Miller's Musings Parshas Kedoshim: Move Up But Not Out

בס''ד

Miller’s Musings פרשת קְדשִׁים

Everyone needs a role model.  Someone to look up to and to aspire to emulate.  So when we are told by Hashem in this week’s Parsha to “be holy, for I, Hashem your G-d am holy”, and the Medrash informs us that we are in fact being invited to imitate Hashem in this regard, we are being given the ultimate exemplar of how we should live in holiness.  The difficulty here is trying to understand in what way we, as mere mortals, could ever hope to copy the ways of Hashem in any manner whatsoever.  How are we to ever achieve even the slightest approximation of the holiness manifested by G-d?

When viewing the nature of our very reality as the will of Hashem, it is truly incomprehensible that an infinite Creator can deem us worthy of His attention and the goodness that He bestows.  We can perhaps never truly fathom the love and care that Hashem has for us, given that He is so far above our existence in every single way.  The Ksav Sofer reveals that this very element of His sanctity, is the way in which we can mimic to some degree the holiness of Hashem.  Not in the holiness in itself, but in the way that we should not let that elevation above others destroy our ability and desire to be amongst them and benefitting them in whatever means are at our disposal.  Just as Hashem is holy, yet is still amongst us, so we should be holy, nevertheless very much an integral part of the lives of others whenever we can be of value.

True success in this life requires single-minded focus on achieving our purpose.  We must strive every day to be a little better than we were the day before.  But no matter what heights we reach and no matter what levels of piety we attain, we must never lose sight of our role as part of a much bigger whole.  The proclivity to think you are above others once you perceive yourself as being superior, may be the surest sign that you still have a long way to go.  If Hashem in His supreme holiness still chooses to have a relationship with finite beings and endow us with His benevolence, who are we to withhold our compassion and kindness from any who may be in need, just because in our own minds we are so elevated.  Someone whose holiness entails an inability to connect with those around them and a failure to empathise, is in fact just not that holy after all.

May the holiness of Shabbos envelop us all in unity.

 

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