In this ongoing series of columns about the prayers of the morning service, we have made it this far: we are up to the third blessing of the Amidah prayer. It has been a long and rich journey to this point. And, as with many journeys, there are certain spots on the way that are exceptional. This third Amidah blessing is one of them. It is the blessing that celebrates holiness.
What is this “holiness” thing? The word “holy” is so commonly used within a religious context that we often conflate the word with the context, itself. We associate holiness with intense religiosity or with explicit religiosity. So we accept that synagogues, churches, mosques, and other temples and shrines are holy spaces. People who are called holy are often viewed as those whose lives are totally given over to a religious and spiritual calling. Holiness is seen to be something apart from our regular lives. We are also used to referring to certain times as “holidays” – which is simply another spelling of “holy days.” Of course, in our highly secularized and liberated society, we have transferred the word “holiday” to another realm. Because the original notion prohibited laboring on a holy day (a notion that we often chafe at), we are able to redefine any day off from work as a holiday, dropping the holy part and keeping the no-work part on our own terms.
If we wish to retrieve some of the meaning of the word “holy” we can try to associate it with the sense of being “set aside” for some special purpose or being or cause, or of being dedicated or devoted to it. This might still sound as if holiness calls for distancing and separation. And it does. But that is not the whole story; it is not the whole meaning of holiness. Instead, I suggest that we consider holiness as the ground upon which the dynamic tension between distancing and drawing near plays out. Or, more accurately, holiness is the product of such a dynamic when it is engaged in seriously. For example, if we regularly dedicate a certain time of the week to some beloved pursuit or hobby, or to, say, getting together with family, we often say that such time is “holy.” It is inviolate, not to be touched. In this way we capture a sense of holiness that is not foreign to our own lives. It is not set apart and distanced from us, as religion often is. Rather we have set it apart for us. We have incorporated holiness, in its specialness and apartness, into the midst of our lives.
The quality of holiness that inhabits the dialectical dynamic of both drawing close and moving away is poignantly exemplified in the story of Moses and the Burning Bush. When the shepherd Moses stumbles upon the isolated mountaintop where his sheep have wandered, he notices a remarkable sight. In the middle of the desolation all around him there is a thorn bush aflame. Moses is frightened by the sight, but he is also fascinated. He wants to look more closely and he wants to move away to safety. At that point God speaks to Moses from the Burning Bush and says: “Take your sandals off your feet, for the ground upon which you are standing is holy.” (Ex. 3:5) God does not say that the Burning Bush is holy. Rather, it is that spot upon which Moses is standing – caught between curiosity and awe – that is holy. Moses has created that holy space, not God. Moses has created that holy space through his own complex consciousness of God’s Presence. And God demands that Moses feel that holy space upon his own skin. He is not told to move away from that holy spot. Rather, he must remove his shoes so that his flesh can directly feel the holy ground upon which he stands, the ground whose holiness he, himself, has produced.
Let us consider how the third blessing of the Amidah, the holiness blessing, seeks to convey some of this. This blessing is part of a standard package of blessings. The three blessings that begin the Amidah are constant features of every single Amidah prayer. It is only after these three blessings that we customize the Amidah in accord with the day and occasion of its recitation – a weekday, Shabbat or holiday, for instance.
Yet, of these three constant blessings, this third blessing is uniquely subject to being modified. Of the three opening blessings, only this one changes, depending upon whether it is recited individually or in a minyan. When the blessing is recited silently, by an individual, it is the shortest of the three blessings. It reads: “You are holy and Your Name is holy and holy ones shall go on praising You every day. You abound in blessings, Eternally Present One, the Holy God.”
This short formula declares that God is holy. But, in what sense do we mean to label God as “holy”? If we consider the various meanings we offered earlier, do any of them suit God particularly well? If we think of holiness as meaning “dedicated to God,” then what does this mean when we call God holy? If holiness means being “set aside,” what do we say about God when we call God holy? Is God set aside? From what? For what?
This problem is important because our Torah tells us that we are called upon to become holy: “You shall be holy, for I, the Eternally Present Almighty God, am holy.” (Lev. 19:2) This verse, one of the central teachings of our tradition, tells us that being holy is something that human beings can achieve precisely because God is holy. Holiness is a trait that we are somehow to share.
This proposition seems to be referred to in our blessing, for it speaks not only of a holy God, but of holy ones who praise God every day. Who are those holy ones? Are they us? Or, perhaps, are they really just the angels in heaven, and not us humans?
We discover the answer when we look at what happens to this blessing when it is recited in a communal setting, in a minyan. Then the blessing expands greatly and it is chanted aloud. Furthermore, it is chanted in the form of “call and response,” a community-building vehicle peculiar to prayers devoted to the theme of holiness. (See my Kol Emunah column, “Call and Response,” January, 2015.) Indeed, we celebrate the celestial choirs of the angels praising God. But we also join them in song and praise. We are “holy ones” as well, and it is precisely because we have succeeded in gathering a critical mass of holy ones together (to become a minyan) that our power to express holiness is so greatly augmented. The blessing expands because our powers of holiness have expanded.
So what is this quality called “holiness” that we share with God? I enjoy sharing the following teaching, as I have done in the past (see my discussion in Torah Sparks, Qedoshim, 2011), because I find it so profoundly true. It is the answer formulated by Rabbi Shimon Shkop, a great teacher in pre-war Europe (d. 1939). He rejects common notions of holiness, especially those that emphasis asceticism and withdrawal from this material world:
If we say that the essential meaning of the holiness that God demands of us in this commandment of ‘You shall be holy [for I, God your Almighty, am Holy]’ (Lev. 19:2) is to distance ourselves from permitted enjoyments (motarot), such holiness has no relationship at all with God, may He be blessed.
Therefore it appears, in my humble opinion, that within this commandment is included the very basis and root of the purposeful goal of our lives, which is that all our service and toil should always be dedicated to the good of the collectivity (le-tovat ha-klal), that we not avail ourselves of any act or motion, benefit or enjoyment unless it have some aspect that is for the good of those other than ourselves (le-tovat zulatenu). . . . In this manner the notion of this holiness does imitate the holiness of the Blessed Creator to a small degree. For as with the act of the Holy Blessed One in the entire Creation, as well as in each and every second that He sustains the world, all His actions are dedicated to the good of that which is other than Himself, so it is His will, may He be blessed, that our actions should always be dedicated to the good of the collectivity and not to one’s own benefit.
The holiness blessing celebrates our own capacity for holiness as much as it celebrates God’s own holy nature. With Rabbi Shkop’s teaching in mind we may understand why holiness so powerfully dwells in community. Just as God was moved to create our world as God’s arena for relationship, so are we called upon to create an arena of relationships we call community. Just as God has chosen to accept an ongoing challenge of deciding when to act and when to be still, when to give and when to take, so are we tasked with the difficult job of creating community as a collective organism that demands constant negotiation between drawing close and respecting boundaries, giving and taking, asserting one’s self and offering one’s self. The negotiation of that dynamic is the life of holiness.
The third blessing reminds us that, even as we say to God, “You are holy,” God is telling us, “You, too, can be holy.”
image: Me Fish © Hamed Saber used with permission via Creative Commons License
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