring about the great joy and pleasure that God would receive from the souls of the righteous. They have the great power to liken the creature's form to that of the Creator (Kohelet Rabbah 2:26).
The nature of this matter lies in their clarity of mind, giving them the ability to perceive the sublime lights that spread forth from the highest rung and penetrate even the lowest, such very human pleasures as eating, drinking, sleeping, and all the other forms of this-worldly delight. In their righteousness, acting always out of wisdom and awareness, they are able to conceive the upper through the lower. Not concerned with their own pleasure at all, they raise up those flowing lights to their Source and Root, the place where all is one. These righteous ones have the power and the perception, wherever they look, to see only the divinity that is garbed there. In doing so they necessarily strip away the corporeal and dress it in the form of spirit. This is what it means to "liken the creature's form to that of the Creator."
A person who does this deserves to be called holy. But even such a person, acting with all that wisdom and awareness, raising all to the Root, can only conceive up to the level where that soul is attached to the stature [body-like form] of shekhinah.
Each soul of Israel has a particular place in that form to which it is attached; that is where it can affect its work of restoration. It is from there that it can return the lights to the place where they are all one. "One does more, another less, as long as they turn their hearts to heaven" (b. Menahot 110a). Each in accord with that bit of mind and grasping will still be called holy. It is a matter of how you make your own senses pure and holy, fashioning your own entire form into a dwelling-place for God's presence. This is how you come to be called holy.
From the day God created human beings on earth, there have never been two people who stood on exactly the same rung. There are multiple and varied level of holiness; each person among us Israelites has our own point of attachment among those many rungs. That is what we can attain through our deeds and efforts, and not a hairsbreadth more.
Y-H-W-H spoke to Moses, saying: "Speak to the entire community of the Children of Israel -- from the greatest to the least -- and say to them: 'You shall be holy.'" They are to acquire the name of holiness as we have said, even though they are unequal in the measure of their service of the Creator. Some have mighty, strong consciousness, faithful in spirit unto the end, while others are the smallest of the small. How can we seem to put them all on the same rung by calling them all holy? Their awareness is not at all alike!
Scripture responded to that objection by saying: for I Y-H-W-H your God am holy. The phrase your God seems superfluous; the verse would make good sense without it. But it comes to say that I [am Your God; I] pronounce My godliness over each one of you. Indeed we find that every one of Israel, from the least to the greatest, claims God as his own in prayer, saying, "Y-H-W-H my God." How do we not hesitate to do so? Are we not grasped by fear and trembling in saying "my God?..."
But this is God's way, extending his divinity and holiness across the whole community, making I Y-H-W-H your God am holy refer to each and every one. "The entire community is holy and Y-H-W-H is in their midst" (Num. 16:3)! Truly "the Compassionate One desires the heart" (b. Sanhedrin 106b). "One does more, another less," as long as we all bend our necks in the yoke of our Lord's service. Then even we of little mind may be called holy.
This text offers a wonderful example of Hasidism's unique combination of democratizing and elitist spirituality. Yes, God created the world for the sake of the tsaddikim. But even they, just like the rest of us, can each only reach the place of their own soul-root. Every person's task (again, we must universalize the text!) is to live out the life of holiness from the rung on which we stand. No one can do more than that.
The apex of democratizing enthusiasm comes when the author--surely unwittingly, in a moment of passion--quotes the words of rebellious Korah, proclaiming the entire community holy! Sparks of holiness can indeed be found everywhere, even in the words of the wicked.
The apex of democratizing enthusiasm comes when the author--surely unwittingly, in a moment of passion--quotes the words of rebellious Korah, proclaiming the entire community holy! Sparks of holiness can indeed be found everywhere, even in the words of the wicked.