A Reasonable Request (1)
“You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” Leviticus 19:2b JPS
Be holy – The English translation doesn’t quite capture the force of this command. Baruch Levine translates it as “You must be holy!” He adds: “The verse is distinctive in that it provides a rationale for a commandment: Israel must be holy because God is holy. To have a close relationship to God, the people must emulate God.”[1] What could be clearer—or more mysterious! What does it mean to be holy? That is the central question of the believer in the God of Israel. Levine offers some insight in the excursus to his commentary:
Holiness is difficult to define or describe; it is a mysterious quality. . . In its simplest terms, the “holy” is different from the profane or the ordinary. It is “other,” as the phenomenologists define it. . . The holy may be perceived as dangerous, yet it is urgently desired because it affords blessing, power, and protection. The Sifra conveys the concept of “otherness” in its comment to 19:2: You shall be holy—“You shall be distinct (perushim tiheyu),” meaning that the people of Israel, in becoming a holy nation, must preserve its distinctiveness from other peoples. It must pursue a way of life different from that practiced by other peoples. . . The statement also conveys the idea, basic to biblical religion, that holiness cannot be achieved by individuals alone, no matter how elevated, pure, or righteous. It can be realized only through the life of the community, acting together.[2]
Levine suggests that God’s holiness is seen in His observable actions, in the ways God relates to men, and it is in these actions that we find our definition of holiness. In other words, holiness is not some ethereal theological construct about God’s essence. Rather, it is the practical manifestation of God’s behavior as a model for ours. That means holiness is described in acts of compassion, mercy, forgiveness, justice, righteousness, long-suffering, ḥesed, and truth. Doing these things, modelled on God’s behavior, is holiness. But, as the Sifra notes, all of these acts assume relationship. They cannot be exercised alone. There must always be a “Thou” for every “I.” I have often written that there is no Robinson Crusoe in the Hebraic world. No one’s personal identity can be found in isolation. Perhaps that’s why the word bādad (alone) is such a terrifying condition (cf. Genesis 32:24).
Reflect for a moment on Levine’s comment that in order to be holy Israel must preserve its distinctiveness. What does this say about Jewish assimilation? What about those ethnic Jews who have adopted Western lifestyles? What about the Christian claim that Jews must convert to be saved? How can a Jew maintain any connection to the God of holiness if he or she no longer upholds Jewish distinctiveness? Of course, we might wish to investigate what “distinctiveness” meant when God gave this instruction. Perhaps it’s not the layers of Talmudic accumulation of today. But there must be something very different than all the rest of humanity, right?
Topical Index: holy, alone, bādad, distinctiveness, Levine, Leviticus 19:2b
[1] Baruch A. Levine, The JPS Bible Commentary: Leviticus (The Jewish Publication Society, 1989), p. 125.
[2] Ibid., p. 256.
