From Priest to People (Rabbi Sacks on Kedoshim, Covenant & Conversation)

The Rabbi Sacks Legacy

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 627 Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2022

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to Rabbi Sacks' commentary on the weekly Torah portion. This series of Covenant & Conversation essays examines the ethics we can derive from the Torah, week-by-week, parsha by parsha. You can find the full written article on Kedoshim available to read, print, download translations, and share, by visiting: www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/kedoshim/from-priest-to-people/ For more articles, videos, and other material from Rabbi Sacks, please visit www.RabbiSacks.org and follow @RabbiSacks. The Rabbi Sacks Legacy Trust continues to share weekly inspiration from Rabbi Sacks. This piece was originally written and recorded by Rabbi Sacks in 2019. Covenant & Conversation on Ethics is kindly supported by the Maurice Wohl Charitable Foundation in memory of Maurice and Vivienne Wohl z”l. Parshat Kedoshim is the parsha being read in Israel this week. For those outside of Israel, this week's parsha is Acharei Mot, and our weekly piece from Rabbi Sacks is entitled The Scapegoat (https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/acharei-mot/the-scapegoat/)

Transcript

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0:00.0	From priest to people.
0:02.0	Something fundamental happens at the beginning of this parisher,
0:06.0	and the story is one of the greatest, if rarely acknowledged,
0:10.0	contributions of Judaism to the world.
0:13.0	Until now, Vajikra has been largely about sacrifices,
0:16.0	purity, the sanctuary and the priesthood.
0:20.0	It has been, in short, about a holy place, holy offerings,
0:24.8	and the elite and holy people, Aaron and his descendants, who minister there.
0:30.7	Suddenly, in chapter 19, the text opens up to embrace the whole of the people and the whole of life.
0:41.3	The Lord said to Moses, speak to the entire Assembly of Israel and say to them,
0:44.1	Be holy because I the Lord your God am holy.
0:51.1	This is the first and only time in Leviticus that so inclusive an address is commanded.
0:55.5	The sages say that it means that the contents of the chapter were proclaimed by Moses to a formal gathering of the entire nation, Hakel. It is the people as a whole
1:03.2	who are commanded to be holy, not just an elite, the priests. It is life itself that is to be
1:09.7	sanctified. As the chapter goes on to make clear,
1:13.2	holiness is to be made manifest in the way the nation makes its clothes and plants its fields,
1:19.3	in the way justice is administered, workers are paid and business conducted. The vulnerable,
1:24.9	the deaf, the blind, the elderly and the stranger are to be afforded special protection.
1:29.7	The whole society is to be governed by love without resentments or revenge.
1:35.5	What we witness here, in other words, is the radical democratisation of holiness.
1:41.0	All ancient societies had priests.
1:44.0	We've encountered four instances in the Torah thus far
	...

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