This week Jews everywhere in the world are reading a doubled parasha, which includes most of four chapters of VaYikra (Leviticus), from 16.1 to 20.27. Within this section of text we find one of the more famous and misunderstood commands in the Torah: "Be holy, as I יהוה your God am holy." (Lev. 19.2) 

The concept of holiness as defined today is too often dismissed as pious prissiness, holier-than-thou moral arrogance, or, more simply, an adjective beyond our daily experience. But that's a modern definition and has nothing to do with the original ancient Hebrew. "Holy" in Hebrew is "kadosh", and that which is kadosh is set apart for a specific purpose. That's all. It doesn't mean untouchable, or unattainable, or somehow better than "normal" existence; the term refers to how we regard someone or some thing. For example:

* in kiddushin, the Jewish concept of marriage, a couple holds each other as holy - no one else can occupy the place one's partner has in one's heart.

* in kiddush, we take ordinary wine and make it kadosh by reciting a blessing over it.

* in kaddish, we chant ancient words that express our recognition of God's uniqueness, or holiness, for us.

* in the kedusha prayer, we sing of the Jewish longing to be part of the holiness of God, rising on our toes as if to reach for God's presence.

The kohen wore special clothes for his work in the Temple; they were kadosh to the work. He couldn't wear them home, or even outside the Temple area. The incense shovel he used to add aromatics to the sacrifices was kadosh to that purpose, and he couldn't take it home to work in the garden just because it was the ideal size. These things were dedicated, kedoshim, to their purpose.

To be holy, then, is to set oneself apart from all the possible options that exist in the world in order to be dedicated to one path. It's a commitment that you're invited to renew each Shavuot, when we remember and relive the giving of the Torah at Sinai (twenty-three days from now, by the way, on the evening of May 26). As usual, commitment to one requires forgoing another. You can't be married to two people; you can't follow two religious paths simultaneously; as someone said, you can't be all things to all people. What you can be, to yourself and to your community, is one complete and whole person following one coherent and clear path to which you are dedicated. That's what God wants in our parashah - which is another way of saying that's what our people, already from antiquity, understood to be what makes sense and is true.

Being holy in this way is a simple constant awareness, a mindfulness if you will. May this Shabbat bring you closer to a comfortable sense of the holy in you, and surrounding you in your life.

This week we read a double parashah, both Tazria and Metzora. Both deal with conditions of disease and other unusual conditions, and describe treatment. Skin conditions are so prevalent in these passages that the old joke is that this is the dermatologists' Torah. 

One of my favorite insights into this part of Torah is in Lev.14.35. We are told that if you notice that the surface of the walls of your house are discolored, "the one to whom the house belongs comes and tells the kohen, saying, 'something that seems to me like a plague has appeared on my house'. 

The medieval scholar Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki), one of the greatest commentators on the Torah and Talmud of any age, offers this interpretation of what seems like a simple verse: "Something that seems to me like a plague": even one who is educated and believes he knows exactly what it is may not make a definitive statement, out of respect for the kohen's role.

A related insight: even when we are sure that we know what's going on, we should not state our perception definitively. The Jewish ethic of humility teaches that we are always to keep in mind that we might be wrong, and that we must stay open to the possibility that there is more than we know in any situation - observed behavior of a neighbor is always incomplete. Impressions of a friend or family member might be misunderstood. And where distance obscures and our own feelings bias us, let us err on the side of compassion even when we're pretty sure we're looking at a plague.

Consider: what are you sure of? how might you be wrong? what could you gain by learning more?

Rabbi Ariel

This Shabbat is the last of the book of Numbers. The name of the parashah, Masei - "journeys", introduces our theme: the forty-two places at which the Israelites camped during their forty years of wandering. This parashah is a kind of reminiscence. One ancient midrash compares the Torah's text here to the shared memories of a parent and grown child remembering the years of the child's maturation: "remember, here is where you learned to walk. Here you went to summer camp. Here is where we argued. And here is where you graduated high school." In just the same way, Moshe and the Israelites are remembering each place where our ancestors camped for a while, and what happened there.

The parasha opens with the words: These are the journeys of the children of Israel. (33.1) But then, as more than one commentator points out, the Torah describes not the journeys, but the encampments. Not the moving, but the stopping!

The same is true of the journey of life. Pauses, interruptions and setbacks are an inadvertent part of a person's sojourn on earth. But when everything a person does is toward the goal of attaining the "Holy Land" -- the sanctification of the material world -- these, too, are "journeys". Ultimately, they are shown to have been the true motors of progression, each an impetus to the realization of one's mission and purpose in life." (From the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe)

At the end of this period, according to tradition, we will be standing, once again, at the foot of Mt. Sinai. We will re-live the moment when we were as close to God as anyone has ever felt. Just as our ancestors, who heard God's voice, we'll be so close that we might want to say, just as the ancient Israelites did to Moses, "you go. We'll stay here. This is close enough." Closeness to God, a sense of closeness to the Infinite, can seem quite terrifying.

For the entire 49 day period, the mystics teach that we are to consider different aspects of our being: physical, emotional, intellectual. How do the different, disparate parts of ourselves interact? How do we balance our seemingly contradictory internal feelings, longings, needs? How can we rise above physical limitations, emotional obstructions, intellectual obfuscation? How shall we rise toward God, and toward our best sense of ourselves and our potential?

The count for the last day of the Omer offers a wonderful, counter-intuitive answer.

According to the mystical count of the Omer, on the last day of counting the Omer which begins this evening, 4 Sivan 5771 / June 6 2011 at sundown, we are to consider Malkhut sheh'beh Malkhut: Being in Being. Being is the "lowest" level of the human attributes that the mystics guide us to consider. It is the closest to us, the most "down to earth" and internal. Being in Being: this may seem to be a grammatical redundancy but it is actually an intensifier. You must be in your Being. Rising is not rising above your Being, not even above the physical being - that stubborn, too weak, too fat, too thin, too old, too young....whatever you are feeling - you will rise toward God not from trying to rise above your physical being but by rising within it, by truly dwelling in it, with respect and admiration for God's creation and the vessel of your soul.

God, as it has been said, is in the details. God is also in the embodiment of our existence as much as in any other aspect of it. To believe otherwise - to believe that God is not present in the physical level of human Being - is to deny God's absolute transcendence. Which, of course, is just idolatry.

Malkhut she'beh Malkhut, Being in Being.