Challenge of seeing our people as one, always

The sound of the train pulling in to the Kfar Saba station filled the air on another beautiful afternoon. Hundreds of people getting on and off a second train across the platform, beneath the beautiful new glass and stone ceiling of the modern new station opened only two weeks before.

At the entrance to the crowded station any number of people are coming in and going out, beneath the alert eyes of a security guard who, like thousands of other security guards across Israel, holds the line in the newest frontier in the war against terror.

One teenager, a boy who looks like any other, with spiked blond punk-style hair, perhaps on his way to a night out with friends, walks in the middle of the crowd towards the arriving train. Was it his eyes? There is always something in the eyes. Or perhaps the raincoat, worn closed over a t-shirt on an unseasonably warm afternoon?

Something makes the guard take notice, and he approaches this teenager. A brief exchange of words, and the guard reaches out to grab the boy’s arm, an instant before this peaceful sunny afternoon turns into a maelstrom of fire and death as an explosion rips apart the station killing the security guard and leaving countless others wounded and fighting for their lives.

Police experts would later state that the alert actions of this brave guard, Alexander Kostyuk, a Russian immigrant living in Bat Yam, prevented what would most certainly have been the massacre of over 250 people milling about between the enclosed space of the two trains not 40 yards away, who would have had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

One week later, this scene practically repeats itself outside of a Tel Aviv pub (Mike’s Place), as again, an alert security guard gives up his life while preventing a terrorist bomber from entering the crowded bar, saving dozens of people.

Sometimes, our heroes come in the most unlikely shapes and sizes, somehow rising to the moment they were destined to meet.

Is there a lesson to be gleaned from these tragic events?

This week’s portion, Kedoshim, begins with a powerful challenge: “Kedoshim Te’hiyu’, Ki Kadosh Ani Hashem Elokeichem.” (“You shall be holy [kadosh] because I, G-d, your G-d, am Holy.” (VaYikra 19:2)

What does it mean to be holy? And why is this mitzvah seemingly tied to the fact that G-d is holy? If we are meant to be kadosh, it should be enough that Hashem tells us this; why does it seem here that G-d has to give us a reason? Why does Hashem have to justify, so it seems, His commandment that we be holy by adding that Hashem is holy?

Indeed, if this mitzvah is somehow connected to our mission to emulate or imitate G-d (imitatio deos), how does one accomplish this, and is this really possible?

It is interesting to note that the above-mentioned verse actually begins with words of introduction not often found in the Torah:

“And G-d spoke to Moshe saying: Speak to the entire congregation of Israel, (“Kol Adat B’nei Yisrael”) and say unto them you shall be holy (kadosh) because I, G-d, your G-d, am Holy.” (19:1-2)

Why is this particular mitzvah is stressed as being for the entire congregation of Israel; isn’t every mitzvah meant for the entire congregation? Rashi points out (based on the midrash) that this mitzvah was given to the Jewish people in a congregated gathering (hak’hel), because “most of the body of the Torah is dependant on it.” (Rashi 19:2)

There seems to be a basic underlying question here that requires our attention: Is this a promise, or a command?

Perhaps G-d is promising us that we will, ultimately, be a holy nation. And if that is the case, it will result merely from our belief in that same G-d and our willingness to align ourselves as members of His holy nation. Holiness then becomes a function of what we believe.

But Judaism does not see holiness this way. Holiness is not about what we believe, it is about how we behave. Rav Abraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook (in Orot pg. 32) suggests that holiness (kedushah) is not about sanctifying our will and desires; it is rather about elevating and sanctifying our actions.

Perhaps this is why this entire portion proceeds to outline the modes of actual behavior that are expected of each and every one of us, so that all together we will become, as we were promised long ago, at the foot of Sinai, a “kingdom of priests and a holy Nation.” (Shemot 19:6)

Incidentally, this is part of why we are called the chosen people. But that does not mean we are necessarily better than anyone else. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. To be chosen does not mean to be better; it simply means to be different. To be chosen means to have a particular purpose, or mission in this world. In fact, everyone and indeed everything is chosen. The question is what they are chosen for.

The question is not whether I am chosen, but what am I chosen for? And what do I choose to do with the gifts I have been given?

Which brings us back to our original question: Why is this particular mitzvah given to the Jewish people as a whole congregation (in a state of assembly, or hakhel, as Rashi points out)?

You see, if kedushah is about how we behave to live up to our mission as a people, the Torah is telling us here that we can’t get there until we recognize that each and every one of us has that same potential. Every Jew can be kadosh, if he or she so wills it.

And as Rav Kook says (Orot 148): “Loving … is not just an emotional experience, but rather a part of the mastery of Torah, and a very deep and wide wisdom which we all need to develop.”

Whether the esteemed rabbi getting off the train, or the Russian security guard standing outside the station, we are all one people: soldiers and doctors, plumbers and Knesset members, Talmud scholars and janitors.

Last week marked the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising; now, as then, our enemies remind us that if we don’t learn to live together, we will certainly learn to die together.

Only when we learn to really see each other as a people in this way, will we be ready to become the light that will allow us to see the entire world in the same fashion.

Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Binny Freedman is Rosh Yeshivat Oryata in Jerusalem. He can be reached at Columnist@TheJewishStar.com