Kedoshim | Holiness Toward Each Other

וְכִי־יָגוּר אִתְּךָ גֵּר בְּאַרְצְכֶם לֹא תוֹנוּ אֹתוֹ׃ כְּאֶזְרָח מִכֶּם יִהְיֶה לָכֶם הַגֵּר הַגָּר אִתְּכֶם וְאָהַבְתָּ לוֹ כָּמוֹךָ כִּי־גֵרִים הֱיִיתֶם בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם׃ 

When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong the stranger. like the native-born among you, shall the stranger be to you;  you shall love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the closed land: I the Flow of Inclusion am your God.

Leviticus 19:33-34

 

This Torah portion expands upon the Ten Vibrations Moses brought down from the mountain to guide us in bringing holiness into our world. Kedoshim means holiness. Holiness in our day-to-day lives is all about how we care for others, honoring our parents, teaching our children, helping the poor, living lives of honesty and generosity. And, perhaps the Torah’s most important of commandments: love the stranger as yourself.  Remember what it was like for you when you were strangled and enslaved in a land where you were considered "other."

Last week I led a class for a Presbyterian seminary on the book of Genesis. One of the students in the class was from Myanmar, a country where his people, a small Christian sect, are under attack from the dominant Buddhist group. I'm writing this in the week that a 21-year-old white-bodied Christian church member targeted Asian owned massage businesses, killing eight people, including six women of Asian descent.

As I'm writing this, I randomly googled “violence today between Israel and Palestine.” This is what came up:

Today, Israeli troops shot and killed Yussef Hanaysheh, 42, in his West Bank village, Beit Dajan. Yussef was protesting settlements that are illegal under international law and steadily taking his people's lands. A group of Palestinians threw stones towards two Israeli soldiers and the troops then opened fire, reported a photographer with Reuters news agency. A group of Palestinians carried the man away.

Is there any way out? I look to the people and movements who I think are leading the way. This year's Joint Israeli Palestinian Memorial Day event will be live streamed from Tel Aviv on April 13. This event, co-organized by Combatants for Peace and Parents Circle Families Forum, has become the largest Israeli-Palestinian peace event in history. Over a million people viewed the Ceremony broadcast in 2020. You can find more information about this event by visiting www.afcfp.org/memorial.

Here in my city of Asheville, North Carolina, organizations like Faith4Justice bring together clergy from all traditions to "provoke justice" for black and brown bodied people. In the words from this parasha, spoken by Faith4Justice founder Rev. Tami Forte Logan, “If I am unwilling to support the liberation of all humanity, then I will never be free myself.”

 

לֹא־תִשְׂנָא אֶת־אָחִיךָ בִּלְבָבֶךָ הוֹכֵחַ תּוֹכִיחַ אֶת־עֲמִיתֶךָ וְלֹא־תִשָּׂא עָלָיו חֵטְא׃

You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Reprove your kinsman but incur no guilt because of him.

Leviticus 19:17

Stopping violence toward each other begins in the hearts and mouths of each of us. The Torah in this verse guided me this morning in a Whatsapp communication with a dear friend in Safed, Israel. She sent me a message saying, “Roberta, I love you and I love the work you are doing. But why haven't you spoken out about the murders shown in this video?”

When I received her message, I was in the midst of writing about the Israeli-Palestinian organization, the Bereaved Parents Forum, and the approach they take to the violence on "both sides." I put "sides" in quotations because moving away from the concept of sides for me is at the heart of ending the violence.

And then I looked at the video. The video was a cry for revenge for the murders of Jewish men, women and children at the hands of mostly young Palestinian men.

How do I as a Jew and human speak out against these murders, without "magnifying the sin," as Rashi, the influential Jewish commentator from 1000 years ago, said the verse means?  Rashi is explaining that if you embarrass the person you are rebuking, you are magnifying the sin.

For me, magnifying the sin includes, as my friend said, not speaking out. And magnifying the sin also means calling for vengeance and not speaking out against the killings on both sides, and the context for all of it.

Does my commitment to speaking out against the murders of Palestinians by my fellow Jews dilute my care for either "side"? I don't know any other way to speak out effectively without continuing the cycles of hatred and violence and revenge that led to the killings in this video and in all the videos circulating on the internet.

And I value the friendship of this woman very much and want to be honest in a way that doesn't embarrass her or harm our connection.

Rebuke, Rebuke

The word used in the verse is often translated as "rebuke." In Nonviolent Communication we sometimes call this, scary honesty: speaking our truth in a context that we suspect might be heard differently from how we want to be heard. How do we speak our honest authentic truth without telling the other person what's wrong with them? What do we tell them?

Honestly Expressing Yourself with Nonviolent Communication

With NVC we find words to express what’s important to us rather than expressing blame, demands, and judgments. Keys:

• Know what is important to you. What is important to you about having this conversation? These are your needs and the grounding you want to keep coming back to. There are needs you want to meet in this relationship with this person. And there are needs you want to meet relating to the issue you are bringing up. Hold fast to both. Keep asking yourself, “Am I expressing myself in a way that is moving me toward meeting these needs in this conversation? “
• Remember that being honest doesn't mean telling the other person what you think is wrong with them.
• Take responsibility for your feelings—not blaming others. What others do may trigger your feelings. This doesn't mean that you are so powerless that what they do or say causes your feelings.
• Know how to transform any blame and judgments into a clear expression of what is important to you—your needs.

A practice exercise to do before you speak to the person:

Select and write down one incident involving another person you would like to talk to them about, e.g. I asked him/her to finish a report/ wash the dishes and when I returned it wasn’t done.

With another person, practice ahead of time:

You (Speaker): Tell the other person (in a role play) what happened, how you feel about it, and the needs of yours that are causing your feelings.

Listener: In role, tell the speaker if you hear any blame toward you in what they say.

Speaker: Try again, without any blame. Just explaining why what happened is hard for you.

Listener: Is there any difference? Help the Speaker understand your experience. What ways of expression create connection for you? What ways of expression help you want to understand and cooperate with the other person?