Parashat Kedoshim: Bringing Holiness into Your Life

Living Emunah By Rabbi David Ashear

The pasuk tells us in this week's parasha, קדושים תהיו . And Rashi writes, this is a command to distance ourselves from forbidden relationships. And the more fences we put up to protect ourselves from them, the more kedusha we bring into our lives. A few pesukim later, the Torah speaks about what's called pigul . If during one of the four main services of a korban , the kohen who is performing them, thinks about a disqualifying thought, it ruins the entire korban . The mefarshim tell us we see from here how important even the thoughts of a person are. A person may think, “What's the big deal? It's just a thought.” The Torah is teaching us, an entire korban can become disqualified with just one thought. A person's thoughts are his essence. We think with our neshama . Our thoughts are directly connected to Hashem. And thus, we find the Torah giving special commandments on thoughts alone. The pasuk says, ונשמרתם מכל דבר רע , which Chazal tell us means, we must keep our thoughts pure, and are prohibited from thinking about a forbidden relationship. The purer our thoughts are, the more holiness we bring into ourselves, and the more connected to Hashem we'll be. Furthermore, when a person guards his thoughts, he is considered to have a high level of emunah. Although thoughts are so private, and the way it seems, is that nobody else could possibly know what a person is thinking about. Someone who's guarding his thoughts is saying, “I know Hashem knows every thought that passes through my brain, and I'm going to act accordingly.” Part of protecting our thoughts is protecting ourselves from what we see. Especially in today's times, this is a very big challenge. And because the test is so difficult, it makes the rewards that much greater. Every time a person turns away from seeing the wrong thing, he becomes more kadosh , and stands out above the crowds in the eyes of Hashem. When we do extra things to protect ourselves, it makes Hashem even prouder. A man told me, his extended family rented a few homes in a secluded area for Pesach. They set up their own shul and Bet Midrash there for the week and had a very uplifting experience. On the first day of Chol HaMoed, they went to a secluded beach, and while playing in the ocean, one boy accidentally knocked off another boy's glasses. The boy whose glasses got knocked off had terrible eyesight and can't see a thing without his glasses. They searched and searched, but no one was able to recover them. After much effort, they finally gave up, and this boy was left to spend the rest of the holiday there without his glasses. He did not have contact lenses either. Each day in shul, after Shacharit, a different person was appointed to prepare a Devar Torah to give to everybody else. The next day, the rabbi who was speaking, gave a shiur about the Shevi'i shel Pesach , and he spoke about the abilities of Hashem. He told everybody, “If we had real emunah, we would believe that Hashem could give us back so-and-so's glasses, even from amidst the enormous ocean.” That day, most of the boys once again went to the beach, but this time there was somebody there, and the person was not dressed properly. They walked for at least a quarter of a mile down the beach and set up their game there. While they were playing, one of the mothers came and told them that they were too close to that person dressed improperly. Although she was extremely far from them, they picked up and began walking even further away. While they were walking, somebody noticed what appeared to be a pair of glasses half buried in the wet sand. They picked them up and brought them back to where they were staying and gave them to that boy. It was indeed his lost glasses! They were all in awe of how Hashem brought the glasses back. The rabbi told everybody, it was in the zechut that they were willing to be extra careful and move even further away to protect themselves from potentially seeing the wrong thing. The more we protect ourselves, the more kadosh we become. Shabbat Shalom.