Parshat Kedoshim 5784
Rabbi Jablinowitz
We read in this week’s parsha the mitzvah to be holy, as the pasuk says קדושים תהיו. The pasuk explains the reason for this mitzvah as, כי קדוש אני ד' אלוקיכם. We are commanded to reach a level of Kedushah as a means of imitating Hashem. Since He is holy, then we need to be holy. But how can we accomplish this? Since Hashem is so removed from us, how can we possibly strive for and attempt to be like Him?
Rashi on the pasuk in Shir HaShirim (Chapter 2, Pasuk 3), כתפוח בעצי היער, like an apple tree in the forest, quotes the Medrash and teaches the following. Just as an apple tree doesn’t have much shade for protection and all avoid it during the heat, so too all the nations ran away from Hashem on the day He gave the Torah to Am Yisrael. And lest you think Bnei Yisrael also ran away, the pasuk continues and states, בצלו חמדתי וישבתי; I, i.e. Bnei Yisrael, desired and sat under your shade. Bnei Yisrael accepted the Torah.
Hashem’s presence in this world is described as shade. This is because we can’t truly experience Hashem in our physical, finite world. What we feel as the presence of Gd in our world is like shade. One can’t look directly at the sun, but instead we can appreciate its light through its reflection, or through some other, indirect means. Similarly, we can receive a limited sense and reduced reflection of Hashem’s light in our physical world.
The vehicle through which we are able to imitate Gd and be holy are the mitzvos. Mitzvos are physical acts. We eat Matza on Pesach, we shake a Lulav on Succos, we wrap ourselves in Tefillin during the week, and as such, are meant precisely for our physical world. They can only be kept in Olam Hazeh.
But they are Divine commands. Just as the Medrash refers to Matan Torah as the shade of Hashem, they are the ways we connect to Hashem. And not only do we connect to Hashem through the mitzvos, we become holy through the mitzvos. Before we perform a mitzvah, we make a bracha and we say אשר קדשנו במצותיו; You have made us holy with Your mitzvos. And in davening on Shabbos and Yom Tov we say קדשנו במצותיך; sanctify us with Your mitzvos. The way we fulfill the obligation of קדושים תהיו כי קדוש אני ד' אלוקיכם is by keeping the mitzvos of the Torah.
The pasuk in Mishlei (Chapter 6, Pasuk 23) states, כי נר מצוה ותורה אור. The candle is like a mitzvah and the Torah is light. The pasuk is giving us the order of things; the light of the candle must precede the light of Torah. The light of Torah is too bright for us to comprehend; it must be preceded by the candle of the mitzvah. Just as a candle is light which has a wick, and oil, and a lamp, so too the mitzvah is Hashem’s command for us in the physical world. And only one who is immersed in the process of mitzvos and Kedushah can truly experience the light of Torah. But the light of Torah is too bright, like the light of the sun, to be viewed without preparing beforehand.
This is why Bnei Yisrael at Matan Torah said נעשה ונשמע. We will perform the mitzvos first and then we will learn them and attempt to comprehend them. But to understand the mitzvos first without keeping them wouldn’t work. In order to be able to access the Kedushah of Torah, we need to first purify ourselves by keeping the mitzvah of קדושים תהיו. And that is only accomplished by keeping Hashem’s mitzvos first in the finite, physical world of Olam Hazeh.
Good Shabbos
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