{"id":64918,"date":"2019-10-29T13:26:33","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T11:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=64918"},"modified":"2023-05-24T13:52:37","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T10:52:37","slug":"holiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/holiness\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiness"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cAnd the holy God [becomes] holy through <\/span>tzedakah<\/span><\/i>\u201d (5:16).<\/span><\/p>\n

What does holy mean? How can God, already holy, \u201cbecome holy,\u201d and how does <\/span>tzedakah<\/span><\/i> (righteousness) accomplish that?<\/span><\/p>\n

Books have been written in an attempt to pinpoint the nature of holiness, but we might gain some insight even from a brief consideration of a few cases.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take, for instance, the holiness of time. Shabbat might be said to represent a core of holiness of time instilled by God into the very fabric of creation, a day set aside for a purpose (the nature of which is beyond our scope). The holidays are similarly designated, but through a mix of divine decree (determining on which dates they occur) and human action (determining when each month begins, and thereby, when those holy dates fall out). Once established, the holiness of these days is expressed through action: laws of what we do and don\u2019t do.<\/span><\/p>\n

The holiness of place shows a similar pattern. God chose the land of Canaan, but what actually sanctified that land was human conquest; He chose the site of the Temple, but its holiness was actualized through human action. And once a place is established as \u201choly,\u201d it has special rules. Holiness is defined by, and guides, action.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik wrote: \u201cHoliness does not wink at us from \u201cbeyond\u201d\u2026but appears in our actual, very real lives\u2026 rooted in the highest heavens\u2026 the halakhic conception of holiness [means]\u2026 actualizing the Halakhah in the empirical world\u2026\u201d (<\/span>Halakhic Man<\/span><\/em>, p.46-47)<\/span><\/p>\n

Could we be so bold as to suggest that Isaiah might be hinting something similar in relation to God Himself?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe holy God\u201d: God is already holy, because He says so. But that does not mean He removes Himself entirely from this world, too loftily spiritual to bother with the physical. Instead, He performs active functions in this world \u2013 such as <\/span>tzedakah<\/span><\/em> \u2013 and thereby actualizes His own innate holiness. God, who is already holy, becomes yet further sanctified through <\/span>tzedakah<\/span><\/em> towards His creations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, words like \u201choly\u201d and \u201crighteous\u201d are human words, fit for human comprehension (or at least, human attempts at human comprehension); as Maimonides and others remind us, we cannot really describe God in our terms.<\/span><\/p>\n

But we try anyway, partly to give us something to emulate. We call Him merciful, so that we have a framework through which to consider His actions and to model ourselves on those actions.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that brings us to a third realm of holiness: the holiness of a person. \u201cBe holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy\u201d (Leviticus 19:1).<\/span><\/p>\n

If we use words to tell ourselves that God, who is innately holy, becomes truly holy through His righteous actions in this world, then perhaps we will learn that we, who are innately holy (designated for a purpose) yet carry a mandate to actualize our holiness, can achieve that goal \u2013 at least in part \u2013 through righteous action as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

And the holy people become holy through tzedakah.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":64919,"id":64919,"title":"is5-serve the poor","filename":"is5-serve-the-poor.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is5-serve-the-poor.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/holiness\/is5-serve-the-poor\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is5-serve-the-poor","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":64918,"date":"2019-10-29 11:26:02","modified":"2022-09-27 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