Q&A: What Is Holiness?
What Is Holiness?
Question
Is there such a thing as being holy? And if so, is there any point in being holy? And if there is, what is the point?
Answer
Are you asking, in everyday language, whether people call someone holy? Yes. Or are you asking whether there is a halakhic definition of a holy person? No. In short, this is a dictionary question and has no real significance. It’s like asking what X is and whether it has value. The definition will determine whether or not it has value.
Discussion on Answer
The Torah calls a nazirite holy. What does that mean?
You defined holiness as where there is a greater indwelling of the Divine Presence. A. What is the indwelling of the Divine Presence? B. Is there value in being in a place where the Divine Presence rests?
I sent a link. The figurative use of that title is explained there.
You’re asking about concepts that are hard to define. We’re talking about a place and time where the Holy One, blessed be He, is more present, and presumably being there improves our condition as well.
What does it mean that He is more present there? Does the notion of place even apply to Him?
And if it “improves” our reality, does that also have value, or is it only that materially things are better for us?
I don’t see any point in this strange discussion. Yes, the notion applies to Him of being more present in some place, or appearing more there. In the Temple He is more present than in the fields or in filthy alleyways (pass that on to the Hasidim). The improvement doesn’t seem to me material, and there’s no reason to assume it is material. It is closeness to the Holy One, blessed be He.
It seems to me that I’m done here.
It could be that the nazirite is called holy because his hair becomes an object of holiness belonging to the sacrificial service (they burn it under the pot of the peace-offering). Similarly, the priests are also called holy because their hands and feet are objects of holiness in the Temple (they purify them before the service).
See also here: https://mikyab.net/posts/75964