Delivered at Eshel Parent Retreat, Shabbat Parshat Emor, May 2, 2026
Parshat Emor opens with a focus on the kedusha of the Kohanim. This kedusha stands in contrast to the kedusha we were introduced to one week before, the kedushah of Kedoshim Ti’hiyu.
The kedusha of Emor is the kedusha of something that is already holy. The Kohanim represent God; they serve in the Temple, in the Mikdash. And they like it, are holy: כי קדוש הוא לא-לוהיו. It is our responsibility to recognize this kedusha and to respect it – וקדשתו כי את לחם א-לוהיך הוא מקריב. קדוש יהיה לך.
How does this kedusha express itself? By demanding that the kohanim act in ways to protect it and preserve it; most importantly, that they do not violate it. Don’t become tamei and desecrate your kedusha. לא יטמא בעל בעמיו להחלו. Don’t marry women who are seen as a threat to your kedusha. ולא יחלל זרעו בעמיו. They key word here is לחלל, to de-sacralize, to desecrate. It is a kedusha of shmira, a kedusha that is constantly on guard for dangers and potential threats.
The kedusha of Kedoshim Ti’hiyu is of a different nature entirely. It focuses on what me must we do, not on what we must protect. How do we act or not act so as to serve God better, so as to treat our fellow human being with dignity and probity? How do we act to show love and care for the other:
איש אמו ואביו תיראו ואת שבתותי תשמורו, אני ה’.
ובקצרכם את קציר ארצכם לא תכלה פאת שדך לקצור ולקט קצירך לא תלקט… לעני ולגר תעזוב אותם אני ה’ אלוקיכם.
לא תגנבו ולא תכחשו ולא תשקרו איש בעמיתו… לא תקום ולא תטור את בני עמיך ואהבת לרעך כמוך אני ה’
The kedusha of Emor is a kedusha of being. The kedusha of Kedoshim Ti’hiyu is a kedusha of becoming. Not קדוש הוא, you are holy, but Kedoshim ti’hiyu – “you shall become holy.”
The echoing again and again of the refrain אני ה’ at the end of each of this verses is telling us: if you want to be holy, you must strive to be more God-like. And if you want to be more God-like, then this is what you must do. This is how you must act.
It is a kedusha that says – we are not there yet. We have not yet achieved holiness. The kedusha of Kedoshim is a kedusha of religiosity and morality. It is a kedusha of doubt and humility. One that asks: Am I there yet? Am I doing enough? It is dynamic. It is a kedusha of learning and growing.
The kedusha of Emor, in contrast, is about status and it is static. It is about something that has already been achieved. It is a kedusha that can lead to complacency and arrogance. It focuses not on doing and growing, but rather on protecting and preserving.
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These two kedushot find their parallel, or rather, their translation, in the kedusha of Mikdash and the kedusha of Torah.
The kedusha of the Beit HaMikdash is all about guarding and protecting. By its very nature, the Beit HaMikdash was set up in such a way to limit access, to keep people and potential threats away. It was geographically limited. It was only to be found in one place, on the Temple Mount, distant from most people. It was limited in time: it only functioned in the day, and it only functioned for a limited period of our history. Most significantly, it excluded people: those who were impure, the more tamei, the further away you had to be. And it was hierarchical: kohen, levi, Yisrael. Men, women. Jew, non-Jew. Access was limited and it depended on your status, on who you were.
The kedusha of Torah stands in opposition to all this. It is, at its core, a kedusha of access, of universality. All places, all times, all people.
Just yesterday, we made a siyyum on mesekhet Menachot. At the very end of Menachot, after two large tractates detailing all the laws of animal and grain sacrifices, the Gemara chooses to conclude with some radical statements about the relative merit of sacrifices compared to that of Torah:
ובכל מקום מוקטר מוגש לשמי– “In every place an offering is made to My name” – But are offerings actually made in all places, the Gemara asks, are they not only made in the Temple? Rather – this refers to the study of Torah, which can be learned everywhere and is as if one is bringing a sacrifice to My name. העומדים בבית ה’ בלילות – But do we stand in the Temple at night? This is rather Torah study which takes place at night. לעולם זאת על ישראל – But the Beit HaMikdash isn’t forever? This is rather Torah study, which is always with us.
The most radical statement comes from Rava – זאת התורה לעולה למנחה ולחטאת ולאשם… אמר רבא: כל העוסק בתורה, אינו צריך לא עולה ולא מנחה ולא אשם. Zot ha’Torah. This is the Torah. la-olah, lo-olah. With Torah there is no need for an olah, lo-mincha, lo-asham, no need for a mincha, no need for an asham.
Torah is expansive. Torah transcends time and space.
Most importantly, Torah sees no difference between people. Torah is for everyone, equally.
As Rambam famously writes (Talmud Torah 3:1), there are 3 crowns with which Israel was crowned. The crown of Kehunah, priesthood, the crown of Malkhut, kingship, and the crown of Torah. While the crown of priesthood is only for Aharon and his sons, and the crown of kingship only for the descendants of King David, but the crown of Torah is different:
כתר תורה הרי מונח ועומד ומוכן לכל ישראל, שנאמר תורה צוה לנו משה מורשה קהלת יעקב, כל מי שירצה יבא ויטול
The crown of Torah is מונח ועומד לכל waiting for all. And all means all. It is for everyone, equally: Kohen, levi, Yisrael; Men and women, tamei and tahor, queer and straight. מורשה קהילת יעקב, it is the inheritance of the entire community, of the entire Jewish people.
While the kedusha of the Mikdash is about setting fences and creating distance, the kedusha of the Torah is about bringing people in, bringing them close. It looks to connect to all dimensions of our lives, to all of us at all times.
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Which turns us to the question of our institutions of kedusha – our shuls, our schools, our communities. What type of kedusha do we want them to embody: the kedusha of being, of seeing threats, of protecting and limiting access or the kedusha of becoming, of asking who are we not reaching, how can we do better?
Now, it is true that the kedusha of being has its place, that institutions can embody a kedusha which has to be protected. But even when that is true, we have to recognize what types of things – or, more to the point, what type of people – are a threat to this kedusha and who is not.
In Emor, the Torah distinguishes sharply between tumah, impurity, and a ba’al mum, a kohen with something different about his body that renders him unfit for Temple service. The person who is tamei represents a threat to the kedusha of the Temple. He must be kept far away. His very presence in the Mikdash is seen as a chilul, a desecration.
The person with the mum, on the other hand, is no threat to the kedusha at all. He can enter the Mikdash, like every other Jew. If he is kohen, then there is one thing he is excluded from – he cannot do the avodah. But in all other ways, even when it comes to the korbanot themselves, he is totally equal: לֶחֶם אֱ-לֹהָיו מִקָּדְשֵׁי הַקֳּדָשִׁים וּמִן הַקֳּדָשִׁים יֹאכֵל (Vayikra 21:22) – he can eat even from the most sanctified of the sacrifices. He even gets an equal portion of the sacrifices together with all the other kohanim (Zevachim 98b). More than that, according to Minchat Chinukh (Mitzvah 385), a ba’al mum can be one of the kohanim who guards the Mikdash, who protect its very kedusha! And he can join his fellow kohanim for birkat kohnaim in the Beit HaMikdash (Tosefta Sotah 6:8). He can be the very vehicle of bringing God’s blessing to the people.
Why is this? Why is the ta’mei person a threat to kedusha but the ba’al mum is not? I believe that the difference is simply this: Tumah is a transitory status. The person who is tamei is only so for a day, for a week at most. And then they are tahor and can enter the Mikdash.
But the person with something different about their body, that’s a difference not about a state, but about who they are – something that is with them, that is a part of them. And when we are talking about the person himself, it is inconceivable and unconscionable that such a person would be seen as a threat. That such a person could be pushed out and excluded. Even the kedusha of the Mikdash, which must be preserved and protected, cannot exclude people because of who they are. It cannot only be for some and not for others.
And, ultimately, the kedusha of the Mikdash has been transcended and replaced by the kedusha of Torah. Our lives our Torah lives and our institutions are Torah institutions. Our goal is to live up to that kedusha, to make our shuls, our schools, and our communities ones which strive, in all that they do, to be more God-like. Are always asking themselves: how can we do better? How can we reach more people? Not who must we push out, but who must we bring in.
We must embody the kedusha of religiosity and morality. Of humility, of learning and of growing. They must be institutions that are truly accessible to all.
קודשים תהיו כי קדש אני ה’ א-לוהיכם.
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