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Holiness is No Hiding Spot: Commentary on Parashiyyot Acharey Mot & Kedoshim 5785
By Rabbi Jonah Rank, Rosh Yeshivah of Hebrew Seminary
I suppose the pure holy eternal Being, which made of one Blood all Nations of Men to dwell upon the face of the Earth, did not make others to be Slaves to us.
—Benjamin Lay, All Slave-Keepers That keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates (p. 61)
Once Benjamin Franklin printed this anti-slavery screed in 1738, Lay got in the habit of handing out copies of his book free of charge—until Lay carved into a hill the cave that would be his home for the next 20 years. Only a month earlier, he had covered his Bible and several fellow Quakers in New Jersey with the blood of a pig to express his disgust against these settlers’ complacency amidst the growing slave trade. Devoted to his faith and to the ethical principles that guided him, Lay’s two decades as a hermit permitted him to reject any aspect of society created by forced labor, thus limiting his diet to water, milk, roasted turnips, and honey produced by the bees he kept. Lay’s commitment to his ideals reportedly paid off. In 1758, shortly after he learned that the Quakers of his erstwhile home of Philadelphia had officially denounced slavery, Lay allegedly announced, “I can now die in peace,” and did so promptly.
Historians can easily point to the life of Benjamin Lay as one filled with great sacrifice, fueled by an undying loyalty to the moral purity Lay so adamantly preached. In contrast, though the Jewish canon occasionally recounts the lives of ascetic sages, the Jewish tradition time and again has resisted unconditional praise for those who express their faith through dangerous avenues. The Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 74a records that, if a Jew were threatened to be killed unless they were to commit a sin, the Jew should be willing to transgress (except in cases where the iniquity involves idol worship, sexual illicitness, or murder). The fragility of life is again preferred over religious zeal in the Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 7b, which recounts the legend of a sacred meal to which Rabbah had invited Rabbi Zeyra before the inebriated host accidentally killed him. The narrator shares that, though Rabbi Zeyra was somehow resurrected and reinvited to the same meal the following year, the revived guest declined the invitation because “לָא בְּכֹל שַׁעְתָּא וְשַׁעְתָּא מִתְרְחִישׁ נִיסָּא” (“it is not each and every moment that a miracle may transpire”). While our tradition exalts piety, acts of extreme self-deprivation sharply deviate from Jewish religious norms.
Less than 300 years after Jesus’ disciples (and their own disciples) had composed their New Testament, the Egyptian Anthony the Great (c. 251–356) became a monk (perhaps the first monk ever). Though Anthony himself never belonged to a monastery, his own life of holy deeds—performed while residing while living far away from the general population—inspired the construction of many Christian monasteries as well as the reverence afforded Christian monastic traditions to this day. Alongside another branch of the tree of Abrahamic religions, few Muslims practiced zuhd (زهد, “asceticism”) in the earliest years of Islam. Nonetheless, a small number of especially pious and influential Muslims, such as Junayd of Baghdad (c. 830–c. 910), largely withdrew from the material world and turned their attention to prayer. These spiritual leaders paved a path for when the 11th century witnessed the creation of ṭuruq (طرق, “orders”) within Sufism, Islam’s most prominent mystical tradition. Meanwhile, in Sura—less than a day’s walk south from Junayd’s home—Rabbi Sa’adyah Ga’on (c. 892–942) began to worry about these precarious trends in self-abnegation. In one of the earliest Jewish books to engage directly and extensively with philosophical teachings from beyond the Jewish community, Sa’adyah expressed, in his native Judeo-Arabic, his concern with this excessive religiosity:
מוג׳וד קום כת׳יר יקולון אן אפצ׳ל מא ישתגל בה אלעבד פי דאר אלדניא עבאדה׳ רבה פקט, וד׳לך באן יצום אלנהאר ויקום אלליל ויסבח וימג׳ד, וידע אלדניא באסהרא, פאן רבה יכפיה אמר קותה ודואיה וסאיר חואיג׳ה, והוד׳א נג׳ד ללעבאדה לד׳ה ג׳לילה… ולכן מוצ׳ע אלאנכאר עליהם אלאנפראד בהא וחדהא… פאן לם יען באלגד׳א לם ית׳בת אלג׳סם… לאן אהל ג׳יל באסרתם לו אטבקוא עליהם ת׳ם מאתוא למאתת אלעבאדה מעהם…
מצוים אנשים רבים האומרים כי הטוב ביותר שיתעסק בו האדם בעולם הזה היא עבודת ה׳ בלבד, והיא שיצום ביום, ויקום בלילה להלל ולהודות, ויעזוב את העולם בכללותו, כי ה׳ יספק לו עניני מזונו ורפואתו ויתר צרכיו, והננו מוצאים לעבודה עונג חשוב… אבל הנקודה שיש לחלוק עליהם בה במה שמתיחדים בה לבדה… כי אם לא יעסוק במזון לא יתקיים הגוף… כי אנשי דור בכללם אלו התנהגו כפי דעתם ומתו היתה מתה העבודה עמהם…
There are many people who say that it is best for a human in this world to occupy one’s self with nothing but serving Adonai—that one should fast in the daytime and arise at nighttime to offer praise and gratitude; that one should depart from the affairs of this world, for Adonai will provide for that person all matters of sustenance, health, and any remaining needs. Of course, we assign to [such] service significant joy… But the point over which we must disagree is dedicating one’s self exclusively to that [ascetic service]. For if one does not take agency over one’s own sustenance, the body cannot exist… For, were the people of a whole generation to have behaved according to their [ascetic] thoughts and [then] to have died, [all] service [to God] would have died with them. (See Rabbi Yosef Qafih’s edition of Sefer HaNivchar Be’Emunot UvDe’ot [ספר הנבחר באמונות ובדעות, “The Book of The Choicest of Beliefs and Opinions”], ‘Discourse’ [Ma’amar, “מאמר”] 10, Chapter 12; pp. 315–316; Hebrew translation by Rabbi Qafih; English translation and emphasis my own.)
An ethical code of sacred conduct dominates Leviticus 19, approximately the middle of this week’s double-portion of Torah reading (Acharey Mot and, beginning at chapter 19, Kedoshim). Little controversy should surround some of the best known of God’s commands here—that we not curse the Deaf or put stumbling blocks before the blind (Leviticus 19:14), that courts should show no prejudiced favoritism to the rich or to the poor (19:15), or that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves (19:18). Like the protests of so many people of faith in their moments of righteous indignation, this Holiness Code insists upon the inextricable link between holy conduct and moral conduct. However, unlike those who have retreated from the world around them to concentrate on religious matters alone, our public reading of God’s command “be holy” (“קְדֹשִׁ֣ים תִּהְי֑וּ,” kedoshim tihyu) addresses “the whole congregation of the children of Israel” (“כׇּל־עֲדַ֧ת בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֛ל,” kol adat beney Yisra’el) (Leviticus 19:2). The Russian-born American Rabbi Morris Adler (1906–1966) emphasized that God did not direct these words “to a group of priests, to a caste of Levites, [or] to a small group of the elite who were especially trained,” but to every person in the people Israel (The Voice Still Speaks, pp. 238–239). Rabbi Adler elaborated:
Religion, when it has any meaning, inhabits the life of an entire people. It forms the collective experience of a complete society… No more democratic concept of religion could be formulated. Religion has so often been used by the higher classes to impress and oppress the lower. Very often it has been used as an instrument by which the few governed the many… It is the duty of all our people to form a comprehensive, priestly community. (P. 239.)
Any fine soul can pray alone or study alone, but a human cannot act righteously toward their neighbors when avoiding the neighborhood at all costs.
Does the curious case of Benjamin Lay though demonstrate just how badly our ancestors misunderstood the power of secluding ourselves from the sins of others? Lay may have desired isolation, but his benevolent yet imperfect (even slave-owning) friend Benjamin Franklin was known to pay visits to Lay’s cave-home. Moreover, Franklin displayed prominently in his home a painting of Lay (whose uncommon physique certainly sparked discussion among Franklin’s guests), and Franklin never quite shied away from advocating on behalf of Lay’s utopian yearnings. Lay the man may have physically fled, and Franklin the friend may have volunteered in accepting upon himself the burden Lay meant to carry—but Lay’s message never really went into hiding; Franklin did the heavy lifting, keeping Lay front and center, against the odds. Lay never demanded that Franklin serve him, but Lay’s greatest impact came to fruition on account of Franklin’s unpaid labor.*
We do not exile ourselves from civilization. It is impossible to opt out of human affairs, and any attempt to do so unduly overwhelms those kindhearted individuals who swoop in to serve as caretakers for us. Instead, we celebrate life among the living, and we exalt God among God’s fellow creatures. We find true holiness when we lovingly witness and care deeply for God’s works.
*These and further details on Benjamin Lay can found in Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States, pp. 72–76.
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