Sweat the Small Stuff

Parashat Kedoshim, Leviticus 19:1–20:27 

Dave Nichol, Ruach Israel, Needham, MA

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them: You shall be holy (kedoshim), for I, the Lord your God, am holy. (Lev 19:1–2)

Parashat Kedoshim begins with an injunction to be holy. I hesitate to define what holy means, though it includes the idea of being set apart, or profoundly other. Just the idea of taking on a characteristic that is attributed to God is, well, somewhere between impossibly daunting and downright mind-blowing. 

What does it take to be holy? Apparently for us, based on the verses that follow, it is to honor your parents, avoid idolatry, observe Shabbat, perform sacrifices correctly, and make provision for the economically (and otherwise) disadvantaged. The requirements are dizzying in their variety: do not hate your kinsman in your heart; do not wear cloth made from a mixture of two kinds of material.

It is as if the Torah gives us a simple, straightforward prescription—be holy—and immediately goes on to show how it is not simple or straightforward at all. I suppose that is fitting: “how one should live” is a sufficiently broad question so as to resist easy answers. 

Commenting on this parasha in his excellent book, The Heart of Torah, R. Shai Held focuses on one verse in particular:

You shall not insult (lo tekalel) the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear your God: I am the Lord. (19:14)

R. Held points out that the verb קלל (k-l-l), to insult, connotes taking the deaf person lightly. The opposite is כבד (k-v-d), to honor, or treat something as weighty. So, in this verse, fearing God is the opposite of taking a person lightly: it means treating them with honor or gravity.

From the perspective of a simplistic, utilitarian ethic, you’d think there is nothing wrong with insulting the deaf. They can’t hear you! As Rashi points out, it’s a victimless crime. No harm, no foul. And yet, if a reason is given for this commandment, it has nothing to do with the victim, but that we should fear God. 

Fear—of God or otherwise—is out of fashion in much of contemporary spiritual discourse. And yet, it is a common motif in the language of scripture. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psa 111:10); it is “altogether pure” (Psa 19:10); it is one of the basic requirements God makes of us (Deut 10:12).

The Ramchal (R. Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, 1707–1746), in his classic mussar work Mesilat Yesharim, envisions life as a journey through a maze where the final destination is invisible to those inside, but wrong decisions can make the difference between reaching the goal, or not. All the paths inside look the same, and only knowing the way will get you out of the labyrinth.

My natural tendency is to find this off-putting. I tend toward preferring a casual, low-drama spiritual life. I hate dressing up, generally respond to seriousness with humor, and have an allergy to the melodramatic. The Ramchal, however, is hard core. It is evident, not just from his writing, but from what we know of his life, that he almost certainly lacked chill. I bet if he lived today he would wear a button-up shirt every day, if not a suit and tie. And yet, I hesitate to write him off completely. For one thing, in his model of the world, things matter.

There are benefits to a worldview where small things matter. For one thing, it can imbue our lives with real purpose in the day-to-day. Meaning isn’t reserved for those who do big, impressive things like save thousands of disadvantaged children or invent new green technologies; the uber-rich or the policy-makers. No! Your choices and mine, the seemingly little choices we make about how we treat others, eat, spend, even think, have real import.

This principle holds for positive, as well as negative, actions. Years ago I received a chain email (if you’re under 40, think reposted Facebook posts) about how a smile could have outsize impact on the world: you smile at someone and make just enough difference in their day that they do the same to someone else, and the effects ripple out ad infinitum. This strikingly echoes how Chassidic thought understands the performance of mitzvot: the observance of even minor commandments has an unseen material influence on the cosmos; indeed, these mitzvot are the most powerful levers we have to change the world.

Whatever the mechanism, you can think of this as an alternative economy of change. Billionaires pontificate at Davos and politicians attend summits, while in reality, the fate of the world rests on a family removing chametz before Pesach. A smile, a berakha after eating, or a choice to restrain negative speech, become the heroic acts that turn the tide. Indeed, the hardest part of accepting this paradigm is having the faith to see it. 

But once we choose to live in this parallel universe of power in actions, do we have the discipline to constantly push ourselves to raise the bar? Will we have what it takes to engage in regular self-reflection and contemplation, and live with the consistency that holiness requires? 

In America this is the season of NBA and NHL playoffs. Watching these basketball and hockey games, I marvel at the ability of these players to maintain the focus to compete at a high level night after night. Fighting for every rebound matters, as each possession can make the difference between advancing to the next round or getting bounced from the playoffs. I believe the greatest players in the game were not the tallest or fastest, but those who were relentless in their attention to detail and pursuit of excellence (Jordan, Bird, and Ray Allen all come to mind).

Shaul the shaliach was not familiar with playoff basketball, but spoke of the same idea in his time:

Don’t you know that in a stadium the runners all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win! Every competitor exercises self-control in all respects. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we do it to receive an imperishable one. So I run in this way—not aimlessly. So I box in this way—not beating the air. Rather, I punish my body and bring it into submission, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. (1 Cor 9:24–27, TLV)

This is a similar message to that of the Ramchal, an argument for practicing zehirut, constant attentiveness to how we live. In a sense, to walk through life without self-reflection and seriousness is to lack yirat Hashem, fear of God. It is, if you will, to treat life lightly. The opposite, on the other hand, is to treat life as weighty (kaved), as if it really matters.

Perhaps this is the connection between the hodgepodge of commandments that begin our parasha, and fearing God. Just as Yeshua taught us to be faithful in small matters (Luke 16:10), Kedoshim teaches us to “sweat the details.” The small things are the big things.

May the Holy One grant us the strength—and even an appropriate amount of fear—to be, little by little, holy ourselves.

All quotations from JPS unless otherwise noted.