Parsha Points

Our double parashah, Aharei Mot-Kedoshim, contains endless riches, but it’s the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus in parashat Kedoshim, with its beautiful ethical teachings, that usually gets all the attention and I admit that I’m drawn to it every year we reach this stage in the cycle of Torah readings. This chapter seeks to root the idea of kedushah/holiness not just in our vertical relationship with the Divine, but in our horizontal connections to our fellow human beings as well. Among the many details in Kedoshim, a very famous phrase stands out: “love your fellow as yourself”/ve-ahavta le-re’akha kamokha (Lev. 19:18). These words are so well-known at least in part because the great second century sage Rabbi Akiva describes them as the “fundamental principle of the Torah”/k’lal gadol ba-Torah. 

What is the meaning of “love” in this context? In loving God, our fellow Jews and human beings, consistency and constancy stand at the center. In order to affirm God with the totality of who we are and in order to love others in all of what we do, regularity and steadfastness are essential. Our brit, our covenant, like marriage, is not built on deeply felt experience alone but also on loyalty, faithfulness, and “showing up.” 

I’ve encountered many, many congregants who’ve utterly devoted themselves to spouses who are seriously ill or dying. They do this, of course, out of love…not the love of fireworks and walks on the beach, but the love of constancy, of the prosaic, of everyday care and commitment. That is the type of love demanded of us by our holy Torah, in our relationships with God and our people. That is the love that sustains the covenant…and that is truly klal gadol ba-Torah, the great and abiding principle of our tradition.  

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Adam Rubin