And God spoke to Moshe: “Speak to the entire congregation of the children of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” Vayikra 19:1–2

And God spoke to Moshe: “Speak to the entire congregation of the children of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.”

There is nothing more difficult than the Divine commandment to be holy.

But what does this commandment actually mean?

It is a call to realize that nothing is commonplace, that no human being is an accident or average, that every person is utterly unique—a disclosure of the Divine. That is, each of us is a contemporary of God, that we borrow God’s time, that we must build a life as if it were a work of art, that life is a mandate, not a game or a form of entertainment, that no one has a right to live, but rather an exalted duty to realize that life is a Divine gift, that life cannot be lived on an island to which one withdraws, and that life is the result of an encounter with the sublime, deepened through our interactions with others.

Holiness is the awareness that we live in the presence of God in all that we do, think, say, and feel—without exception.

It is a warning that we are not holy when we merely ponder these ideas, but only when we live them in our day-to-day existence. It is our attempt to allow the Divine to emerge through our deeds, so that in our finite actions we touch the infinite.

It is a protest against philosophies that remain in the upper chambers of the mind, never descending into daily life; a rebellion against the shallowness of mere reflection and the constant attempt to contemplate the resonance of the ineffable while refusing to live by its call.

Most people live as if in a waking coma, unaware that to possess a soul we must first unsettle it, disturb its equilibrium.

The road to holiness passes through the world of action. Only in doing do we truly perceive. It is not enough to contemplate Shabbat or meditate on kashrut; one must live them to grasp them. Not doing so, is like a colour-blind person denying the existence of colour.

Holiness concerns itself with the common deed, with the trivialities of life, making them part of the Divine without removing them from the realm of the mundane.

It is a commandment to be aware that our lives unfold in a numinous state—even when we fail to notice it. There is something transcendental happening as we drink our morning coffee, converse with friends, make love, or even attend to our most basic bodily needs.

Holiness is a protest against declaring anything in life—however trivial—inconsequential. It warns us not to flee from the ordinary, but to transform the ordinary into a holy experience. Even trivial acts become holy when performed in an exalted manner, for God is always present.

There is no neutrality before God. One cannot hide behind civilization as a camouflage for chaos. It is also not enough to be merely civilized. To truly live is to surpass civilization. Holiness rejects the possibility that one might commit murder in the morning and teach an advanced mathematics class in the afternoon.

This is the purpose of Halakhah: to infuse the trivial with holiness, to bring God’s presence into the mundane—without releasing us from the responsibility to act.

But how demanding this is! The difficulty applies not only to the secular individual, but is equally challenging for the religious person who acts out of habit, who utters blessings mechanically, with indifference.

To be holy is to live in constant warfare with apathy. Yet, as we prepare to enter this battle, it is if we are armed with unloaded weapons. We become paralysed.

Holiness is a frontal encounter with the Divine, with a brightness so intense that we are tempted to look away. It exists on the border between what is humanly possible and what is almost unbearable. It is a precarious balance—as when we ride a bicycle: we must keep moving forward or we fall.

To be holy means to strive constantly for holiness, knowing that it can never be fully attained. For it is the journey that matters, not the destination.

To be holy is to be noble—to sense that behind all absurdity there is meaning.

To live a holy life is more than observing rituals; it is to infuse our entire existence, shaping our character, our interests, and our moods. It is more than being religious. It is an ongoing, unending engagement.

All is of ultimate importance.

Nothing is trivial. Nothing is irrelevant.

Can a person live with constant awareness of God, or is that expectation unrealistic—and perhaps even unhealthy?

What is one “ordinary” activity in your life that could be transformed into something more meaningful? What would that look like in practice?

Is it harder to be holy in a modern world filled with distractions, or was it always this difficult?

The essay suggests that holiness is achieved not through thought alone, but through action. How does this compare with the idea in Pirkei Avot 1:17: “Not study is the main thing, but action” (lo ha-midrash hu ha-ikar ela ha-ma‘aseh)? Does action create awareness, or must awareness come first?

Rabbi Cardozo speaks of “warfare with indifference.” In light of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s famous assertion that “The opposite of good is not evil, but indifference,” do you feel that indifference the greatest spiritual danger today? What would it mean to actively resist it?

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)