Two Notes on Concepts of Sanctity (Column 472)
Parashat Kedoshim feeds the temptation to “sanctify everything”
The essay opens with a sense that the word “holy” has been cheapened in talk about the Holocaust, the IDF, terror victims, the state, and redemption. The framing of Parashat Kedoshim, where dozens of diverse mitzvot are opened and closed by the call to be holy, invites preachers to identify fair commerce, interpersonal conduct, and worldly labor with holiness as well. Hasidism expanded this into “sanctifying the material,” and Religious Zionism adopted the move with regard to the people, the state, and its symbols too. The rabbi notes that even Rav Neria’s wording is careful: “Sanctify your life with Torah and purify it through labor” — labor is an ideal, but one of purity and not necessarily of holiness.
Halakha confines holiness to the Temple, sacred objects, and perhaps also kiddushin
Against that expansion, the essay argues that halakha makes a more precise and “thin” distinction: permitted and forbidden, impure and pure, and sacred and mundane are not the same axis. Most of the world of prohibition and permission belongs דווקא to the mundane; holiness is confined mainly to the Temple and its sancta, and perhaps to a few additional point-cases such as kiddushin. The clearest proof is the distinction in tractate Megillah between objects used for a mitzvah, which may be discarded, and objects of holiness, which require genizah. The very halakhic need to mark such a boundary shows that mitzvot are not automatically identical with holiness.
The placenta sugya shows that prohibition, impurity, and holiness are not the same halakhic language
In the placenta sugya and in Tosafot, it emerges that the impurity laws of a woman who has given birth and the laws governing her prohibition to her husband do not overlap. With respect to impurity, the laws of doubtful impurity in the public and private domains apply, whereas with respect to the prohibition to the husband the ordinary laws of doubtful prohibition apply, which distinguish between a single doubt and a double doubt; from this it follows that there can be cases in which the status of impurity and the status of prohibition are not identical. The difficulty that the laws of doubtful impurity are learned from Sotah is resolved, in the name of the Avnei Nezer and on the basis of the Kuzari, through the principle that impurity belongs to an injury to holiness: in Sotah the injury is to the marital bond, which is defined as kiddushin and as me’ilah, and therefore belongs to the world of impurity; in niddah and in a woman who has given birth, the prohibition does not arise from damage to the couple’s bond but from a general prohibition, and therefore it belongs to the world of the mundane even if impurity accompanies it.
The proposed map: five realms, not a binary of sacred versus profane
From here the essay builds a more complex map: holiness; mundane on the purity of holiness — that is, mitzvah; neutral mundane; mundane not on the purity of holiness — that is, prohibition; and impurity. It stresses that the mundane is not “optional” in the sense of a value-free area: Torah and morality care very much how it is conducted. It also concedes that there is a borrowed use of the language of holiness, because even in mitzvot there is a partial revelation of the Divine Presence. But precisely because this is sometimes only a quantitative difference in the degree of revelation, one must not erase the categorical distinction: otherwise one effaces the entire realm of the mundane and lets the extremes — holiness or impurity — take it over.
The Hasmoneans were punished because the priest became king
To show that this blurring is harmful, the essay turns to Ramban on the Hasmoneans. According to him, they were not punished despite their merits, but because of their tendency to turn the priesthood into kingship as well: not only to defend holiness against Greece, but to subordinate the realm of monarchy and public life to priestly holiness too. During the struggle against the Greeks this may have been a necessary antithesis to the Greek attempt to impose the mundane upon the sacred; but once it became a fixed ideology, it turned illegitimate to the point of the dynasty’s eradication. A king may consult a priest, and it is even fitting that he do so; it is dangerous for the priest to be the king.
When the state, the flag, and bereavement become sacred, the result is zealotry and fascism
The essay explains why this is not merely a semantic dispute. The sacred realm is accompanied by ecstasy, intensity, zealotry, uncompromisingness, and an unwillingness to hear criticism; therefore, when one turns the state, the army, the flag, or bereavement into something sacred, one gets not only elevated language but a total politics. Hence the sharp criticism of the “holiness of the state,” of bringing flags into the synagogue, and of granting a sacred aura to the fallen and to bereaved families. In the rabbi’s view, this breeds fascism, silencing, and moral confusion: suffering itself becomes a sanctified value, life becomes instrumental, and the ability to conduct a balanced discussion disappears. In place of gratitude, sensitivity, and consideration, one gets immunity from criticism.
Keep the sacred narrow and govern the mundane responsibly
The conclusion is not to belittle the mundane but the opposite: to conduct it responsibly, morally, and according to halakha, yet without turning it into holiness. The state is an important and legitimate instrument of a people, not a sanctified entity; rabbis should at most advise the government, not swallow it; and a flag, if one insists on investing it with meaning, belongs in a civic ceremony and not in the synagogue. The essay therefore ends with a call to narrow the realm of holiness rather than expand it through conceptual imperialism: let it remain only what it originally is, and let us not add to it.
This column is dedicated to my new, sweet, and beloved grandson, Gal Moshe (Bisli) Levanon.
I trust his parents will raise him with a balanced attitude between the sacred and the mundane.
This Shabbat in synagogue I spoke about Parashat Kedoshim, finding ourselves, of course, between Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Memorial and Independence Days. For quite some time I have felt that these days see a cheapening of the concept of sanctity, through its overly casual use. From the irritating and baseless talk about the “martyrs of the Holocaust” and “IDF martyrs,” and about the “sanctification of God’s name” by terror victims (I have dealt with all these sensitive topics elsewhere, so I would ask that protests and discussion of them be moved to those places), to the “sanctity” of the State, the Jewish person, redemption, and the like. Parashat Kedoshim is therefore a good time to touch a bit on the concept of sanctity.
I will do so here via two claims that build on one another: 1) The concept of sanctity is limited and does not even coincide with mitzvot and divine service in general, and certainly has no connection to the neutral realm of the mundane. 2) It is important to maintain this distinction, and blurring it comes with heavy costs and harms.
Parashat Kedoshim and an imperialistic use of the concept of sanctity
At the start of Parashat Kedoshim we read:
“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the entire congregation of the children of Israel and say to them: ‘You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.’”
Within the parashah appear dozens of mitzvot of every kind, and in its penultimate verse we read:
“And you shall be holy to Me, for I, the Lord, am holy; and I have set you apart from the nations to be Mine.”
This framing could hint that all the content included in the parashah belongs to sanctity. Among other things, we find there commands regarding reverence for parents; prohibitions of idolatry and of remnant offerings; all the commandments of gifts to the poor; theft, robbery, denial and oppression; the wages of a hired worker; placing a stumbling block before the blind; not cursing; not perverting justice; a set of commandments about our conduct toward others (love, not hating, not shaming, rebuke, not taking revenge or bearing a grudge, and more); forbidden mixtures in animals and plants; and much more. It is a very diverse collection of mitzvot and it is hard to see a common denominator. Hence one often hears various preachers explain to us that the concept of sanctity spans all realms of existence, and that even prosaic matters such as interpersonal relationships, fair commerce, and the like, belong to the world of sanctity.
Chassidut went further, extending the concept of sanctity beyond the world of mitzvot even to the “filthy alleys” (in the Lithuanian phrase from R. Chaim of Volozhin’s school), i.e., to the mundane realm. Thus arose the slogan of “sanctifying the material,” so beloved by our religious-Zionist cousins who, as is known, are a contemporary branch of Chassidut (in the last generation this has also surfaced openly through the study of Chassidut that has become so popular in our circles). Us Litvaks, like me, oppose this imperialism, and in our view sanctity belongs in the world of halakhah and mitzvot. The “filthy alleys” were created here so that we would distance ourselves from them, not so that we would sanctify them. I think Rabbi Neria was careful not to equate the domains fully when he wrote in his well-known song for Bnei Akiva: “Sanctify your life with Torah and purify it with work.” Torah belongs to the world of sanctity, but work—even if an ideal for him—belongs to the world of purity (that is, mundane life conducted in the spirit of the sacred).
The idea of sanctifying the mundane spreads in religious Zionism beyond the private mundane sphere to the realm of peoplehood and state. What was seen as the mundane realm (even somewhat base—politics, heaven forfend) has become the Holy of Holies. The State is sacred and its institutions are the Holy of Holies; I won’t repeat the grotesque claim that IDF uniforms are like the vestments of the High Priest (especially the navy, of course—“At all times let your garments be white, and let your head never lack oil”). Everything connected with the State—such as soldiers who gave their lives for it—is naturally sacred (the “sanctity of remembrance”). Flags enter the synagogue (my flesh crawls when I see this chilling fascism), and the Flag March, largely a nationalistic romp of enthusiastic youth, is also made a focus of divine service.
At first glance, the structure of Parashat Kedoshim supports this imperialistic use: it seems that mitzvot of every sort are our path to sanctifying the mundane and the material.
What is sanctity: a halakhic view
But unlike Chassidut and “machshavah” literature—which generally do not exhibit caution and precision in concepts, for they subordinate sources and terms to their desired ends (and hence time spent on them is usually wasted)—halakhah views the concept of sanctity in a more precise and “lean” way. The domains of permitted-forbidden and pure-impure do not coincide with the domain of sacred-mundane. In fact, halakhically, almost all of the forbidden-permitted realm belongs to the mundane. Sanctity is bounded to the world of the Temple and its sancta, and perhaps a few additional subjects such as kiddushin (see Kiddushin 7a: “the foot of this one ascends,” Tosafot s.v. “Chatsyaikh” on 7b; and at length in Kuntrasei Shiurim by Rav Gustman, Kiddushin, shiur 1).[1]
An illustration of this halakhic distinction can be found in the Gemara (Megillah 26b), which distinguishes between “implements of a mitzvah” and “implements of sanctity” with respect to the laws of genizah (storing sacred items):
“Our Rabbis taught: Implements of a mitzvah are discarded; implements of sanctity are placed in genizah. These are implements of a mitzvah: a sukkah, lulav, shofar, and tzitzit. These are implements of sanctity: cases for books, tefillin and mezuzot, a Torah mantle, and a tefillin case and its straps.”
A detailed discussion then begins about exactly where the boundary runs between sanctity and mitzvah (see also Menachot 35b). Halakhah is careful to keep “sanctity” a distinct category from “mitzvah.” One may not mix them; hence we treat sacred objects differently from objects of a mitzvah. Mitzvot as such do not belong to the world of sanctity.
An illustration from the “placenta” sugya
Another instructive example of the difference between these domains appears in Tosafot s.v. “Ein miktzat sheliya” (Bava Kamma 11a). The Gemara there discusses the impurity status of a woman who has given birth, distinguishing between a case of doubt whether a fetus emerged and a case of a double doubt:
“Ulla said in the name of R. Elazar: If part of a placenta emerged on the first day and part on the second, we count for her from the first day. Rava said to him: What are you thinking—to be stringent? That is a stringency that leads to leniency, for you thereby render her pure from the first day. Rather, Rava said: With regard to concern, we are concerned; with regard to counting, we do not count except from the second day. What is this teaching us—that there is no partial placenta without a fetus? But we have learned: A placenta some of which emerged makes [the animal] forbidden to eat.”
A woman who gives birth becomes impure for seven days (for a male) or fourteen days (for a female) from the time the fetus emerges. If a placenta comes out with a stillborn, she is also impure from the day on which most of the fetus emerged. What if part of the placenta came out on day A and part on day B? Do we count the days of impurity from day A or only from day B? The Gemara concludes that there is a doubt here, and therefore one must be stringent in both directions: begin counting on day A and end the count on day B. What is the doubt? Whether the portion of placenta that emerged contained most of the fetus or not. If it was only a minority, impurity would not begin that day.
The Gemara ties this to the question whether there is no partial placenta without a fetus; in other words, even if part of a placenta emerges, it is certain there was a fetus, and the only doubt is how much of the fetus (most or minority). But if there could be a partial placenta with no fetus at all, then we would have a double doubt: perhaps nothing of the fetus came out, and even if something did, perhaps it was only a minority. The difference between the view that there is no partial placenta without a fetus and the view that there is, is whether we have a single doubt or a double doubt.
Tosafot infer this from the Gemara and pose a difficulty:
“If you say that according to R. Elazar we are concerned because there is no partial placenta without a fetus, then if there were a case of partial placenta without a fetus she would not be concerned—what is the case? If it occurred in the public domain—even with a single doubt we treat as pure. And if in the private domain—even with a double doubt it is impure, for we learned: ‘All doubts [of impurity] that you can multiply, in the private domain—even a double doubt is impure’ (per Taharot 6:4)!”
Tosafot remind us that the Mishnah in Taharot (6:4) sets special rules for doubts of impurity that differ from ordinary halakhic doubts. A Torah-level doubt (de’oraita) is generally treated stringently, but a double doubt is treated leniently. In impurity, however, the distinction is not between single and double doubt but between where the doubt arose: if it arose in the public domain (reshut ha-rabim), we are lenient even with a single doubt; in the private domain (reshut ha-yachid), we are stringent even with a double doubt. In light of this, Tosafot ask: how can our sugya distinguish between a single doubt and a double doubt (hence the need to posit that there is no partial placenta without a fetus)? If this happened in the public domain, she should count only from the second day whether or not there can be a partial placenta without a fetus; and if it happened in the private domain, she should count from day A—again regardless of that question.
Tosafot answer:
“It may be said that our passage concerns forbidding her to her husband.”
Their claim is that the discussion here concerns only her prohibition to her husband, not her state of impurity. Therefore the rules in play are those of issur-doubt, not impurity-doubt.
From Tosafot it follows that with respect to impurity, if this occurred in the private domain we would be stringent in both scenarios; it would turn out that the woman is indeed impure, yet (on the assumption that a partial placenta can occur without a fetus) permitted to her husband. And if it occurred in the public domain, it would turn out that she is forbidden to her husband but not impure (on the assumption that there is no partial placenta without a fetus). Later authorities have already noted that Tosafot say something quite novel here: the prohibition of a woman who has given birth to her husband is not necessarily tied to her state of impurity.
Some later authorities raise a powerful objection: the whole rule about impurity doubts in public vs. private domain is learned from the case of a sotah (suspected adulteress): if there is a doubt and she secluded herself (in private) we are stringent; if not (in public) we are lenient. But there, too, the matter is her prohibition to her husband; by Tosafot’s logic, the rules of issur-doubt should apply there, not impurity-doubt. How, then, can we learn from sotah the rules for impurity doubts in public/private? Alternatively, if we indeed learn impurity doubt from sotah, then one cannot say that in the case of a woman’s prohibition to her husband the impurity-doubt rules do not apply, as Tosafot claim here.
In Nefesh Yehonatan on Parashat Chukat, the editor (Rabbi Yaakov Orner, “Tziyyon lenefesh,” §5), who is the nephew of the Avnei Nezer, brings in the name of his revered grandfather an answer to this objection:
“I heard from my holy master, our teacher and my revered grandfather, the gaon and saint, the illustrious rav of Sochatchov, an explanation of Tosafot based on the Kuzari (III:49): impurity exists only where there is sanctity—such as with sacrificial matters, terumah and tithes—whereas niddah vis-à-vis her husband is ‘mundane,’ as is said in Hullin 31a. Thus what the Torah forbade—a niddah to her husband—is not due to impurity but a simple prohibition. These are Tosafot’s words: that doubt regarding a niddah’s prohibition to her husband is judged by the rules of issur-doubt, not impurity-doubt. And that which we derive—impurity doubt in the public domain—from sotah, though her husband is ‘mundane’; how can that be impurity? The meaning of ‘her husband is mundane’ is only with regard to the law of niddah, for the prohibition is not because of kiddushin (marriage), since even with an unmarried woman there is karet; thus the niddah-prohibition is unrelated to kiddushin but to intercourse, and therefore her husband is indeed ‘mundane’. But sotah—whose prohibition is only to her husband, to whom she is consecrated, and kiddushin is a language of consecration (hekdesh) that renders her forbidden to the world like a korban; and the Gemara asks whether kiddushin spread everywhere as with a korban—since the sotah-prohibition flows from sanctity, it is rightly treated as impurity, which applies in a place of sanctity per the Kuzari. Therefore in sotah, a doubt in the public domain is treated as a simple doubt [with its rules], not as an issur-doubt. See also Tosafot in Yevamot that returning one’s divorcee after she married another is a prohibition of ‘the remnant of his flesh,’ since the prohibition stems from the first kiddushin; therefore it is rightly impurity doubt and not issur-doubt, unlike niddah where the prohibition does not stem from kiddushin but is a plain issur.”
His claim is that impurity pertains only where there is sanctity (he cites the Kuzari III:49). Why in fact are impurity-doubt rules learned from sotah? The source is the verse (Numbers 5:12): “Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: If any man’s wife goes astray and acts unfaithfully against him.” Violation of the marital bond is described as “me’ilah” (misappropriation of the sacred), i.e., an injury to sanctity. Hence, too, the term kiddushin used to describe the bond between husband and wife; above I cited several sources on this. A woman who strays injures the sanctified marital bond with her husband; she has committed me’ilah, and therefore the prohibition she transgressed is of the type called “impurity.” Injury to sanctity is impurity. This is why we can learn from sotah the rules about impurity doubts in the public vs. private domain.
But the prohibition of a woman who has given birth is like that of a niddah. In such a case the woman is forbidden to the entire world, not specifically to her husband. Of course the prohibition is relevant to her husband, but it is not an injury to the marital bond between them (unlike sotah). Therefore the prohibition of a woman who has given birth, though accompanied by impurity, is not adjudicated as impurity but as an ordinary prohibition. Hence the relevant doubt-rules are those of issur, which distinguish between a single doubt and a double doubt. Her impurity status, naturally, will be judged by impurity-doubt rules; but as Tosafot wrote, here the discussion concerns the prohibition, not the impurity.
Interim summary
We have seen that the common identification between the world of sanctity and the world of mitzvot and divine service is mistaken. Sanctity is a small sub-domain within the halakhic and religious world, chiefly concerning the sanctity of the Temple and its holy things, the ten degrees of sanctity in Mishnah Kelim, and, in a certain sense, the kiddushin between spouses. Beyond the domain of sanctity lies the realm of the mundane, and the vast majority of halakhic commandments and prohibitions belong there. Sometimes sanctity-impurity appear alongside halakhic prohibition-permission (as with a woman who has given birth), yet it remains important to distinguish between them.
The mundane realm stretches between the world of sanctity and its antithesis—the world of impurity. It is governed by rules different from those of sanctity and impurity (for example, the laws of doubt). Needless to say, the mundane is not identical to “permitted discretion.” Halakhah and morality have much to say about the mundane realm. There is permitted and forbidden there, and the Torah and God care very much how it is conducted. But this is not sanctity or impurity; it is something we may call “mundane conducted in the spirit of the sacred.” Mundane life not conducted in that spirit is forbidden (halakhically or morally), but not “impure.”
The picture that emerges now comprises five domains: sanctity — mundane in the spirit of the sacred (mitzvah) — value-neutral mundane (permission) — mundane not in the spirit of the sacred (prohibition) — impurity. This structure parallels the five categories of speech that appear in the Commentary to the Mishnah by Maimonides on Avot 1:16:
“I say that speech, according to the obligation of our Torah, divides into five parts: commanded, forbidden, repugnant, beloved, and permitted.”
Around neutral speech (permission) there is speech that is fitting and unfitting, and around those, permitted and forbidden speech. I would add, around the latter, two further categories of sacred and mundane speech.[2]
One might think this is merely a semantic distinction. What does it matter whether we call it “mundane in the spirit of the sacred” or “sacred”? Why is it important to distinguish between mitzvot and transgressions in the mundane realm and sanctity and impurity? Moreover, we can find not a few metaphorical uses of sanctity-terms that refer to the mundane. Mitzvot “increase sanctity” (see Rambam’s Sefer Ha-Mitzvot, principle 4, and Ramban’s comments there; and commentators at the beginning of Parashat Kedoshim). This is not an invention of Chassidim or sermonizers; it occurs in the Torah and in the Sages. Nevertheless, it remains important to distinguish between metaphorical usage and the original meaning of sanctity-terms as defined by halakhah. The metaphor arises because even within mitzvot there is some manifestation of sanctity. The ten degrees of sanctity in Mishnah Kelim differ due to the degree of the Shechinah’s revelation in those places. So, too, with realms other than physical space (geography): the degree of God’s presence and connection determines the level of sanctity in the matter. In the Temple and the sacred realm it is more manifest, and that is what is halakhically defined as sanctity. In mitzvot within the mundane, it is more indirect and therefore does not merit the label “sanctity” except in a borrowed sense. But the categorical distinction between domains tells us that although the difference seems merely quantitative, it is significant and must not be blurred.
This brings me to the second remark, the next step in the argument. I now wish to contend not only that identifying mitzvah with sanctity is an error, but that it is a harmful and very dangerous error. Equating mitzvah with sanctity, and transgression with impurity, in effect erases the world of the mundane—and such erasure is dangerous and must be resisted. We must not allow the extremes to take over the mundane, neither the extreme of impurity nor that of sanctity.
The importance of demarcating sanctity and the mundane
I discussed this at length in my essay on sacred and profane on Chanukah (and in general), so I will not elaborate here. On the verse “The scepter shall not depart from Judah,” Ramban writes there as follows:
“This was the punishment of the Hasmoneans who reigned in the Second Temple, for they were exceedingly pious, and if not for them the Torah and mitzvot would have been forgotten from Israel; nonetheless they were punished greatly, for the four sons of the elder Hasmonean, pious men who reigned one after another, despite all their might and success fell by the sword into the hands of their enemies. The punishment reached its end in what our Sages said: ‘Whoever says, “I am from the house of the Hasmoneans,” is a slave’ (Bava Batra 3b)—they were all cut off for this sin. Although there was punishment in Shimon’s seed because of the Sadducees, all the seed of Mattathias the righteous were cut off only because they reigned though they were not of the seed of Judah and the house of David, and they entirely removed the scepter and the lawgiver, and their punishment was measure for measure, for the Holy One, blessed be He, set their slaves to rule over them and they destroyed them.”
“It is also possible that there was in their kingship a sin because they were priests and were commanded: ‘You shall keep your priesthood with regard to everything of the altar and of what is within the curtain; I give your priesthood as a service of gift’ (Numbers 18:7), and they should not have reigned, only served the service of the Lord.”
Ramban explains why the Hasmoneans were entirely wiped out despite giving their lives to sanctify God’s name and keep His commandments. He argues that this was because they appointed themselves kings even though they were priests. He then cites a dispute in the Jerusalem Talmud:
“I saw in the Jerusalem Talmud (Horayot 3:2 [15b]) that priests are not anointed as kings. R. Yehuda Antoria said: because of ‘The scepter shall not depart from Judah’ (Genesis 49:10). R. Ḥiyya bar Abba said: because of ‘so that he and his sons may prolong [their days] upon his kingship in Israel’ (Deuteronomy 17:20), and what is written afterward? ‘There shall be no portion for the priests the Levites’ (18:1). They taught here that we do not anoint kings from the priests, the sons of Aaron. First he explained it as an honor to Judah, that the authority not depart from that tribe; therefore, although Israel may establish a king from other tribes as needed for the time, we do not anoint them, so that they not possess the splendor of kingship, but be like judges and officers. And they mentioned the priests, that although they themselves are fit for anointing, we do not anoint them for kingship—and all the more so, other tribes; as the [Bavli] says (Horayot 11b), we anoint only kings of the house of David. And R. Ḥiyya bar Abba explained that it is a Torah prohibition that the priests, the Levites—indeed the entire tribe of Levi—not have a share and inheritance in kingship. And this is right and proper.”
R. Yehuda Antoria holds that kings must be of the house of David, so a king from the tribe of Levi is inappropriate. R. Ḥiyya bar Abba holds there is a special problem when priests become kings; Ramban himself inclines to this latter view.
In my essay I showed that, in the picture painted by Chazal, the Greeks operated with a consistent program of subjecting the sacred to the mundane. This is called “defiling the sacred.” The Hasmoneans, by contrast, acted with the opposite program: to subject the mundane to the sacred. Against the Greek thesis had to arise the Hasmonean antithesis to defeat them. As part of the Hasmonean stance, they appointed priests to be kings; and this, I argue, was not merely lust for power but part of their ideology (see more examples in my essay). Their aim was to manage even the mundane by means of sanctity. Kingship, too—which manages the life of the mundane—should be conducted by the priest.
But the bottom line is that the Hasmoneans’ program was itself also unacceptable. Moreover, it was so severe that God decided to eradicate them from the earth on its account, despite all their merits. As long as the war against the Greeks continued, this was the right program, for the Greeks had tilted the balance too far toward the mundane, and an antithesis had to come to return the scales to the middle. The punishment was imposed because they continued this program even after victory over the Greeks—i.e., because for them it was an ideology and not merely a means to defeat the Greeks. It is such a dangerous program that God decides to eradicate it with a strong hand.
The conclusion from Ramban is far-reaching: secularization/profanation of the sacred is dangerous and must be fought. But sanctifying the mundane is also dangerous and must also be fought strongly. The slogans I mentioned above about sanctifying the material and the mundane must be spoken and implemented with great care and balance. There is certainly a place to conduct the mundane in the spirit of the sacred, but not to turn the mundane itself into sanctity. If the king consults the priest, excellent. If the priest himself is the king, that is a very dangerous mixing of domains. On the level of terminology as well, it is desirable and proper to conduct the mundane according to the guidance of halakhah and mitzvot (and if sanctity-terms are used, it is important to stress that this is metaphorical usage), but not to view them as the domain of sanctity.
The problem
Here the difficulty I mentioned above reemerges: why is this so dangerous? Isn’t it merely semantic? It turns out that the domain of the sacred tends to appear differently than other domains—even those that belong to the moral sphere and to divine service (ethics and/or halakhah). Ecstasy, intensity, zealotry, an unwillingness to compromise or hear other views—these are all hallmarks of the sacred. In the sacred, everything appears in heightened intensities, and in the sacred there are no compromises. God’s response is accordingly: Nadav and Avihu, who erred slightly upon entering the sacred, were immediately struck dead. The response is horrific because the danger is so great. When ecstasy is high, dangerous steps are taken and grave mistakes are made (see Column 312, and the entire series there beginning with Column 311). The mundane must be conducted more sanely and in more balanced fashion than the sacred.
The implications for extending sanctity-terms to bereavement, the Holocaust, the State and its institutions are self-evident; I have addressed them more than once. Canonizing a state and a flag—paradigmatic mundane items—leads to fascism. Religious Zionism continues here the Chassidic approach (“contraction not in its plain sense”) that sees every expansion of existence as an expression of sanctity, and centers our lives around sanctifying the mundane—that is, extracting sparks of sanctity that the mundane hides. But those sparks are hidden there for a reason. God chooses to limit His manifestation to certain domains, and contrary to the Chassidic ethos, expanding it to other domains is not desirable; it is a grave and harmful mistake.
A state is a tool. It is a clear national interest and a wholly legitimate desire of a people to manage its life. But the State is mundane. There are mitzvot and moral and halakhic guidelines that must be considered in governing a state, but it is not right to make it sacred. The Chief Rabbi (even if someone worthy and a reasonable institution stood behind him) should not run the state, but at most advise “its heads, ministers, and counselors” (see my remarks on the model of the Council of Torah Sages in Column 217). That was precisely the Hasmoneans’ mistake, for which they were punished.
Seeing the State as sacred is dangerous fascism. The flag’s place (if one insists on ascribing meaning to that piece of cloth) is at Independence Day ceremonies, but not in the synagogue (see in Column 388 my remark about the flag dance). Likewise, canonizing “martyrs,” and certainly those who are not martyrs (see Column 215), brings severe moral confusion. Everyone who suffers becomes “holy”; suffering itself becomes a sanctified value. Life loses its intrinsic worth and meaning and becomes instrumental. This also leads to silencing and an inability and unwillingness to be open to criticism. Thus, when a bereaved family speaks on some matter, everyone is supposed to be silent and agree—and of course there is an obligation to publicize it (see for example here and here). The aura of sanctity hovers over them because they gave what is most precious “for the sanctification of God’s name.” See here for a paradigmatic example of tying bereavement to Judaism (via the attitude toward the State) and the distortions this produces. There is certainly room for gratitude for the sacrifice made on behalf of us all, and of course it is important to show sensitivity to the pain and bereavement. But the status given to such voices in the public discourse is, in my view, vastly exaggerated.
In short, in the domain of the sacred one treads on tiptoe and with sensitivity—and I, who am not inclined to tiptoeing (neither psychologically nor ideologically), think it is important to narrow that domain as much as possible. “Innovate only what must be innovated; add not to it.”
[1] See also the Gemara’s wording (Kiddushin 2b): “He renders her prohibited to everyone like consecrated property,” and Tosafot s.v. “De’asar,” there.
[2] These can be linked to things said only in the holy tongue, listed in the Mishnah at the start of Sotah ch. 7. These are generally utterances meant to constitute something (performative speech), not to communicate with someone or convey/express information (communication can be done in any language as long as the meaning is preserved).
Discussion
Thank you for an interesting column.
Have you ever dealt with defining or describing holiness itself? In your view, is it a state, a quality, a “substance,” or a process? Or perhaps something else? How can we know it (it itself, not its concept)? Do you think Jewish (or halakhic) holiness differs from “non-Jewish” holiness?
In the book Seven Years of Conversations on the Weekly Torah Portion, Leibowitz addresses the concept of the holy in Rav Kook and the author of Or Sameach of Dvinsk, and he recounts that when he met Rav Kook in his youth he said/implied to him that he did not understand the meaning of the blessing “who distinguishes between holy and profane.”
And thank you for the warm blessings (including the wonderful jab – really to get scorched by a Torah scholar)
Your journey toward complete identification with Yeshayahu Leibowitz continues in full force!
Here you are already using the word “fascism.” Congratulations! Just one tiny additional effort and you’ll get to “Judeo-Nazis.”
But in the end these are logical conclusions (or at least a reductio ad absurdum) of the Litvak approach of expelling the Holy One, blessed be He, from the world.
Indeed. That is why I mentioned the borrowed uses of holiness, in the Bible and in Hazal. But from the standpoint of halakhah, Shabbat has no significance of holiness in the sense of the object itself. There is an obligation to sanctify it at its entrance and exit, but that is not holiness in the object itself. As I explained, this is a difference of degree, but that threshold is nevertheless very important.
Doron,
I don’t recall having written about this. Simply put, it is part of reality. There is holiness that overlays certain places and objects. It is their property or state.
In my view there is no separate holiness specific to Jews. The reason is that the concept of holiness is not entrusted to us but to the Holy One, blessed be He. He defines what is holy and what is not. “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
Yossi,
I admit the facts and deny the charge. It is indeed fascism, even though Yeshayahu Leibowitz said it. I am not saying that every national feeling or national ideology is fascism. But assigning religious value (and especially holiness) to nationalism and the state is fascism.
Then one more question, if I may. It seems that Leibowitz (whose name came up here) said that there is no holiness except in God, and I understood him to mean that holiness outside God, holiness in the world, is in fact impossible. Therefore there is not really holiness to place or to time.
What is your opinion? Is there holiness in the world (from God), or is it confined within God?
Here my association is also to Amichai…
“God full of mercy,
Were God not full of mercy,
There would be mercy in the world and not only in Him”
“But assigning religious value (and especially holiness) to nationalism and the state is fascism.”
I know you hold that nothing can be learned from the Written Torah, and despite that, I recommend that you nevertheless try to internalize some basic concepts written in it.
If you don’t do so, you’ll keep arriving at ridiculous conclusions like these, according to which an overwhelming majority of the rabbis in this country are basically fascists . . .
And one more small question: you do accept the masks of the Oral Torah. If so, how does your claim quoted at the beginning of my post fit with the following text taken from the Gemara:
Rabbi Yohanan said: Why did Omri merit kingship?
Because he added one fortified city in the Land of Israel,
as it is said: “He bought the hill Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver,
and he built on the hill and named the city he built after Shemer, the owner of the hill, Samaria” (I Kings 16:24)
(Sanhedrin 102)
According to this Gemara, is there not religious value to a national matter?
Shabbat is the sanctuary of time, and therefore one who profanes it shall surely be put to death (from Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun).
According to the Gemara in Megillah, an object of holiness is an object upon which God’s name is revealed. God’s name is revealed upon the people of Israel, and therefore Jews too are an object of holiness (they are buried the way an object of holiness is buried, one rends one’s garment on seeing them die as one does for a Torah scroll that has been burned, and so on). If a Jew is killed as a Jew, then there is here a revelation of God’s name in the world that has been damaged, and therefore one must mourn over it, even if he was exterminated (and not if he was killed merely as a criminal by the police).
The Holocaust was a desecration of God’s name and not a sanctification of God’s name, but it was not just some sad event. An injury to the people of Israel is an injury to God’s name in the world, and that cannot be ignored.
I also wanted to make a nitpicky remark about the connection between fascism and religion or religiosity. As best I understand it, there may perhaps be a similarity in terms of zeal and commitment between the two phenomena, but there is a cardinal difference between them: fascism is a distinctly modern phenomenon. The psychology is different (the experience of modern alienation is a central motive for the fascist), the sociology is different (social polarization is bound up with increased mobility of populations and changes in patterns of settlement – for example accelerated urbanization), and the fascist attitude toward religion is very ambivalent (to the best of my knowledge it is rare to find clergy as leaders of fascist movements).
Congratulations on the birth of the grandson,
but it’s not really clear what the point of this caprice is…
You chose to call everything that is not called holy in halakhic language “holy by analogy”; if so, then calling the martyrs of the Holocaust holy is also holiness in a borrowed expression.
You define a concept of holiness that no one uses, create an irrelevant distinction regarding how one conducts oneself around the holy and the profane, and then complain that people sanctify the profane.
Just say in one sentence that the conduct surrounding these things is too emotional.
Politicians do not go to be photographed with bereaved families because someone said they are holy, but because of the feelings they arouse in the relevant publics. The term “holy” in the broader public is simply a translation of “martyr” and has no real implications for anyone’s behavior.
The same goes for flags in the synagogue – it’s not fascistic. It is simply celebrating Independence Day in the synagogue as well, just as one decorates it with flowers for Shavuot. In the yeshiva high school we used to hang decorations for Purim and Hanukkah too.
The criticism is perhaps relevant to parts of Religious Zionism, which for the most part don’t really have any practical ramifications from it.
The impression created is that you simply enjoy being in the position of slaughterer of sacred cows for no need, and that is unbecoming.
With God’s help, 15 Iyar 5782
According to Rudolf Otto, the foundation of holiness is the feeling of awe and self-nullification before the infinite greatness of God. By contrast, the portion of “Kedoshim” opens with the call “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” God’s holiness invites man to aspire to be like Him. Beloved is man, who was created in the image of God, and from this he is called “to keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice.” And an added affection is made known to Israel, “for they are called children of the Omnipresent,” and as God defines it, “Israel is My son, My firstborn”; and as a “firstborn son,” the people of Israel are responsible to fulfill “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” to establish a model society that will provide an example to the entire world through its noble life, full of constant responsibility for others and devotion to a life of truth, goodness, and uprightness,
As is evident from the many commandments in the portion of “Kedoshim,” holiness is tested in a life ordered according to the Torah. Honor for parents and honor for the sanctuaries of God, the sanctuary in place and the sanctuary in time, namely the Sabbath day; concern for the poor and weak; and a respectful, loving, and restrained attitude toward every person. Even toward one who has wronged you: “You shall not take vengeance nor bear a grudge against the children of your people,” but rather “You shall surely rebuke your fellow” in a respectful and dignified manner, “and not bear sin because of him” by shaming him in public. A person is also recognizable in his eating by his lack of indulgence. Not to be like a beast of prey pouncing on a carcass, but rather “You shall be holy people to Me; flesh torn in the field you shall not eat.” And in the sphere of marital life as well, holiness requires keeping away from what does not lead to proper family life.
“Holy people” do not withdraw from life in this world. They sow and reap, eat and enjoy the world, but they are careful to live their lives while observing the proper “lines that may not be crossed,” to be “good toward Heaven and good toward people,” and to live in a manner befitting their being “in the image of God” and “children of the Omnipresent,” who honorably represent their Father in Heaven.
And in honor of the new grandson “Gal Moshe,” let us say that divine holiness is like a force that sends out waves in ever-widening circles. The more a person cleaves to the ways of truth and goodness of his Creator – so the name of the Lord is revealed and sanctified in the world.
With blessings, Ami’oz Yaron Schnitzler
Paragraph 1, line 2
… the portion of “Kedoshim” opens with the call…
Paragraph 2, line 5
… a person is recognizable by his lack of indulgence. …
There, line 7
… holiness requires keeping away from what does not lead…
Assigning religious value to nationalism and the state is fascism – that is a paraphrase of Yair Golan’s words when he was deputy chief of staff, and of Justice Aharon Barak’s words, and it stems from conceptions of nationalism and religion in Europe and in Christianity.
In general, you got carried away in your language this time; the dismissive use of “our Religious-Zionist cousins,”
There is a Hasidic foundation (not stories) for the existence of holiness in the world of action and the profane, even if that does not fit with all the Lithuanian definitions and distinctions, whose honor remains in its place.
As I explained the verse “You shall be holy, for I am holy” – that man’s destiny is to be like a wave that continues the force in ever-widening circles – so too man, by his noble, dignified, and respectful conduct, continues and reveals God’s holiness in the world.
And so it is also in the sphere of purity, where a “wave that has been detached” continues the status of a spring even after being detached from its place (Mikvaot 5:6), and in a mikveh the wave continues the status of the mikveh up to the step beside it so long as the wave remains connected to the mikveh (Makhshirin 7:7).
And so let us bless “Gal Moshe,” that he may grow to be an itpashtuta de-Moshe, both in Torah and wisdom and in good traits, in humility and devotion to the people of Israel; and like our teacher Moses, may he enlighten the eyes of the people of Israel through Torah and good deeds, and connect the powers of the majesty and splendor of the mountains of Lebanon with the powers of holiness of “this good mountain and the Lebanon”; and may he bring much joy to his parents and family, and of him they will thank and praise: “I will sing to the Lord, for He has dealt bountifully with me” 🙂
With blessings, see there
Of course there is holiness in the world. After all, that is an explicit Mishnah and explicit halakhot. There is holiness in the Land of Israel and in Jerusalem, and in the Temple, and in sacrifices. As for holiness of time, people speak of such a thing regarding Shabbat, but I don’t think it has halakhic significance, and therefore it is doubtful whether that is not a borrowed usage. On the halakhic plane, holiness is supposed to be grasped in objects (it is “a law pertaining to the object itself”). True, I wrote in the past that there are hints that from a halakhic standpoint time too is an object (one can attach a vow to it), but this is not the place for that.
I didn’t understand the association with Amichai, who speaks about mercy and not about holiness.
With pleasure. Mazal tov.
By the way, I really didn’t mean it as a jab. It was a serious remark. I had planned to speak there about the connection to negative titles (originally the idea was that each person would say a few words).
I’d be happy to internalize anything I find there. You’re welcome to try to suggest subjects for internalization.
What follows from my words regarding most rabbis neither adds nor detracts. Either I am right or I am not, and to deal with that one must raise substantive arguments and not use ad hominem arguments. Though in my opinion factually you are not right. Beyond that, the fact that someone is a fascist is not supposed to offend him. He truly believes in it. Those who hold fascism believe it is worthy and not invalid. Fascism is not necessarily extreme and immoral acts. It is merely a certain outlook with which I disagree, and of course it also carries many dangers.
I do not accept the authority of the Oral Torah as such, but of the Talmud, and even that not in the realm of aggadah. You are right that settling the Land of Israel has religious value, for it is a commandment. How does that relate to nationalism, and certainly in its modern sense (state, etc.)?
Harming a Jew on account of his service of God is indeed a desecration of God’s name. Indeed, holiness is determined by the degree of revelation of God’s name, and I wrote that there are different levels. But holiness in its precise sense is only a small sub-domain of all these things.
From where comes the assumption that in the list brought by Natan we are dealing with a borrowed concept? How can one distinguish between holiness as a borrowed concept and holiness as a “real” concept? From your words it seemed that this is begging the question…
Why not make a very reasonable assumption, that when the Torah uses the concept of holiness, there truly is holiness?
Why not accept the assumption, for example, that Shabbat is indeed an object of holiness (and it can be profaned, and therefore one who profanes it shall surely be put to death)?
Of course, from there we would have to conclude that not every holiness is contradicted by impurity, but rather that the meaning of holiness of time is cessation, and the meaning of holiness of place is impurity, for example.
The fact that fascism is a modern phenomenon says nothing for our purposes. Attributing holiness to nationalism leads to fascism (today). The psychology and sociology do not really interest me. I deal with values and ideologies, not with people’s motivations and psychology for holding them.
Nice. I’ll have something to say at the upcoming sheva berakhot (if I don’t manage to prepare something). I understand that my father and mother are also holy, since one who strikes them is liable to death.
Yoel, I answered this in the column itself. Indeed one can use borrowed usage, and that was done in the Bible and in Hazal. The question is whether one is careful to remain aware of that, or whether one slides into blurring the boundaries between holy and profane. My problem is not semantic but substantive. For all I care they can call holy whatever they want, but one must pay attention to the implications.
The flag in the synagogue is in many cases accompanied by ecstasy that does not accompany decorating the synagogue for Hanukkah or Shavuot. Don’t play innocent. It is not mere decoration.
I explained this in the column. Indeed everything is connected to holiness, and even the borrowed usage has a real root. Holiness is an appearance of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world, and that exists also in commandments and in other things. But the halakhic distinction is still important, and the indications are halakhic. In your opinion, does a kiddush cup (used to sanctify the day) require genizah? Is it an accessory of holiness or an accessory of a commandment?
Excuse me, Rabbi, but the verses are quite explicit:
12 The Lord said to Moses, saying. 13 And you, speak to the children of Israel, saying: Nevertheless My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. 14 You shall keep the Sabbath, for it is holy to you; whoever profanes it shall surely be put to death, for whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15 Six days work shall be done, and on the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall surely be put to death. 16 And the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to make the Sabbath throughout their generations, an everlasting covenant. 17 It is a sign forever between Me and the children of Israel, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He ceased and was refreshed.
The Sabbath is defined as holy, and this has halakhic implications. Not only “whoever profanes it shall surely be put to death,” but also the postponement of building the Temple, which is forbidden on Shabbat, not putting on tefillin on Shabbat, and more. The verse also explains why Shabbat is holy: because it is a sign that God sanctifies us. In the case of father and mother there is no such definition. One who strikes his father or mother is liable to death, but not because they are defined as holy.
Many thanks.
As I already remarked above, not every fascism is Nazism. Indeed there is fascism in this, but that does not mean that everyone who holds it is a bad person. I disagree with this outlook and also think it is dangerous. But in itself it is an outlook like any other.
As is well known, our Religious-Zionist cousins don’t have much of a sense of humor, and that’s a pity.
If there is a Hasidic source for holiness in the profane world, that is excellent proof that I am right. What the Hasidim say is presumed mistaken until proven otherwise. So thanks for confirming my point.
I didn’t understand what this message added. In the column and also in the comments I spoke about borrowed usage both in the Bible and in Hazal. As an indication, I asked above whether a kiddush cup (with which one sanctifies the day) requires genizah as an accessory of holiness, or whether it is an accessory of a commandment.
All the implications you brought at the end are in no way related to the holiness of Shabbat. On Shabbat it is also forbidden to sort. So is sorting holy? Not putting on tefillin is because Shabbat is a sign. What does that have to do with holiness?!
The point is that the (exaggerated) meaning attributed to nationalism is not really holiness in its religious sense. Not because of the halakhic issue on which you elaborated, but because from the outset the fascist draws his ideology from a modern and to a large extent secularized world, that is, a non-metaphysical world. If the fascist is confused in terms of values and ideology, that is not really because of what you said.
Still, Israeli fascism (there is such a thing) is probably connected to its religious roots (planted in the ancient world) more strongly than the parallel forms of fascism in the secularized post-Christian world. That is of course because Judaism is not only a religion but also a people.
Many thanks for the remarks. It seems to me that Rav Kook compares the study of aggadah to drinking wine (wine, secret, kiddush, holiness, good materials for homilies…), and accordingly determines that someone who studies too much aggadah will become a kind of crazy drunk. It seems one could say the same thing about those who study too much Orot, to the point of shattering the vessels.
With God’s help, 18 Iyar, second year
Every individual Jew is commanded by the injunctions “You shall be holy” and “You shall be holy people to Me,” but the people of Israel are commanded to sanctify public life as well and to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” There are commandments that can be fulfilled only by a public organized as a sovereign political entity. In the independent State of Israel the commandment “you shall possess it and dwell in it” is fulfilled: by sovereignty over areas of the Land of Israel that were liberated from foreign hands, the public fulfills “you shall possess it”; and by opening the gates of the land to every Jew who wishes to immigrate to the land, the public fulfills in a collective way “you shall dwell in it” and the commandment of “helping Israel from the hand of the foe.”
The return of the people of Israel to live in its land in independence, security, and spiritual and material prosperity is “a great salvation for the people of Israel” spiritually as well. Even those far from Torah are protected in the Land of Israel from assimilation far more than their brothers in the Diaspora, where assimilation consumes them by tens of percent. And for Jews who observe Torah and commandments, the land constitutes a spiritual center that not only “fills the land with Torah” but radiates Torah to all corners of the world, for “from Zion shall go forth Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
Whoever remembers how our enemies taunted us by determining that the Jew was doomed to be the “eternal wanderer” because of his rejection of “their messiah,” and how they gloried in the success of the triumphant “Church” over the wretchedness of the humiliated “Synagogue” – how he will rejoice on seeing that “against their will and despite their anger,” the “eternal wanderer” has returned to proud independent life in his renewed land.
Whoever remembers the murders and persecutions, decrees and humiliations that we suffered from the wicked of the nations during thousands of years of exile, culminating in the terrible Holocaust – how great will be his joy that the persecuted people has returned to a life of pride and security in its land, that the exiles are increasingly gathering in as in the vision of the prophets, and before our eyes the prophecy of Zechariah is being fulfilled: “Old men and old women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age, and boys and girls shall play in its streets.”
And the long road we have already traveled from humiliation and destruction to upright life and flourishing strengthens our hope and our prayer that we may soon merit the ripening and completion of the vision, that all the children of Israel will be “those who thank the Lord,” with the Torah illuminating their path toward the complete redemption in the restoration of the kingdom of the house of David and the return of the Divine Presence to Zion.
With blessings, Ami’oz Yaron Schnitzler
The Land of Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple, and also sacrifices and the like, are holy not because some act of sanctification of God’s name was done. Holiness means separation and prohibition – making it forbidden to everyone like consecrated property; and similarly, “lest the fullness be sanctified” – it becomes sanctified and requires burning. Accessories of a commandment are thrown away, whereas accessories of holiness require genizah – that itself is the definition of accessories of holiness – those that are put away and lost. And of course, a sacrifice consecrated to be offered up and burned upon the altar. Therefore one who is killed for His name is said to have died in sanctification of God’s name – because he was completely lost from the world for His name. Commandments increase holiness – that is a borrowed use of the term, because in performing the commandment there is effort and sacrifice, but not complete destruction, and therefore it is not full holiness. Therefore it is obvious that anyone killed because he was Jewish – that is, on account of the very manifestation of God’s name and His people in the world – is rightly called holy. This has nothing at all to do with his decision and his choice – he was offered as a sacrifice on the altar of faith in the Creator of the world. Of course all the powers that derive from holiness (the positive kind, aside from “lest the fullness be sanctified”) derive from self-sacrifice (not necessarily the choice) – the greatness of the sacrifice and the loss created in the course of realizing the goal of revealing God’s name in the world. (Of course there is much more to discuss: a. the Ten Martyrs of the Kingdom – whether they died by the emperor’s choice. b. the martyrs of Lod – whether they were permitted to give themselves up. c. one who is killed over another commandment besides the three cardinal sins. And of course the hidden point of dispute: was the people of Israel chosen because of its deeds, or did God first choose it? Does a person have intrinsic value, or only because of his deeds…)
This collection of declarations and its purpose are not entirely clear to me. To challenge? To agree? Just a short composition on the concept of holiness?
In any case, some of the things are banal in their obviousness, and another part is incorrect. In particular, the diagnosis as if the dispute is based on the question of the election of Israel is incorrect. No connection at all.
If I understood correctly, you (the Avnei Nezer) are saying that in the sota case the prohibition derives from the impurity, whereas in the nida case the prohibition is one thing and the impurity another.
If one can separate, and in fact separates, between prohibition and impurity (as with a woman who touches someone impure from contact with a corpse, who is not forbidden to her husband), then a difficulty arises in two respects. A. Why in nida do the states of prohibition overlap exactly with the states of impurity, and when she is purified she becomes permitted – is that a coincidence? B. Since they can be separated, how did Hazal in the sota case derive prohibition from impurity (“and she became defiled, and she became defiled” – one for the husband and one for the adulterer)? Let them say: she became defiled and committed a trespass; fine, the bond is damaged, but she remains permitted [just as a man may marry his divorced wife when she is unmarried, and how did they know that a damaged bond is worse than a severed bond]? And from where did Hazal understand that there is a connection between impurity and prohibition, if not because they took the idea from nida, where it says “and to a woman in the impurity of her nida you shall not come near,” and the spirit of the verse is that there is an essential connection between the impurity and the prohibition.
One can argue about the reality regarding the flags. But in any case, that behavior is not the result of applying the concept of holiness to the state but, if significant dimensions exist, simply fascism entering the synagogue as well.
It would be worthwhile to look at the series of articles “The Holy and the Profane” in the booklet Ne’edar ba-Kodesh, Essays of the Ra’ayah, p. 404 (not available online).
With God’s help, 18 Iyar, second year
In his commentary on the verse “You shall be holy” (Leviticus 19), Ramban brings the interpretation of Hazal: “You shall be holy – you shall be separate,” and explains that this “separation” is caution even in permitted enjoyments, that they not be indulged in lustfully: “For the Torah warned against forbidden sexual relations and forbidden foods, but permitted intercourse of a man with his wife and the eating of meat and wine. Thus a lustful person may find room to be immersed in the lewdness of his wife or many wives, and to be among the winebibbers and gluttonous eaters of meat, and to speak as he wishes in all forms of vileness, since this prohibition was not mentioned in the Torah – and he will be ‘a degenerate within the bounds of the Torah.’”
And Ramban gives many examples of restrained mundane life: that Torah scholars should not be with their wives like roosters, and not be “gluttonous eaters of meat and drinkers of wine”; and separation from impurity, as the nazirite is called “holy” also because he avoids corpse impurity, and because of this the chaverim were careful to eat ordinary food in purity. And so too he should guard his mouth and tongue from becoming sullied through excessive coarse eating and disgusting speech, as Scripture mentioned: “and every mouth speaks obscenity.”
Included in sanctifying oneself in mundane life is keeping “cleanliness in one’s hands and body, as they said (Berakhot 53): ‘And you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy’ – ‘and you shall sanctify yourselves’ refers to the first waters; ‘and be holy’ refers to the final waters; ‘for holy’ refers to fragrant oil. For even though these are rabbinic commandments, the essential point of the verse is to warn us to be clean and pure and separate from the masses of people who dirty themselves in excesses and ugliness.”
A higher level than this is the trait of “holiness” as described by Ramhal as the peak of the path of one who serves God, in which a person preserves cleaving to God even during his physical actions and enjoyments, to the point that they themselves become religious acts, similar to what is said of the sacrifices: “the priests eat and the owners obtain atonement.” His words are based on the kabbalistic idea that eating constitutes a “sorting out of the sparks of holiness” in matter.
It follows that the work of holiness in mundane life begins with noble and dignified conduct befitting “children of kings,” and reaches its peak in cleaving to the Creator even during ordinary life, until even mundane acts become religious acts that intensify a person’s cleaving to his Maker.
With blessings, Hillel Feiner-Gluskinos
In Iggeret ha-Kodesh, Ramban explains the holiness of sexual union when it is done in love and in full emotional attachment of the spouses one to another, so that during the union there be no distraction and no foreign thought that opposes the emotional bond of the couple.
These matters are based on Hazal’s warning against union in states of sadness and quarrel, and likewise in opposite situations of drunkenness, and in situations where the spouses are thinking of others – things that blemish the union and even cause psychological damage to the children born from such a union (“children of the nine traits”). The union must come out of complete emotional unity of husband and wife, like Adam and Eve “in the garden of Eden in the beginning,” when in their world there was only he and she. It is not for nothing that the union between a man and his wife is called by the Sages kiddushin.
Possibly this is also the deeper root of the prohibition explained in the Torah against relations with a woman “in the impurity of her menstrual suffering,” for the emotional state of a nida is bound up with pain and suffering that interfere with the complete emotional unity required at the time of union. Likewise, the Torah’s prohibition on a man’s remarrying his divorced wife after she has married another is explained by “her first husband may not take her again after she has been defiled.” Although there is no prohibition at all on a divorced woman marrying another man, something has nevertheless been irreparably damaged in the ability to create full emotional unity between them again. After “she has been defiled to him,” she can no longer return to be “consecrated to him” in the full sense of the term, because the holiness of the bond between husband and wife must be one of complete emotional attachment.
With blessings, Akiva Yosef Halevi Radetzky
The rabbi wrote in these words:
And this despite all their merits. As long as the war against the Greeks was being fought, that was the correct trend, since the Greeks had tilted the balance too far toward the profane, and an antithesis had to come in order to restore the scale to the middle. The punishment was imposed on them because they continued that trend even after the victory over the Greeks.
Seemingly in our time this is the situation, for most of those dwelling in Zion are secular and some are even progressive, and an antithesis is needed to restore the scale to the middle
The article may be correct perhaps for another 50 years, when most of the state will be religious, and maybe then the rabbi’s students will cry out what their rabbi, of blessed holy memory, saw with holy spirit about the profanation of the sacred
This is a question about the source of a correlation. As is known, it can have several sources. It may be coincidental. It could be that A is the cause of B or B the cause of A, and it could be that they both have a common cause. In the case of nida I assume there is a common cause, and neither one entails the other. Therefore you can conduct yourself regarding laws of doubt differently in the two branches.
In the case of sota they did not derive prohibition from impurity. The prohibition itself is the impurity. After all, the sota is not impure in the sense of impurity and purity. Just as kiddushin is holy, so violating it is impurity.
Even if you are right, and you are not, it is still important to distinguish between a means adopted for tactical reasons and an essential outlook. The latter is mistaken even if it is useful to employ it. I also don’t think you are right, because the war against secularization is not through expanding the sacred. In my view that achieves the opposite results. In the case of the Hasmoneans it was a war intended to awaken the people against enemies from outside, to breathe spirit into them. Here you present yourself as an eccentric who arouses no identification whatsoever.
I disagree. This is of course a generalization, but it is clear that such dimensions exist here.
I was mistaken that in the case of sota there is impurity; sorry for the confusion.
The hidden cause of the prohibition of nida passes when the nida counts days and immerses in a mikveh. Where have we heard of such a prohibition that ceases with immersion, if not that this prohibition is umbilically connected to impurity?
There is something that passes away with immersion and counting, and as a result she is both purified and permitted again.
That is formally possible, but seemingly [to me] it appears unreasonable.
By the way, regarding the Hasmoneans and the Greeks, it seems that in Christianity too there was a similar tension between the popes and the kings in Europe, where the kings wanted separation (two swords, one for the king and one for the bishop), while some popes in a certain sense strove, like the Hasmoneans, to impose the sacred fully or partially.
You have two claims.
A. One must distinguish between the holy and the profane, and the holy must not take over the profane.
B. There is a holy that is truly holy, and a holy that is borrowed.
And here one wonders about point B: why this distinction between real holiness and borrowed holiness? After all, the Torah uses the same language in all the cases, so how does one identify what is real holiness and what is borrowed?
One could say the opposite. Holiness has different forms, and what matters is that they not take over one another. There is holiness in space (the Temple), holiness in relationships (marriage), holiness in time (Shabbat and festivals), holiness in writing (sacred scrolls, tefillin, and mezuzot), and holiness in a person (the people of Israel as opposed to the nations). Among the different forms of holiness there are laws shared in common, and laws that characterize each holiness in its own way. And one of the important demands is that different kinds of holiness not take over one another. Between the holiness of place and the holiness of writing there is the common feature that both are put away under the law of “you shall not do so to the Lord your God.” Does that mean that one who damages tefillin must pay principal plus an added fifth? No, but they do share a common side. Between the holiness in time of Shabbat and the holiness of place there is the common feature that both can be profaned and one is liable to death for the profanation. And still, the profanation of each is different; for Shabbat it is labor, and in the Temple it is impurity. And still, despite the fact that both are holy, the holiness of place cannot override the holiness of time, and therefore one does not build the Temple on Shabbat (and the labors permitted in the Temple are only labors that were assigned a time to be done on Shabbat, like the daily and additional offerings). Tefillin too are an object of holiness, but putting them on is a sign only on weekdays. On Shabbat the sanctuary of time comes and pushes aside the holiness of tefillin.
Maybe there is also holiness in the kingship of Israel. The verse in Chronicles says, “And Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord” (I Chron. 29:23). Perhaps the problem with the Hasmonean kingship is not the takeover of the profane but an attempt by one kind of holiness (the priesthood) to take over another kind of holiness (the monarchy)? And perhaps this is only with the Davidic monarchy? Or only because they tried to be both, as the Pharisees told them?
I do not dispute your first claim. Clearly one must distinguish between the profane and the holy, but perhaps the point here is not specifically the holy versus the profane, but rather one kind of holy versus another kind of holy?
Of course. Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar’s glory, and to God what belongs to God’s glory. And the walk to Canossa.
If you’ve accepted the basic distinction, the rest is semantics. What matters is what people do with it.
That was more or less my claim too, at least regarding fascism in the non-Jewish world (outside Israel). Even if the fascist insists on finding “holiness” in the state and its symbols, he does not derive it from religious sources. Or hardly at all. In its essence fascism is revolutionary political radicalism, whose spirit is alien to the ancient religious world.
If I understood Michi correctly, one of his claims was that there is a problem with borrowed usage of the concept of holiness: the person doing so is not aware that this is only a borrowing (and therefore attaches religious holiness to something to which it does not belong). My claim is that such borrowed usage does not really exist.
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… the more a person cleaves to the ways of truth and goodness…
With God’s help, 18 Iyar, second year
To Y.D. – greetings,
You are right that according to Ramban the failure of the Hasmoneans was the transfer of kingship away from the house of David. Just as King Uzziah was punished with leprosy when he tried to perform the service of a priest, so too the Hasmoneans were punished when they took the kingship for themselves. There must be a “separation of powers” between the priesthood and the monarchy.
In the Book of Maccabees it appears that they were aware of this concern, and when Simon was appointed leader it is stated explicitly that the appointment was temporary, until a true prophet should arise to appoint a king. Even on their coins the Hasmoneans avoided calling themselves “king.” The coins bore the inscription “So-and-so the priest and the council of the Jews.” The only one who dared call himself “king” was Yannai, who used the Greek formula on his coins, “Basileus Alexandros,” though in Hebrew he too wrote “Yehonatan the priest and the council of the Jews.”
In the words of Hazal there are also sources from which no criticism of the Hasmoneans as kings is apparent. In the baraita in tractate Shabbat explaining “What is Hanukkah?” it says: “And when the kings of the Hasmonean house prevailed and defeated them.” Likewise Yehuda ben Gedidya, who flings at Yannai, “Leave the crown of priesthood to the seed of Aaron,” does not see a problem with “the crown of kingship” on his head. And Rambam too, when describing the miracle of Hanukkah, notes approvingly: “And kingship returned to Israel for more than two hundred years,” including in his thanksgiving also the rule of Herod and his descendants. From here “our Religious-Zionist cousins” relied in order to thank God also for the State of Israel in our day, whose leaders are no worse than Herod 🙂
With blessings, Yaron Fish”l Ordner
A. I thought this was obvious, but if most of the things are banal in their obviousness, then I hope we will also reach the same conclusion:
I disagree with the determination in your article that “the concept of holiness is limited and does not overlap even with commandments and the service of God in general, and certainly has no relevance to the neutral world of the profane.” This is in contrast to the “annoying and nonsensical talk about the holy ones of the Holocaust and the holy ones of the IDF and about sanctification of God’s name by victims of terror… and continuing with the holiness of the state, the Jewish person, redemption, and the like.” Your main reliance is on the baraita: “The Rabbis taught: accessories of a commandment may be discarded; accessories of holiness must be put away. And these are accessories of a commandment: a sukkah, a lulav, a shofar, tzitzit. And these are accessories of holiness: cases for scrolls, tefillin and mezuzot, and the mantle of a Torah scroll, and the pouch of tefillin and their straps” – apparently proving that commandments are not part of holiness, for there are accessories of holiness and accessories of a commandment. This is of course a mistake; you would have to concede that there is holiness, for example, in the commandment of sukkah – “just as the divine name rests upon the festival offering, so it rests upon the sukkah” – a direct comparison to holy things and sacrifices. Rashi on Sukkah 37b, and the decisors, learned that in all commandments there is holiness at the time of their performance; therefore they are set aside for their commandment. Accessories of a commandment have holiness for their time, while accessories of holiness, as I already wrote, are called that because their holiness continues forever – because they are put away. Therefore every sacrifice, that is, every offering up for the sake of Heaven, contains something of holiness. Total sacrifice, like an offering, is enduring holiness, and partial sacrifice of effort or use at a particular time is the holiness of commandments – “who has sanctified us with His commandments” (how will you explain the wording of the blessing if there is no holiness in commandments?). It is obvious why those murdered in the Holocaust are holy – they were sacrificed on the altar of Judaism. And just as the sacrifice offered up is itself the holy thing and not the one who consecrates it, so too one who is murdered, even if it did not depend on him, if he was offered on the altar of Judaism – holy shall he be called. I understand that you have a dispute about the definition of the state, but even you would concede that there is a commandment to appoint a king – that is, to establish some sort of state. Therefore, one who sees in the state something of the kingship of Israel sees those sacrifices offered on the altar of the state’s existence as holy. So I have explained why the talk about these holy ones ought not to annoy – every sacrifice connected to Judaism falls under holiness. (What you brought from the Avnei Nezer, in my opinion, defines the concept of purity more than the concept of holiness.)
B. Your sentence in the earlier post, “Now think about a person walking innocently down the street, or sitting in his home, and murdered in a terror attack. Is there any justification at all for seeing him as holy? What did he do to merit the title holy?” (see there for the ensuing sentences) in my opinion clarifies the root of the dispute: whether a person is chosen only because of his deeds, or whether God chooses for His own reasons irrespective of his deeds – a statement to which you seem opposed (and in my opinion this is exactly what drives the outburst of anger).
C. I am not a prophet. If you do not write what exactly you think is wrong, I won’t be able to try to explain.
With God’s help, 18 Iyar, second year
In Judaism, religious value is given not only to a kingship of Torah that raises the honor of the people of Israel and realizes in public and private life the values and laws of the Torah – which is why Saul and David were called “the Lord’s anointed” and were anointed as king by a prophet just as the High Priest was anointed – and for that reason it is said of Solomon, “And Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord” (as Y.D. noted).
Even the kingship of the nations of the world has religious value, and therefore upon seeing a king of the nations one blesses, “Blessed is He who has shared of His glory with flesh and blood.” In the “earthly kingdom” that imposes stable patterns of life upon the world there is something akin to the “kingdom of heaven”; and therefore the tanna Rabbi Matya ben Heresh, who lived in Rome, said: “Pray for the welfare of the government, for were it not for fear of the government, people would swallow one another alive.”
The Sages even commanded one to run to greet kings of the nations, and for that purpose they even permitted a priest to contract rabbinic impurity, and their reason is with them: “so that if he merits, he will distinguish between the kings of the nations and the kings of Israel.” Seeing the splendor of the kings of the nations prepares the heart to aspire to behold the majestic glory of the kings of Israel, who will not only preserve proper social order but will realize in their kingship the eternal values of the Torah of Israel.
The kingship of Israel in our day is an “intermediate state.” There is here more than a government that merely preserves society from the chaos of “people swallowing one another alive.” There is here the raising of Israel’s honor, in the return of the land to Jewish rule and the return of the children of Israel to their land, whose gates were opened and remain open to receive them.
This is the “half-full cup,” but there is still no “throne of the Lord” here, for the institutions of the state and its laws do not recognize the laws and ordinances of the Torah. For individuals, the State of Israel is the safest place for a Jew to live a Jewish life. But in terms of realizing the Torah in public life, the state is still far from wholeness. The “foundation of the throne of the Lord” is being built here. For that we will thank for the past, and cry out to the Lord that He may grant us to see His throne complete, in the restoration of the “kingdom of the holy ones of the Most High,” as Daniel envisioned.
With blessings, She’altiel Nahman Hayyim Blau Halevi
To the religious value of kingship – for whose welfare we pray, and whose bearers we greet with honor and with the blessing “Blessed is He who has shared of His glory with flesh and blood / with those who fear Him” – there is also halakhic validity to the laws of the kingdom, as the amora Shmuel said: “The law of the kingdom is law.”
With blessings, Nakhsh”b Halevi
I don’t understand the claim. I wrote that there is holiness in every commandment, and yet people mix categories, because that holiness is borrowed (or faint). The divine name resting on the sukkah is proof to the contrary. None of the rishonim or aharonim understood that this was talking about holiness, except perhaps Rashba in Beitzah 30 in his question from Abaye (Nedarim 29) regarding inherent holiness lapsing on its own. Why don’t they explain the Gemara literally? Because it is clear to them that holiness there is a borrowed term. Therefore muktzeh also has nothing to do with the discussion, since it is not an expression of holiness but of the fact that it is designated (=set aside) for a commandment.
All the rest is homiletics (temporary and permanent sacrifice and all the rest).
What I wrote were the banal things in your words is the nonsense you wrote that the Land of Israel is holy even though no voluntary act of sanctification was done. Obviously. Who said otherwise?! What kind of argument is that?
And it is not true that my proof is only from the distinction between accessories of holiness and accessories of a commandment, but from the differing terminology itself: pure and impure, forbidden and permitted, holy and profane, etc. And regarding sanctification of God’s name (the holy ones of the Holocaust and all the rest), that is simply nonsense and requires no source. What one important Jew once called “mistaken sanctifications” (see my column on that).
The question why the Holy One, blessed be He, chose Israel is in no way related to the discussion. The Holy One, blessed be He, can choose Israel irrespective of their deeds, and still an act without choice is not an act of sanctifying God’s name. I really don’t understand what there is to discuss here at all. This is a little dogma that has not a shred of source and not a shred of logic, and everyone parrots it simply because that is what they are used to.
With God’s help, Independence Day 5782
At the end of the laws of Sabbatical and Jubilee, Rambam explains: “And not the tribe of Levi alone, but any and every person whose spirit moves him and whose understanding grants him discernment to separate himself and stand before the Lord, to serve Him and worship Him and know the Lord, and who walks upright as God made him and casts off from his neck the yoke of the many calculations that people seek – behold, he is sanctified as holy of holies, and the Lord will be his portion and inheritance forever…”
The feeling of constantly standing before God is described by Rambam in Guide of the Perplexed, part III, chapter 52, and he sees it as “the end and purpose of all the acts of the Torah, for through those practical details and by doing them continually, an accustomed practice is acquired by the pious individuals until they achieve human perfection, and fear God and stand in awe of Him and know who is with them, and then do what is proper. God, may He be exalted, has already explained that the purpose of all the acts of the Torah is to bring man to this state…” Rambam goes on to explain that the views taught us by the Torah are what generate in man the love of God, whereas fear of God and the sense of His continual presence are acquired by man through fulfilling “the acts of the Torah.”
A summary of Rambam’s description of the special path of a person who feels himself standing before God is brought by Rema in his gloss to Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 1:1: “I have set the Lord before me always” – “this is a great principle in the Torah and in the virtues of the righteous who walk before God. For a person’s sitting, moving, and dealings when he is alone in his house are not like his sitting, moving, and dealings when he is before a great king; nor is his speech and free expression as he wills when he is with the members of his household and relatives like his speech in the king’s court. All the more so when a person takes to heart that the great King, the Holy One, blessed be He, whose glory fills all the earth, stands over him and sees his deeds… immediately fear and submission from dread of the Lord, blessed be He, and shame before Him will come upon him always” (Guide, III:52).
In short: holiness is bound up with the constant feeling of “standing before God,” and with the constant readiness to stand before Him, to serve Him and do His will.
With blessings, Hayyim She’altiel Blau-Weiss Hakahloni
A. The master ought to have brought in his article the Gemara in Shabbat 22: “Does a lamp have holiness in it?” But specifically there Ramban in Milhamot gives a homiletical distinction between enduring holiness – that of accessories of holiness – and accessories of a commandment that are not holy forever, versus accessories of a commandment “that even though they may be discarded after their commandment, during the time of their commandment they are treated with holiness, so that commandments not be contemptible… they are treated like things of holiness and are forbidden for mundane use during the time of their commandment.” One can discuss exactly what the Ba’al ha-Ma’or disagrees with, especially since Rashba there asked why the Gemara brings blood and not wood of the sukkah, and answers that with sukkah wood, one who benefits from it nullifies the commandment, unlike one who benefits from its ornaments. Again, it is clear that in commandments the holiness is lesser, because the prohibition is temporary for the sake of the commandment – we are not talking about complete destruction as in a sacrifice – but still there is holiness. B. I read the column, and precisely on this I disagree. I am not proving from the holy ones of the Holocaust; from the other holy things, even though there was no heroic act in them, I prove to the holy ones of the Holocaust. Sanctification of God’s name is not defined as a heroic act, but as a great sacrifice offered up for His name. I prove this precisely from the fact that the sacrifice is holy and not the one consecrating it, even though the animal did nothing. And likewise from the choice of the Land of Israel and its holiness (or the choice of the people of Israel) irrespective of their deeds. Therefore the victims of the Nazis, may their names be blotted out – holy are they, even though it was not done by their choice. (I also hinted at proofs for this from the Ten Martyrs of the Kingdom, whom the emperor chose specifically – and if not for their own greatness, would they still have been considered holy? True, he apparently chose them because of their greatness, but there were other sages too, so because he chose those specifically, did they merit a level “that no creature can stand in their section,” while the other sages did not? I also hinted at the episode of the martyrs of Lod, where there is room to discuss: after all, just as if gentiles want to kill everyone unless they hand over one of them, it is forbidden to hand him over, so why was it permitted for them to hand themselves over? I am not coming to decide this, but to hint that the act is not certainly so great and right, and nevertheless “no creature can stand in their section,” because the king decreed against the Jews and they were killed for their Judaism. It is also similar to the discussion of one who gives himself up over one of the other commandments, where according to Rambam he is considered a murderer, but other rishonim permit it; one could elaborate at length.) C. And if we are dealing in terminology (pure and impure, forbidden and permitted, holy and profane), how will you explain the fact that the Book of Holiness in Rambam does not include Temple service and the sanctuary, but specifically the laws of forbidden sexual relations and forbidden foods? – sacrifice is holiness (as I wrote the first time, the language of holiness is language of prohibition of benefit, separations), and therefore things from which a person refrains bring holiness. And so every sacrifice offered by a person is included under holiness.
With God’s help, Independence Day 5782
It may be that the religious value of kingship explained above derives from the altruistic aspect of loyalty to society, which obligates a person “to bend his will and needs” and to develop awareness and consideration also for the will of others.
One can find a common denominator in the commandments included in the portion “You shall be holy,” most of which involve a person’s consideration for what is “outside himself” – beginning with “Each man shall revere his mother and his father,” and continuing with “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and the commandments of care and aid for the poor and the stranger. And also the commandments of restraint and patience even toward one who has harmed a person: one must not take vengeance or bear a grudge, but should rebuke him in a respectful way.
Respect for others also obligates respect for the symbols that represent God’s honor: “My Sabbaths you shall keep, and My sanctuary you shall revere,” and respect for the sacrifices, not to disqualify them or offer blemished animals.
One may say that the essence of holiness is respect and consideration for others, and this is cleaving to God’s attribute, who conducts Himself with His creatures in restraint and consideration that bring a rich measure of patience and caring.
With blessings, Hasdai Bezalel Duvdevani Kirshen Kavas
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… consideration also for the will of others.
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Respect for others also obligates one to show respect to the symbols that represent…
It seems to me that we’ve exhausted this.
With respect to kingship, that is not precise. The terminology of holiness in the Bible has to be precise, because Hazal quite simply continue the Bible also at the level of language and terminology, and the word kodesh in the biblical period pointed to things in a precise and not borrowed way. And Hazal too do not distinguish in this matter between halakhic and aggadic language.
And from the Bible it appears that the king of Israel, and anyone anointed with the holy oil, has holiness in him (a holiness that is not halakhic, but has implications – just as there is non-halakhic impurity in the Bible in Ezekiel, who said no impure thing had ever entered his mouth, etc., or the prohibition against touching the carcass of animals impure for eating, which are simply called impure – and they did not distinguish among the types of impurity). This is why David was so afraid to stretch out his hand against Saul, the Lord’s anointed, and also killed the man who had put him to death, even though that had been Saul’s own request – he explicitly justified it there: “How were you not afraid to stretch out your hand…” This was not just some Hasidic homily; he really perceived the reality that someone who stretches out his hand against the holy will be punished for it as such (as with stretching out a hand against halakhic holiness).
Apparently the conception is that the king of Israel is a High Priest (head of “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” and the holiness of Israel is something solid from the halakhic point of view) who is also anointed with the holy oil. He is an anointed one. Also in Psalm 110: “Sit at My right hand…” “after the order of Melchizedek” (who was priest of God Most High). That psalm is directed toward the king. If so, the kingdom too has that kind of holiness. But certainly this does not pertain to the State of Israel (whose leaders were not anointed with holy oil), unless we say that the state is like the ancient kingdom from the halakhic point of view (that the state has the legal status of a king).
Who says there is a borrowing of the word “holiness” here? Perhaps the original meaning of the concept “holiness” is broader than the halakhic meaning. And Hazal and the halakhists wanted to cut and define things so they would be clearer. Then the Bible did not borrow the term holiness for other things, but used it in its original sense. Maybe so and maybe otherwise – how does the rabbi know how to decide?
I do not disagree with the rabbi’s distinction, but with the exclusivity he is trying to create for the concept of holiness – there is holiness of the Temple and its sacred things, and there is holiness of the Sabbath and other things.
How is the rabbi’s insistence on fighting over semantics because of the dangers latent in it different from the insistence of the “Kav” camp not to use the word “gender,” or to be shocked by “the gender point,” or not to donate blood because of “parent A” and “parent B”?
Let them call it holiness (because that really is what it is called in the sources); the main thing is that they understand there is a difference between the Temple and its sacred things and between Shabbat and Israel’s fallen soldiers. And if there is some danger, let us spell it out and explain what is dangerous, and not fight over semantics, because that is exactly how one loses the substantive and fruitful discussion.
As I wrote, the problem is with the meanings and the use. The semantics do not interest me at all.
Honorable Rabbi, hello. It seems to me that in biblical Hebrew there is no use at all of the term hol in the sense of the profane as opposed to the holy. It seems to me that this borrowing began in the Second Temple period.
Hello Asael.
Even if there is no such term in biblical Hebrew, that only strengthens my position (of course 🙂 ) that some of the usages are borrowed. At least Hazal and all the later commentators understood that there is such a category and that it is distinct from holiness.
“To distinguish between the holy and the profane, and between the impure and the pure”?
Where did you get this idea that people sanctify the flag in the synagogue? It’s just pretty and nice, all good. Where do such assumptions come from, assumptions on which almost the entire column is based? There may be some extreme expression here and there about uniforms, but no one takes it seriously and everyone can calm down.
Calling the murdered and the soldiers holy probably stems from the concept of dying for the sanctification of God’s name. True, there is an expansion here – treating everyone who dies for the defense of the people of Israel as someone who died in sanctification of God’s name. One can argue about that, but what does that have to do with fascism? Come on.
With God’s help, 24 Iyar, second year
Even the angels, who are separate from matter and stand before the Lord to serve Him, are called in Scripture “watchers, holy ones.” The commandments of the portion “You shall be holy” also shape those who perform them, to be separated from material urges and to stand ready to sanctify the name of their God in love and unity like the ministering angels,
And in the words of R. Yehudah Halevi (in the piyyut for Rosh Hashanah, “Yedei Resha’im Nehlashim”): “Though there is no threshold and sanctuary threshold, and no ephod and teraphim, and curtain and arrangement, and daily offerings and additional offerings, and incense and cover to atone for the stricken, the holiness of God in Israel remains, to resemble the seraphim, and from their affliction in the house of their captivity to gather and thank God, to sanctify the Holy One of Jacob and the God of Israel.”
With blessings, HSHB”H
And regarding the flags too, it is said in the Midrash that Israel longed for flags like the ministering angels, and perhaps the intention was that the flag symbolizes the ability to unite for the sake of a shared ideal.
One can also understand the word kodesh in its simple sense – special, designated.
The Sabbath is kodesh to the Lord – special to the Lord. And likewise “it is holy to you.”
And on the other hand –
The verse preceding “You shall be holy” says –
“And you shall keep My charge, not to do any of the abominable customs that were done before you, and you shall not become impure through them.”
So transgressions are called impurity – (and there are more examples)
And what is “holiness in truth”?
Professor Dov Landau, of blessed righteous memory, listed several different meanings of holiness.
(One can also find this in Bar-Ilan’s weekly Torah sheets on Parashat Bechukotai.)
Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits finds an additional, surprising meaning, based on an analysis of the use of the word kadosh in the book of Isaiah,
and from there he also explains other places.
According to him, the holy is always that which is close to man, the helper, not the transcendent –
“I dwell on high and in holiness – and with the contrite and lowly of spirit.”
The holy is the connection to man – “Your way was in holiness, and Your path in the great waters – You led Your people like a flock.”
The holy is the path through the great waters for the children of Israel passing through the Red Sea.
According to this one can also understand “You shall be holy, for I am holy” – “To whom then will you liken God” – how shall we compare His holiness?
But if holiness means connection – the verse is understandable.
And our holiness is observance of the commandments – that is our connection to the Holy One, blessed be He.
Do you have a reference to where R. E. Berkovits wrote this? At first glance the claim sounds very flimsy to me.
In the book Essays on the Foundations of Judaism – Shalem Press, 2004
edited by Yoram Hazony and Rabbi Yitzhak Lipshitz.
The article is very persuasive – in every passage of consolation the word kadosh appears (especially “the Holy One of Jacob”).
In descriptions of calamity the name “Lord of Hosts” is used.
For example – “His right hand and His holy arm saved Him… all the ends of the earth saw the salvation of our God.”
He interprets the words “His holy arm” not as “His holy arm” but as “the arm of holiness” –
the redeeming arm.
True, at the beginning of the article he focuses on the book of Isaiah – but he also extends to the examples I brought.
Thanks (but I don’t have the book. I thought it was an article one could find online. I’ll keep an eye out; maybe I’ll get hold of it). It’s hard for me to believe there’s anything worthwhile there, but I’ll live and see.
To T.G. – after Lag ba-Omer, joyful and delightful,
See something similar in my comments here: “The holiness of altruism,” “You shall be holy, for I am holy – inviting divine presence,” and also in my comment “Holiness – the emotional attachment of husband and wife.”
Holiness in biblical language is “invitation,” as it is written, “He has consecrated His called ones as a bridegroom.” God is available to those who seek Him and invites them to draw near to Him and cleave to Him.
With blessings, Hasdai Bezalel Duvdevani Kirshen-Kavas
A clarification – the article, as stated, is based on the use of the word kadosh in the book of Isaiah,
with extension to other places as well.
The connection to Parashat Kedoshim is mine – for better or for worse..
If indeed that connection is flimsy – the flimsiness is mine, not Rabbi Berkovits’s.
With God’s help, 35th day of the Omer, second year
Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno explained the verse “and to make you a holy people to the Lord your God” (Deut. 26:19): “eternal for the life of the World to Come.”
Similarly, in Sanhedrin 92a: “A teaching from the school of Elijah: The righteous whom the Holy One, blessed be He, will revive do not return to their dust, as it is said: ‘And he that remains in Zion and he that is left in Jerusalem shall be called holy’ – just as the holy exists forever, so they too exist forever.”
Cleaving to God brings eternal life. And see further in the article by Rabbi Ze’ev Neuman, “Holy Exists Forever” – The Concept of Holiness in the Thought of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda, on the website of Orot Israel College.
With blessings, Eliam Fish”l Workheimer
Is it obvious that there is holiness in the world?
Bamidbar Rabbah – Parashat Hukat –
“I will remove the spirit of impurity from the land” – one sprinkles on him and it flees.
After he left, his disciples said to him: You fobbed him off with a reed, what do you say to us?
He said to them: By your lives, it is not the dead that impurify, nor the water that purifies,
but rather the Holy One, blessed be He, said: I have enacted a statute, I have decreed a decree;
you are not permitted to transgress My decrees, as it is written: “This is the statute of the Torah.”
That is to say, the dead do not impurify because of some power of impurity in them – rather it is a scriptural decree.
After the decree, perhaps a power of impurity was born.
And so too regarding holiness
With God’s help, 2 Sivan, second year
Also from the parallelism in Psalm 51 between verse 13, “Cast me not away from before You, and take not Your holy spirit from me,” and verse 14, “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and let a generous spirit uphold me” – it seems that the feeling of holiness is bound up with joy and a generous spirit, the feeling of a person that he is pleasing in the eyes of his God and invited by Him to draw near to Him.
With blessings, Hasdai Shraga Feivish Lichtman
“Holiness is a small sub-domain within the halakhic and spiritual world, and its main concern is the holiness of the Temple and its sacred things, the ten degrees of holiness in the Mishnah tractate Kelim, and in a certain sense also marriage between spouses.”
But Shabbat too is called holy (“It shall be for you a holy convocation”)
and the festivals (“These are My appointed times, holy convocations”)
and the commandment of redeeming the firstborn (“Sanctify to Me every firstborn”)
the commandment of the Jubilee (“It shall be holy to you”)
the prohibitions applying to a nazirite (“He shall be holy”)
and dietary prohibitions (“You shall be holy people to Me; flesh torn in the field you shall not eat”)
And more and more