This week's parashah is called Kedoshim - Saints, where God says to the Jewish people, "Be holy, for I am holy.".

The simple concept of a mitzvah is that there is a metzaveh—the one who commands—and a metzuveh—the one who is commanded—two different, separate entities, where one demands a specific action from the other. The command itself creates a relationship (if one didn't exist before), but nothing more. However, the Jewish concept of a mitzvah goes even further: the command itself is the force of its observance; that is, the fact that God commands us to do such and such a thing gives us the strength to fulfill that commandment. In this context, the evaluation of each mitzvah consists of whether the person will use the strength that God gives them to fulfill it or not (and not whether they will have the strength to do it or not, because having received the Torah automatically gave us the strength to fulfill it, as explained).

In light of this concept, we can understand that if God asks us to be holy, He gives us the strength to be so. But what does it mean to be holy?

To answer the question, we need only look at the words of the Torah: while there are several precepts in this parashah that are incomprehensible (such as the laws of thoughts during the sacrifice (pigul), not wearing wool and linen, and others), most are very simple to understand: leaving a portion of the field to feed the poor, not bearing false witness, not swearing falsely, not stealing, not cursing people, being just in judgment, loving one's neighbor, not hating one's neighbor, not taking revenge, not committing incest, among others.

This leads us to understand that holiness is found in the simplest things in life, in simply not hating another person! How do we know this? Because God says the same phrase at the beginning and end of the parashah: "Be holy," so it's obvious that everything in between is the definition of holiness!

It's time we realized that Judaism doesn't demand feats or exploits, neither physical nor spiritual, but only that we be holy...

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