Parsha
​Snapshot

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Kedoshim

Kedoshim means “Holy [individuals].” “Be holy people,” commands God, “for I am holy.” The Torah commands us to live lives of purity and refinement.

The Parsha enumerates a variety of specific laws. Positive Mitzvos mentioned include:

• Revering parents.
• Observing the Sabbath.
• Leaving gifts for the poor when harvesting one’s field.
• Loving one’s fellow as oneself.
• Standing up and showing respect for the elderly and the wise.
• Treating converts with compassion and sensitivity.
• Judging fairly and honestly; maintaining accurate weights and measures.

Prohibitions mentioned include:

• Stealing,
  
• swearing falsely,
  
• withholding laborers’ wages,
  
• cursing another person
  
• “placing a stumbling block before the blind” –misleading others, either by offering bad advice or by causing them to sin.
• Tale-bearing – sharing negative or harmful information about another person with no constructive purpose – even if the information is true.
• Standing idly by when someone is in danger.
• Secretly hating another. Articulate your grievance, commands the Torah, so the other person can address it.
• Taking revenge or bearing a grudge.
• Cross-breeding animals or crops
  
• Wearing a garment containing both wool and linen [“Shatnez”].
• Eating fruit from a tree within the first four years of planting. Biblically, this law only applies in the Holy Land, but Rabbinic injunction extends it elsewhere as well.
• Cutting off one’s sideburns [Peyos]; shaving one’s beard with a razor. [These laws apply only to men].
• Idolatry, witchcraft and divination.
• Incest and adultery.

By observing the Torah’s guidelines and leading elevated lives, the Jews will be worthy of residing in the Holy Land. They will avoid the fate of their idolatrous predecessors, who were “vomited out” by a Land which does not tolerate decadence and depravity.