25 Apr PARSHAS KEDOSHIM: RELIGIOUS BUT VULGAR

A Degenerate
Sanctioned by
Torah

Four Mitzvos and
a Slice of Fish
In a small town in Eastern Europe, a
poor beggar once approached the home
of an extremely wealthy but very stingy
man. “Sir, I haven’t had a morsel of
food in more than two days,” he said.
“Can you please spare something to
eat?”
“My home was not made for losers
like yourself,” the miser replied. “Why
don’t you go to the synagogue? There
they will surely feed you!”
But the poor man pleaded. “Please, I
beg you, I have no strength left. If I
don’t eat something now, I will die.
Please, give me any food you have in
the home.”
The rich man took from the garbage an
old, rotten and smelly piece of fish and
gave it to the beggar, who consumed it
within a few seconds. As the poor man
thanked his host and left the home, he
collapsed in the street. They rushed him
to the local hospital.
That evening, after returning home
from the evening services in the
synagogue, the wealthy man informed
his wife that he would be leaving and
return later at night. “The poor man who
ate in our home suddenly fell ill, and he
was taken to the hospital. I must go visit
him and fulfill the great mitzvah of
visiting the sick.”
The following morning, after returning
home from the synagogue’s morning
service, the man told his wife: “I have a
busy day today. In the synagogue they
announced that the poor beggar died
early this morning, and that his funeral
would take place at 2 p.m. I must attend
the funeral of this man and perform the
extraordinary mitzvah of escorting the
dead on their final journey.”
That evening, after returning home
from synagogue, the wealthy man
informed his wife once again that he
would be out late. “At the funeral they
announced that the deceased beggar
was survived by a son. I must go pay
him a shivah call and perform the great
mitzvah of comforting a person who is

in mourning.”
When the wealthy man returned that
night from the shivah call, his face was
beaming with joy. His entire
countenance radiated with happiness.
The man was simply kvelling.
“What are you so happy about?” his
wife asked him. “What was so exciting
about visiting an orphan sitting shivah?”
To which the wealthy miser replied:
“How could I not be overjoyed when I
think of how many tremendous mitzvos
I performed with merely one small
stinky piece of fish!
“Think about it. With one decayed
slice of fish, I achieved four of the most
extraordinary mitzvos: hospitality to the
poor, visiting the sick, escorting the
dead and comforting the mourning. Ah!
How happy I feel.”
An Ego Trip
This satirical episode depicts, of
course, the profile of a man who may
consider himself to be very religious,
but who totally doesn’t get it; an
individual who may technically follow
the laws, but who is absolutely alienated
from G-d’s truth and from the very
definition of holiness; a person for
whom religion is merely a self-centered
obnoxious ego trip, rather than a
challenge to transcend the superficial,
base and depraved aspects of the human
personality and touch the divine within
himself and his fellow human beings.
It is against this type of “religious”
person that the Bible warns us in the
beginning of the second Torah portion
of this week, Kedoshim.
“Speak to the entire assembly of the
Children of Israel,” G-d tells Moses,
“and say to them: You shall be holy, for
holy am I, your G-d.”
What is the meaning of this
commandment to “be holy”? What does
it mean to be holy? How does one
become holy?
One of the greatest biblical
commentators, the 13th century Spanish
sage, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman,
known as Nachmanides or Ramban,
maintains that the injunction to by holy
is not to observe any particular
commandment. Rather, it is an

instruction that relates to the
entire weltanschauung of the Jew,
to the core of his lifestyle, to his
very perception of self.
In Nachmanides’ own words:
“The meaning of this (“be
holy”) is that since the Torah has
cautioned (in the previous Torah
portion) against forbidden
promiscuous relations and
against forbidden foods, while
permitting intimacy in a marriage and
eating meat and wine, the gluttonous
person can find a place to wallow in
fornication with his wife or wives and
become one of the guzzlers of wine and
the gluttons of meat. He may converse
at will about all types of licentious
things, since no prohibition against this
is specified in the Torah. He can be a
degenerate with the permission of the
Torah. Therefore, after enumerating the
things which it forbids entirely, the
Torah declares, ‘Be holy.’ Constrain
yourself also in that which is permitted.”
“A degenerate with the permission of
the Torah!” What a dramatic and
moving expression coming from the
quill of a 13th-century sage occupied
most of his time with defending his

Spanish brethren from Christian Jew-
haters. Nachmanides is crying out

against religious smugness and
egocentricity, against Torah-sanctioned
vulgarity. He views this verse as a
divine protest against the individual
who may technically perform all the
laws and rituals, but still remains coarse
and vulgar. He may have learned Torah,
but the Torah has taught him nothing.
His inner beastliness and selfishness
have never been refined; his bias and
crudeness never challenged. G-d, for
this individual, is an object of his own
making, not an invitation to infinity,
mystery and transcendence.
Religion, we all know, can be a crutch
allowing us to remain stuck in our
bubble, secure in the consistency of
ritual, yet unready to challenge our core
narcissism and listen deeply to another
human being. Dogmatic ritual can give
us the sense that we are good and holy,
while we remain crude, crass and
delusional, never asking the ultimate
G-dly question, “What have I given up
for someone else?” Even our kindness

can become superficial, false and self-
serving. We engage in kindness, or

“chesed,” so that we can tell ourselves
we are good and that we will merit a
seat in “the world to come.”
Perhaps we will. But that place in the
“world to come” will smell as bad as
that piece of fish…
“Be Holy” is the eternal call to
challenge the status quo of our nature,
to remember that religion may have
little to do with G-d and to recall that
serving G-d is not merely a ticket to
paradise. It is the daily battle for
transcendence; a daily battle to go
beyond the superficiality of mundane
existence, and the confines of the
insecure ego; a daily battle to find the
unifying light within.
To be sure, self-deception is not the
exclusive purview of religious people.
All of us, regardless of our level of outer
religiosity, find it much easier to engage
in a huge amount of self-deception to
maintain our self image as “good
people” than to actually challenge our
baser, more selfish instincts. “Religious
people” are not the only ones who
sometimes don’t get it; all of us are in
danger of becoming stuck in the
quagmire of our psyche’s comfort
zones, too lazy or scared to confront the
hard questions. Yet, for those of us who
call ourselves religious, the injunction
“be holy” reminds us that G-d must
always be synonymous with truth,
integrity and inner refinement. Vulgarity
in the name of religion is a sin all its
own.
Careful we must be not to use religion
as a tool to eclipse our insecurities and
selfishness. The first and foremost
definition of G-d is that He has no
definition and thus must inculcate us
with an endless sense of humility and
wonder.