Kedoshim Explained

Kedoshim, K'doshim, or Qedoshim (—Hebrew for "holy ones," the 14th word, and the first distinctive word, in the parashah) is the 30th weekly Torah portion (parashah) in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the seventh in the Book of Leviticus. It constitutes Leviticus 19:1–20:27. The parashah tells of the laws of holiness and ethical behavior, repeats the Ten Commandments, and describes penalties for sexual transgressions. The parashah is made up of 3,229 Hebrew letters, 868 Hebrew words, 64 verses, and 109 lines in a Torah Scroll (Sefer Torah).^[1]

Jews generally read it in late April or May. The lunisolar Hebrew calendar contains up to 55 weeks, the exact number varying between 50 in common years and 54 or 55 in leap years. In leap years (for example, 2024), Parashat Kedoshim is read separately. In common years (for example, 2025 and 2026), Parashat Kedoshim is combined with the previous parashah, Acharei Mot, to help achieve the needed number of weekly readings. Some Conservative congregations substitute readings from part of the parashah, Leviticus 19, for the traditional reading of Leviticus 18 in the Yom Kippur Minchah service.^[2] And in the standard Reform High Holidays prayerbook (machzor), Leviticus 19:1–4, 9–18, and 32–37 are the Torah readings for the afternoon Yom Kippur service.^[3]

Kodashim is the name of the fifth order in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Babylonian Talmud. The term "kedoshim" is sometimes also used to refer to the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, whom some call "kedoshim" because they fulfilled the mitzvah of Kiddush Hashem.

Readings

In traditional Sabbath Torah reading, the parashah is divided into seven readings, or, aliyot.^[4]

First reading—Leviticus 19:1–14

In the first reading, God told Moses to tell the Israelites to be holy, for God is holy.^[5] God then explained (in what scholars call "the Holiness Code") how people can be holy. God instructed the Israelites:

• To revere their mothers and fathers^[6]
• To keep the Sabbath^[6]
• Not to turn to idols^[7]
• To eat the sacrifice of well-being in the first two days and burn all of the leftovers on the third day^[8]
• Not to reap all the way to the edges of a field, but to leave some for the poor and the stranger^[9]
• Not to steal, deceive, swear falsely, or defraud^[10]
• To pay laborers their wages promptly^[11]
• Not to insult the deaf or impede the blind^[12]

Second reading—Leviticus 19:15–22

In the second reading, God instructed the Israelites:

• To judge fairly^[13]
• Not to deal basely with their countrymen, profit by their blood, or hate them in their hearts^[14]
• To reprove kinsmen but incur no guilt because of them^[15]
• Not to take vengeance or bear a grudge^[16]
• To love others as oneself^[16]
• I am the Lord.^[17]
• Not to interbreed different species or sow fields with two kinds of seed^[17]
• Not to wear cloth from a mixture of two kinds of material^[17]
• A man who had sexual relations with a slave woman designated for another man had to offer a ram of guilt offering.^[18]

Third reading—Leviticus 19:23–32

In the third reading, God instructed the Israelites:

• To regard the fruit of a newly planted tree as forbidden for three years, set aside for God in the fourth year, and available to use in the fifth year^[19]
• Not to eat anything with its blood^[20]
• Not to practice divination or soothsaying^[20]
• Not to round off the side-growth on their heads or destroy the side-growth of their beards^[21]
• Not to gash their flesh for the dead^[22]
• Not to degrade their daughters or make them harlots^[23]
• To venerate God's sanctuary^[24]
• Not to turn to ghosts or inquire of spirits^[25]
• To rise before the aged and show deference to the old^[26]

Fourth reading—Leviticus 19:33–37

In the fourth reading, God instructed the Israelites:

• Not to wrong strangers who reside in the land, but to love them as oneself^[27]
• Not to falsify weights or measures^[28]

Fifth reading—Leviticus 20:1–7

In the fifth reading, God then told Moses to instruct the Israelites of the following penalties for transgressions.

The following were to be put to death:

• One who gave a child to Molech^[29]

The following were to be cut off from their people (karet):

• One who turned to ghosts or familiar spirits^[30]

Sixth reading—Leviticus 20:8–22

In the sixth reading, God told Moses to instruct the Israelites of the following penalties for transgressions.

The following were to be put to death:

• One who insulted his father or mother^[31]
• A man who committed adultery with a married woman, and the married woman with whom he committed it^[32]
• A man who lay with his father's wife, and his father wife with whom he lay^[33]
• A man who lay with his daughter-in-law, and his daughter-in-law with whom he lay^[34]
• A man who lay with a male as one lies with a woman, and the male with whom he lay^[35]
• A man who married a woman and her mother, and the woman and mother whom he married^[36]
• A man who had carnal relations with a beast, and the beast with whom he had relations^[37]
• A woman who approached any beast to mate with it, and the beast that she approached^[38]
• One who had a ghost or a familiar spirit^[39]

The following were to be cut off from their people (karet):

• A man who married his sister, and the sister whom he married^[40]
• A man who lay with a woman in her infirmity, and the woman with whom he lay^[41]

The following were to die childless:

• A man who uncovered the nakedness of his aunt, and the aunt whose nakedness he uncovered^[42]
• A man who married his brother's wife, and the brother's wife whom he married^[43]

God then enjoined the Israelites faithfully to observe all God's laws, lest the Promised Land spew them out.^[44]

Seventh reading—Leviticus 20:23–27

In the seventh reading, God made clear that it was because the land's former inhabitants did all these things that God dispossessed them.^[45] God designated the Israelites as holy to God, for God is holy, and God had set the Israelites apart from other peoples to be God's.^[46]

Readings according to the triennial cycle

Jews who read the Torah according to the triennial cycle of Torah reading read the parashah according to a different schedule.^[47]

In ancient parallels

The parashah has parallels in these ancient sources:

Leviticus chapter 20

Leviticus 20:24, as well as Exodus 3:8 and 17, 13:5, and 33:3, Numbers 13:27 and 14:8, and Deuteronomy 6:3, 11:9, 26:9 and 15, 27:3, and 31:20 describe the Land of Israel as a land flowing “with milk and honey.” Similarly, the Middle Egyptian (early second millennium BCE) tale of Sinuhe Palestine described the Land of Israel or, as the Egyptian tale called it, the land of Yaa: "It was a good land called Yaa. Figs were in it and grapes. It had more wine than water. Abundant was its honey, plentiful its oil. All kind of fruit were on its trees. Barley was there and emmer, and no end of cattle of all kinds."^[48]

In inner-biblical interpretation

The parashah has parallels or is discussed in these Biblical sources:^[49]

Leviticus chapter 19

In Leviticus 19:2, God told Moses to tell the Israelites, “You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy.” Professor David P. Wright of Brandeis University counted more than 850 instances of the three-letter Hebrew root denoting holiness (kdsh) as a verb, noun, or adjective in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).^[50] Professor Larry A. Mitchel, formerly of Pacific Union College, counted 430 instances of “holy” (kodesh) as an adjective or noun, 172 instances of the verb “be holy” or “consecrate” (kadash), 115 instances of “holy” (kadosh) as an adjective, and 11 instances of the adjective “consecrated” or noun “cult prostitute” (kadesh).^[51] Wright noted that the Hebrew Bible describes as “holy” God, lesser divine beings, Priests, the Israelite people, Nazirites, Levites, firstborn people, prophets, the Sanctuary, offerings, Sanctuary furnishings, Priestly clothing, property dedicated to the Priests, anointing oil, incense, certain water, the Land of Israel, Heaven, the Sabbath, Festivals, the Jubilee year, certain wars, and the Covenant.^[52]

Leviticus 19:33–34 admonishes the Israelites not to wrong the stranger, “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (See also Exodus 22:20; 23:9; Deuteronomy 1:16; 10:17–19; 24:14–15 and 17–22; and 27:19.) Similarly, in Amos 3:1, the 8th century BCE prophet Amos anchored his pronouncements in the covenant community's Exodus history, saying, “Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt.”^[53]

Professors Tamara Cohn Eskenazi of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and Tikva Frymer-Kensky of the University of Chicago Divinity School argued that Ruth enacted the love due to the stranger in Leviticus 19:34 when in Moab, Ruth devoted herself to Naomi, a stranger in Moab. Then Boaz provided her counterpart by making possible the inclusion of Ruth the Moabite in the community at Bethlehem.^[54]

Leviticus chapter 20

Leviticus 20:20 addresses God's role in the creation of children. While Leviticus 12:6–8 required a new mother to bring a burnt-offering and a sin-offering, Leviticus 26:9, Deuteronomy 28:11, and Psalm 127:3–5 make clear that having children is a blessing from God; Genesis 15:2 and 1 Samuel 1:5–11 characterize childlessness as a misfortune; and Leviticus 20:20 and Deuteronomy 28:18 threaten childlessness as a punishment.

Leviticus 20:3 announced the judgment that those who gave their children to Molech profaned God's Name. In Amos 2:7, Amos similarly condemned as profaning God's Name fathers and sons who had sex with the same woman—likely exploiting a household servant woman.^[55] Amos grouped these sinners in the same verse along with those who trample the heads of the poor into the dust and those who make the humble walk a twisted course, thereby suggesting more generally that those who take advantage of people in lower social stations profane God's Name.

In early nonrabbinic interpretation

The parashah has parallels or is discussed in these early nonrabbinic sources:^[56]

Leviticus chapter 20

The Damascus Document of the Qumran sectarians prohibited a man's marrying his niece, deducing this from the prohibition in Leviticus 18:13 of a woman's marrying her nephew. Professor Lawrence Schiffman of New York University noted that this was a point of contention between the Pharisees and other Jewish groups in Second Temple times.^[57]

In classical rabbinic interpretation

The parashah is discussed in these rabbinic sources from the era of the Mishnah and the Talmud:^[58]

Leviticus chapter 19

Rabbi Judah ben Pazzi deduced from the juxtaposition of the sexual prohibitions of Leviticus 18 and the exhortation to holiness in Leviticus 19:2 that those who fence themselves against sexual immorality are called holy, and Rabbi Joshua ben Levi taught that wherever one finds a fence against sexual immorality, one will also find sanctity.^[59]

A Midrash interpreted God's message to Israel in Leviticus 19:1–2 to mean: "My children, as I am separate, so you be separate; as I am holy, so you be holy."^[60]

Rabbi Abin likened the two exhortations to holiness in Leviticus 19:1–2 and 20:7 to the case of a king who rewarded his drunkard watchmen twice as much as his sober watchmen. Similarly, God twice exhorted the Israelites to holiness because the Evil Inclination sways people like drunkards, whereas the Evil Inclination does not exist among celestial beings. Similarly, Rabbi Abin likened the two exhortations to holiness to the case of the citizens who made three crowns for the king, and the king placed one on his own head and two on the heads of his sons. Similarly, every day the celestial beings crown God with three sanctities, calling him, in the words of Isaiah 6:3, "Holy, holy, holy." God then places one crown of holiness on God's own head and two crowns of holiness on the head of Israel.^[61]

Rabbi Ḥiyya taught that the section beginning at Leviticus 19:1 was spoken in the presence of the whole Israelite people, because it includes most of the essential principles of the Torah. And Rabbi Levi said it was because it includes each of the Ten Commandments, noting that: (1) Exodus 20:2 says, "I am the Lord your God," and Leviticus 19:3 says, "I am the Lord your God"; (2) Exodus 20:2–3 says, "You shall have no other gods," and Leviticus 19:4 says, "Nor make to yourselves molten gods"; (3) Exodus 20:7 says, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain," and Leviticus 19:12 says, "And you shall not swear by My name falsely"; (4) Exodus 20:8 says, "Remember the Sabbath day," and Leviticus 19:3 says, "And you shall keep My Sabbaths"; (5) Exodus 20:12 says, "Honor your father and your mother," and Leviticus 19:3 says, "You shall fear every man his mother, and his father"; (6) Exodus 20:13 says, "You shall not murder," and Leviticus 19:16 says, "Neither shall you stand idly by the blood of your neighbor"; (7) Exodus 20:13 says, "You shall not commit adultery," and Leviticus 20:10 says, "Both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death; (8) Exodus 20:13 says, "You shall not steal," and Leviticus 19:11 says, "You shall not steal"; (9) Exodus 20:13 says, "You shall not bear false witness," and Leviticus 19:16 says, "You shall not go up and down as a talebearer"; and (10) Exodus 20:14 says, "You shall not covet . . . anything that is your neighbor's," and Leviticus 19:18 says, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."^[62]

A Baraita cited the words of Leviticus 19:3, "You shall fear every man his mother and his father, and you shall keep My Sabbaths," to teach that one's duty to honor one's parent does not supersede one's duty to keep the Sabbath.^[63]

Rabbi Shimon noted that everywhere else, Scripture mentions a father's honor before the mother's honor.^[64]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Torah Stats for VaYikra. October 9, 2023. Akhlah Inc..
2. See Mahzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Edited by Jules Harlow. United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
3. Gates of Repentance: The New Union Prayerbook for the Days of Awe. Edited by Chaim Stern, pages 452–55. New York: Central Conference of American Rabbis, Revised ed. 1996.
4. See, e.g., The Schottenstein Edition Interlinear Chumash: Vayikra/Leviticus. Edited by Menachem Davis, pages 129–46. Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 2008.
5. Leviticus 19:1–2.
6. Leviticus 19:3.
7. Leviticus 19:4.
8. Leviticus 19:5–8.
9. Leviticus 19:9–10.
10. Leviticus 19:11–13.
11. Leviticus 19:13.
12. Leviticus 19:14.
13. Leviticus 19:15.
14. Leviticus 19:16–17.
15. Leviticus 19:17.
16. Leviticus 19:18.
17. Leviticus 19:19.
18. Leviticus 19:20–22.
19. Leviticus 19:23–25.
20. Leviticus 19:26.
21. Leviticus 19:27.
22. Leviticus 19:28.
23. Leviticus 19:29.
24. Leviticus 19:30.
25. Leviticus 19:31.
26. Leviticus 19:32.
27. Leviticus 19:33–34.
28. Leviticus 19:35–36.
29. Leviticus 20:1–2.
30. Leviticus 20:6.
31. Leviticus 20:9.
32. Leviticus 20:10.
33. Leviticus 20:11.
34. Leviticus 20:12.
35. Leviticus 20:13.
36. Leviticus 20:14.
37. Leviticus 20:15.
38. Leviticus 20:16.
39. Leviticus 20:27.
40. Leviticus 20:17.
41. Leviticus 20:18.
42. Leviticus 20:19–20.
43. Leviticus 20:21.
44. Leviticus 20:22.
45. Leviticus 20:23.
46. Leviticus 20:26.
47. See, e.g., Richard Eisenberg, "A Complete Triennial Cycle for Reading the Torah," in Proceedings of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Conservative Movement: 1986–1990 (New York: Rabbinical Assembly, 2001), pages 383–418.
48. [Nathan MacDonald (Bible Scholar)|Nathan MacDonald]
49. For more on inner-Biblical interpretation, see, e.g., Benjamin D. Sommer, "Inner-biblical Interpretation," in Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors, The Jewish Study Bible, 2nd edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pages 1835–41.
50. David P. Wright. “Holiness.” Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman, volume 3, page 237. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
51. Larry A. Mitchel. A Student's Vocabulary for Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, pages 4, 9, 12, 49, 78. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1984.
52. David P. Wright. “Holiness.” Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman, volume 3, page 237–44.
53. Professor Amy-Jill Levine of Vanderbilt University Divinity School suggested that Amos used freedom from slavery as the paradigm and template against which he expressed concerns about the covenant community, casting the community in the role of Pharaoh when they transgressed. See Amy-Jill Levine. “The Prophets and the Fall of the North.” In The Old Testament: Part II. Springfield, Virginia: The Teaching Company, 2001.
54. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer-Kensky. The JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2011), page xxiii.
55. Gary V. Smith. Hosea, Amos, Micah: The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001.
56. For more on early nonrabbinic interpretation, see, e.g., Esther Eshel, “Early Nonrabbinic Interpretation,” in Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors, The Jewish Study Bible: Second Edition, pages 1841–59.
57. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1994), page 130–31 (citing Zadokite Fragments 5:7–8).
58. For more on classical rabbinic interpretation, see, e.g., Yaakov Elman. "Classical Rabbinic Interpretation." In The Jewish Study Bible: Second Edition. Edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, pages 1859–78.
59. [Leviticus Rabbah]
60. Leviticus Rabbah 24:4.
61. Leviticus Rabbah 24:8.
62. Leviticus Rabbah 24:5.
63. https://www.sefaria.org/Yevamot.5b Babylonian Talmud Yevamot 5b
64. E.g., Exodus 20:11 (20:12 in NJSP) 21:15, and 21:17, and Deuteronomy 5:16 and {{Bibleverse-nb