Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

Kodesh – encountering the Divine

When Moshe first encounters God at the Burning Bush, he is warned: “Do not come near (אל תקרב – al tikrav)” for this is “holy ground (אדמת קודש – admat kodesh)”.

This week’s parashah begins with God speaking to Moshe “after the death of the two sons of Aharon, when they drew near (בקרבתם -bekorvatam) to the presence of God”. He tells Moshe to warn Aharon “not to come at will into the Holy Place (הקודש – HaKodesh), behind the curtain…lest he die”. Indeed, the “Holy of Holies” (קודש הקודשים – Kodesh HaKodashim), separated by a veil, could be entered only once a year, on Yom Kippur, by the High Priest, after the prescribed preparations.

The word Kadosh (קדוש), usually translated as holy, more accurately means set apart. The Torah’s proscription here is reflective of Ancient Near Eastern practice wherein the precincts of the God are not to be trespassed and the priestly sacrificial rite (קרבן-korban, meaning to draw near) is to be delimited with all due propriety. This renders the second parashah of this week’s Torah reading, Kedoshim, all the more radical: “Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them: ‘You shall be holy (קדושים-kedoshim), for I, the Lord your God, am holy’.”

Holiness (קדושה – Kedushah) here is given an aspirational connotation and a way of being, commanded of the entire community.  Moreover, after these introductory words, parashat kedoshim (קדושים – kedoshim), and the Holiness Code of which it is a part, repeatedly commands us to be empathic and to champion the rights of the vulnerable and marginal of our society. That is, we are being told to be set apart (קדוש – kadosh) by living an exemplary life requiring us to be connected to all living beings. God’s sancta, we learn, is beyond space, infusing all dimensions of life.

It is upon “holy ground (אדמת קודש – admat kodesh)”, at the Burning Bush, that Moshe hears the divine call to liberate the oppressed: “And, the Lord said: ‘I have seen the affliction of My people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry, I know their suffering’.” The holiness of God is realised in our honouring the holiness of all living beings. It is then that we most closely encounter the Divine.

 בקרובי אקדש/Bikrovai Ekadesh 
Through those near to Me, will I be sanctified