Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
Kerry Nierenberg Bat Mitzvah
Shabbat Mishpatim
February 5, 2005
What We Mean By Holiness
People use a word regularly which we seldom pause to define. The word I have in mind is "holiness." What exactly do we mean by "holiness"?
In some religions, "holiness" conveys asceticism and celibacy, monasteries and convents, withdrawal from the distractions and seductions of the everyday world. Some Jews, when they hear the word "holiness", think of sanctuaries and prayerbooks, Torah scrolls and mezzuzot, kiddish cups and menorahs - and rightly so, for these things are surely holy objects. But I believe this is only a partial definition of the word "holy."
In Jewish thought the world is not divided between the holy and the profane, nor between the holy and the secular. The Jewish distinction is between the holy and the not-yet-holy. This morning, I would like to give you three examples of what we Jews mean by "holiness".
The first comes from this week's Torah portion. Kerry read to us about the importance of equality before the law. Other parts of this week's sedra deal with laws of damage, property law, tort law, things like that. In most other cultures these things would be considered "secular" matters. Do you know of any other religion whose holy books involve questions like who is liable if your animal gores another animal? Who is liable if fire spreads from your backyard to the backyard of someone else? What is the difference in the punishment for someone who breaks into a house under the cover of night and one who holds someone up by day? Many people would say: what do these things even have to do with religion? Why don't we just leave these things for lawyers and courts to argue adjudicate?
My answer is that the relationships between human beings are just as much a part of the Jewish religion as the relationships between human beings and God. The Torah is just as concerned about the kashrut of what comes out of our mouths as about the fitness of what goes into our mouths. Our religion is as concerned about a dollar that has a blood spot on it as it is about an egg that has a blood spot in it. How we treat each other in our day to day contacts, and especially how we treat the most needy and hurting among us, is an important part of our Jewish definition of holiness.
The second example I would like to share with you comes from a faculty member of CLAL, the Center for Learning and Leadership. CLAL trains future leaders for the Jewish community. Dr. Zvi Blanchard tells the story about his father-in-law, who was a pediatrician. He speciality was pediatric anesthesiology. (Some congregants suspect that is a field related to mine.)
One of this physician's patients was a youngster named Brian, who was fighting a running battle against cancer. The procedures that the doctor had to give Brian were very painful, but he was able to relieve most of the pain with anesthesia. Once, however, when Brian came in for his treatment, the boy had a very bad cold. The infection made giving him anesthesia too risky, but skipping the treatment would also be risky.
So the doctor sat Brian down and explained to him what had to be done. He said, "Brian, I have to give you this treatment. There is no way we can postpone it. But because you have a bad cold, I cannot take away your pain by giving you an anesthetic. So this is what I am going to do. I am going to give you the medicine and then I am going to hold you very, very tightly in my arms. I love you very much, Brian, and so I will hold you close when the pain comes."
And that is exactly what he did. The doctor watched the monitor carefully. Whenever the moments of greatest pain were about to come, he would hold Brian tightly in his arms and somehow they both got through it. After the treatment, Brian insisted on giving the doctor a present in order to express his gratitude. He gave him a pencil, his favorite pencil. Now, of course, the doctor did not really need the pencil, but in order to make Brian happy he accepted it.
When he got home that night, the doctor shared the story of Brian's treatment with his family and showed them the pencil. His oldest child took the pencil, went to their breakfront and said: "Dad, I want to move this glass and silver over and put this pencil right here; this is what we should show everybody." And he put Brian's modest gift into the breakfront. The family realized that their son was right, and they kept that pencil on display right next to the kiddush cups, menorahs, and tsedakah boxes from then on.
Zvi Blanchard's father-in-law understood that he had done something good; that is why he showed his family the pencil and told them the story. But it took his child to identify that moment as a holy moment. One of the things that the people of CLAL try to explain to the young leaders whom they work with is that they actually may be more religious than they realize. Perhaps what we need is a whole new set of blessings in order to make us more conscious of holy moments that we mistakenly think of as secular.
For example, what if there was a bracha, a benediction, for voting? There should be; it is a holy moment not to be taken for granted. And what if there were a bracha for entering the office and starting work each day? That would make us realize that the office can be a holy place if what we do there is honest and helpful. What if accountants and lawyers began their day with a bracha? There might be less business scandals of the kind which our country has seen in recent years if they did that. And what if we had blessings for nurses and doctors and teachers to say, so that they and we might realize that what they do is truly sacred work?
What if we all preserved something like that pencil which this doctor kept in his breakfront right next to the kiddush cups and the menorahs and the tsedakah boxes to remind us that God is with us in our work places and homes as well as in our synagogues?
The last story I read many years ago, but it stayed with me. Once there was a Chassidic Rebbe who inherited the position from his father. But unlike his father, this young rebbe would go out constantly to visit his people and to give them counsel and support. The Chassidim, the disciples, were kind of embarrassed that the rebbe came to them so often. So they said to him, timidly, politely, "why don't you stay home as your father did, and we will come to you when we have problems for which we need your help."
The rebbe said, "thank you; but, no thank you. I would rather go to you." And then he explained why. He said that one night he had a dream and in his dream he saw his father, now in heaven. His father was wearing a magnificent gown and a royal crown studded with jewels. The gown and the crown were made up of the mitzvot, the obligations to do right which he done while on earth. But then he noticed that his father was barefoot.
So he asked his father: why are you barefoot? And his father said: my gown and my crown are made up of the good deeds that I did while I was on earth, but I waited for people to come to me for help instead of going to them. Therefore, I have no good deeds that were done with my feet, and that is why I am barefoot now. The rebbe explained to his Chassidim that this is why he wants to go to them instead of waiting for them to come to him.
The point of this story, of course, is that we can serve God and we can help people not only with our mind and with our heart and with our checkbook; we can help people with our feet as well, if we use our feet to go to people when they are in distress. Our feet can be holy if we use them for holy purposes.
I believe that if we take these three examples together we'll come to the same conclusion. The point of Mishpatim, this week's Torah portion, all of these little laws having to do with daily encounters and relationships, is that we can achieve holiness by the way we do business, by the way we buy and sell, hire and fire. The point of the story of the doctor who got a pencil to put in his breakfront is that we can be holy by the way we treat others when they are in pain. And the point of the Chassidic story is that every part of us can be holy, if we use them to do good for others. Inaction is an act. Jews are instructed, yea commanded, not to stand still while our neighbor bleeds.
I conclude with one more line from this week's Torah portion. At the very end of the sedra, the people of Israel are told: Anshe kodesh tihiyu li - you shall be holy people unto Me. Why do we need this extra word anshe - people? Wouldn't it be enough to say "be holy unto Me?" Rabbi Menachim Mendl of Kotsk teaches Anshe kodesh tihiyu li means "be holy human beings unto Me. Angels I have enough of without you."
God wants us to be both holy and mentshen. God wants us to serve the Divine not only by the way we pray and study, but by the way we live, by what we do in the office and in the store, and not just by what we do in the synagogue.
Abraham Joshua Heschel put it so well years ago. God is either everywhere or nowhere; the Parent of all men and women, or of no men and women; concerned about everything, or nothing. To understand this - to understand that we serve God by how we live and how we love and how we help one another - this is what Jews mean by holiness. Anshe Kodesh - we have the potential, all of us, to be holy people. Kayn y'hi ratzon - may God help us fulfill our potential. Amen
This message is based on the writings of Rabbi Jack Riemer, and I am grateful for his insights and wisdom.
