Defining Holiness

 

Ephraim Radner, Leviticus (London: SCM Press, 2008), 204.

Holy eating

Hayim Halevy Donin observes that the food laws are regularly associated in the Torah with a call to holiness (e.g., Exod 22:31; Lev 11:44; Deut 14:21) and concludes

"To distinguish between "the beast which is to be eaten and the beast which is not to be eaten" (Lev. 11:47), is an aspect of the broader requirements that Israel learn to "distinguish between the unclean and the clean" not only in food, but in all areas of life -- the sexual, the moral, the ethical, the spiritual. The laws of kashrut do not stand isolated from the purposes and goals, from the disciplines and demands that are part of the total picture of Judaism. To treat kashrut in isolation is to distort and misunderstand it."

"Holiness meant and means becoming master over one's passions so that one is in command and control of them, and not they of him. The one who has been trained to resist cravings for forbidden foods that tempt him may also have strengthened his capacity to resists his cravings for forbidden sexual involvements that may tempt him too; it may also strengthen his capacity to resist forbidden unethical questions that may hold forth the promise of tempting financial or status rewards. The transference of this religious discipline to other areas is not guaranteed, but there is no denying the inherent value in religious discipline intended to train one to resist bodily drives and urges just to satisfy a craving or experience a pleasure."

"Kashrut is a good example of how Judaism raises even the most mundane acts, the most routine activities, into a religious experience. What narrower minds look upon as a picayune concern with trifling kitchen matters is really an example of how Judaism elevates the mere physical satisfaction of one's appetite into a spiritual act by its emphasis on the everpresent God and our duty to serve Him at all times."

To Be a Jew: A Guide to Jewish Observance in Contemporary Life (New York: Basic Books, 1994 [1972]), 100-101

A Jewish definition of holiness

"A Jewish definition of holiness may be put in these terms: Holiness does not lie in the ascetic, saintly withdrawal from life, or in excessive denial to oneself of all human pleasures, or in the repression of all human drives. It consists, rather, of full participation in the stream of human community life, sharing the joyous as well as the sorrowful experiences which life has to offer, denying to oneself no legitimate pleasures; but at the same time so developing one's sense of discernment as to be able to distinguish and choose the right from the wrong, the true from the false, the good from the bad, the sacred from the profane, the pure from the impure, and the clean from the unclean. The greater the sense of ethical-moral-religious discrimination, the greater the holiness of the individual."

Rabbi Hayim Donin, To Be a Jew: A Guide to Jewish Observance in Contemporary Life (New York: Basic Books, 1994 [1972]), 36.