Being Holy -- But How?

The Torah portion, Kedushim, teaches us how to be holy/ We hear the refrain, again and again – you shall be holy for I, Adonai your God, am holy.

What’s God telling us? How can we be holy? God is holy, people are not!

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev pointed out that holiness is Hashem’s sphere, none of us can attain His level of sanctity.

The Berditchever then taught: this refers to serving Hashem with all one’s heart.
Holiness is not a state of being – we may live a life of holiness and not feel holy at all!

After all, our tradition teaches that the most righteous among us, the tzadikim, don’t even know they’re tzadikim, so great is their humility.

Holiness is what we do – and what we abstain from doing – holiness is how we live. More than anything, holiness is reflected by how we treat others.

The first step is to realize that we’re all created in the Divine image. When we acknowledge that we all have one Divine Parent – one King, the King of Kings – we can recognize the unity of all people.

At least, we can do this intellectually.

Internalizing this concept takes practice – just like learning and perfecting any “skill” takes practice!

The parshah has a number of ways to help us develop this “skill.” One of my favorites is: “Do not go about as a talebearer among your people; do not stand by your neighbor’s blood; I am Adonai.”

In Hebrew it’s:
לֹ֥א תַֽעֲמֹ֖ד עַל־דַּ֣ם רֵעֶ֑ךָ אֲנִ֖י יְהוָֹֽה:

The Hebrew word rach’il is critical. The sages taught that it’s plain meaning referred to a merchant who went from house to house, city to city, found out what was happening in one place, brought the tale to the next.
Or they interpreted it as anyone going to someone’s home to “spy” on someone else and then spread the information.

This word, rach’il, became the halachic term for gossip: rechilut.
It’s one of the easiest commandments to break – but spreading rechilut – gossip – is toxic – in many senses, deadly, as it poisons souls.

We learn from an ancient text, the Tosefta: “Rabbi Yitzchak said: One who bears tales is a murderer, as it is written: "’You shall not go about as a talebearer amongst your people; you shall not stand by your fellow's blood.’" Rabbi Yitzchak equates gossip with putting your fellow human being in a perilous situation.
The Talmud takes this a step further: Evil talk kills three people: the speaker, the listener, and the one who is spoken of.

… Is the Talmud being overly dramatic? Is gossip really a killer?

And further, does gossip just refer to words?

According to Rashi, rechilut/gossip can be spread with a wink!

Yes, the sages understood that communication is both verbal and non-verbal.
And communication can be dangerous. Even if it’s well-intentioned!
Think about this hypothetical situation: We see a good friend hanging out with – questionable – type people. Low-lifes.

What should we do? Anything? Actually, this parshah has an answer: literally, we must reprove that person. In reality, we should speak to that person – gently -- about the matter if we think it’s dangerous.

That also comes under the rubric of: do not stand by your neighbor’s blood.
Another possibility: we know the person, and assume the best. The Hebrew term is “dan lizchut” – judge for merit – especially, don’t assume the worst!

However, realistically, many of us will express our concerns to a friend – who will probably express the same thing – embellished – to another friend – and on down the line.

Whether or not this is out of concern, we have now told the world that our friend hangs out with low-lifes.

Our friend is now suspect and, at the very least, will emerge with a tarnished reputation. People will now look at him differently. It is liable to hurt his livelihood, his friendships, his family… It can lead to depression, even suicide.
The best we can say: his standing in his community is damaged and complete repair is impossible.

Words cannot be taken back. As we see in Midrash: “Evil talk is like an arrow. A person who unsheathes a sword can regret his intention and return it to its sheath. But the arrow cannot be retrieved.”

The words, the arrows, cannot be retrieved.
We can now account for the Talmud saying that evil talk kills the person being spoken of.

But what about the listener? You can’t help it if your friend tells you something … can you?

We owe it to ourselves – and our friend – to stop the conversation. Change the subject. Say this isn’t a good topic. Say that we don’t know all the facts and shouldn’t even discuss it.

Just do something. We can’t “stand by our neighbor’s blood.”
If we listen – even if we don’t spread the gossip – we’re just as complicit.
Now we come to the person who first told the story.

The more negative our own speech – the more negative our attitudes to others – well, we just become more negative! When we foster negative attitudes about other people, we strengthen our own negative characteristics! We start to see the world from an unhappy prism – a prism that we created for ourselves.

And finally, we end up closing our own hearts to others. We’re too full of negativity and toxic thoughts to let others into our hearts – our worlds.
Does this mean that we can’t ventilate problems with others?

That, too, would be unhealthy. Here’s the difference:
• when you are ventilating, be clear, that’s what you’re doing.
• When you’re listening, be clear in your own mind that you are simply listening to someone ventilate; this is not something you should spread.

We all need good listeners to help us work through issues. But we have to learn the difference between discussion that helps bring us to a deeper understanding and rechilut that damages – and at best, creates a toxic atmosphere.

Words have power. Even our gestures have powers. As Rashi noted, we can discredit someone with merely a wink.

Yeah, gossip is human nature. We often don’t realize we’re doing it. But before we say something negative about someone
– we must stop and think
– we must ask ourselves if this bears repeating.
– we must examine whether our comments can lead to negative perceptions and pain.

Avoiding this – avoiding rechilut – is an important step to bringing goodness and holiness into the world – and creating a positive atmosphere that will serve as a beacon of light.