Shabbat Parshat Kedoshim - 5763
Responsa of the “Kedoshim”

In this week’s Parshah, we come to some of the most fundamental p’sukim in the Torah. VaYikra (19:1-2) reads as follows: “HaShem spoke to Moshe, saying: Speak to the entire assembly of the Children of Israel and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I, your G-d, am holy.’ ”

“Kedoshim Tiheyu,” “You shall be holy” – this is a watchword of the national existence of the Jewish People. It is our “raison d’etre,” our reason for being. It is similar to the introduction given by HaShem to His Ten Utterances in Shemot (19:5-6), “And now, if you hearken well to Me and observe My covenant, you shall be to Me the most treasured of nations, for the entire world is Mine. You shall be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

What is the definition and what are the requirements of holiness? In our parshah, a wide-ranging list of commands is stated, each pertaining to the concept of holiness. It includes reverence for parents, observance of the Shabbat, rejection of idol worship, proper perspective when participating in the Divine Service, strict honesty, avoidance of abuse of power, sexual morality, continuous consciousness of the immanence and reality of G-d’s Presence, among others.

The root word of holiness, “Kuf,” “Dalet,” “Shin,” – spelling “Kadosh,” is one of those double-edged words in Hebrew that basically mean one thing but, when distorted, assume precisely the opposite meaning. The word is used in the context of betrothal in the traditional Jewish marriage ceremony, “Behold, you are ‘mekudeshet,’ betrothed, or dedicated exclusively, to me ...” And the same root is also used in the word “kedeshah,” prostitute, who dedicates her most intimate relations to everybody, with no exclusion. Similarly to the root “Chet,” “Samach,” “Dalet” – spelling “Chesed,” which means both directed loving-kindness and an abomination, misdirected or undifferentiated loving-kindness.

But “Kedoshim” in Hebrew bears an additional, definitely related meaning; that is, “martyrs,” individuals who sacrifice their lives in order to sanctify the Name of G-d. In his book “Responsa from the Holocaust” (actually a translated condensation of his “Sheilos U’Teshuvos Mima’amakim,” “Responsa from the Depths,” translated by Y. Leiman), Rabbi Ephraim Oshry presents 112 questions in Jewish Law that were asked of him in the Kovno Ghetto of Lithuania by “Kedoshim” of the Holocaust, that he hid away on scraps of paper for someone in the future to find in the likely event that he would not survive those terrifying years, together with his responses. On the night of Shabbat Parshat Acharei-Mot, Elisheva Douglas, a friend of my daughter and a student at Stern College, who was visiting with us, read through that book and mentioned on Shabbat some of the Responsa that had impressed her with their sense of compassion. One of those was the following:

“In the year 5702 (1942), Reb Moshe ben Aryeh, who prayed in the beis hamidrash (house of study) where I taught and prayed, the Abba Yechezkel Kloiz in Slobodka, approached me. The man had been beaten so severely that he had lost his powers of speech and hearing. Even though the savages had cracked his bones, battered his flesh and left him unconscious, his intelligence had not been impaired at all. Though totally deaf and dumb, he was still able to communicate in writing.”

“He posed a serious problem, expressing in writing his anguish at the cruelty done to him... He had not been able to look on and watch his fellow-Jews starving... Despite the danger involved, he had left his work place and gone into the fields during the potato harvest to gather some vegetables that might help his fellow-oppressed. But the accursed evildoers had caught him at his ‘crime’ and to serve as a warning to other hungry ‘criminals,’ they had beaten him so viciously that he became a deaf mute.”

“Although he gradually learned to live within this new world of total silence, he was profoundly disturbed that he had been robbed of his ability to pray aloud. Also, since he could not recite a blessing to G-d with his own voice, he was afraid he might not be called up to the Torah any longer. In addition, since a deaf mute cannot be counted in a minyan (quorum of ten), he was worried whether his disability rendered him a deaf mute by halachic definition. He requested that I find a halachic solution that would allow him to be included in a minyan and, even more important, that would allow him to be called up to the Torah.”

“Response: I ruled that he was certainly to be included in a minyan. But including him as one of the allotted number of men called up to the Torah seemed to be impossible. To uplift his shattered spirit, I suggested that he be called to the Torah together with the reader and, while the reader recited the blessings, that he concentrate on each word.”

“When he read my ruling, his eyes lit up and he wrote, ‘Rabbi, you have revived me. May G-d console you and grant you life!’ ”

Another question involved performing a Caesarean Section on a dead woman:

“Question: On 20 Iyar 5702 – May 8, 1942 – the Germans issued the following edict: Every Jewish woman found pregnant will be put to death. That very day a pregnant Jewish woman passed by the ghetto hospital. A German noticed her belly and shot her for violating the German order against reproduction. His bullet penetrated her heart and she fell dead on the spot.”

“Passersby immediately carried her into the hospital, thinking there might be a chance to save her or the fetus. Since she had clearly been in her last weeks of pregnancy, a Jewish obstetrician was rushed over. He said that if surgery was performed immediately the baby could be saved. Since I had witnessed this shocking murder and was present in the hospital, I was asked if, according to Halacha, it was permissible to perform the caesarean section. Since no one could be sure that the baby was still alive, was there a halachic concern with the desecration of the dead mother? In addition, in the remote possibility that the mother was still alive, cutting open her abdomen would kill her.”

“Response: It was clear to me that when a doctor who knows his medicine rushes to operate minutes after a woman’s death, declaring that the baby can be saved, one must listen to him because the issue is saving the life of the baby.”

“When saving a life is involved, we are not concerned with the desecration of the dead. In this case the mother would be overjoyed if the desecration of her body meant her baby’s life was spared. I therefore ruled that the operation proceed as quickly as possible. ‘Whoever saves a single Jewish life is credited with saving a entire world.’ ”

“To our great sorrow, our hopes were shattered. The cruel murderers, with typical mad German punctiliousness for keeping records of the living and dead, came into the hospital to write down the name of the murdered woman in their book of the dead. When they found the baby alive their savage fury was unleashed. One of the Germans grabbed the infant and cracked its skull against the wall of the hospital room. Woe unto the eyes that saw this! Charge this act to these cruel murderers and to their children and to their children’s children! Let them be repaid for what they have done to us!”

The main point of this book is to demonstrate what occupied the minds of the Jews, what kept them alive, what gave their lives meaning even as they awaited the grim fate prepared for them by the accursed Nazis.

Let us perform the commandments of the Torah relating to holiness with great purposefulness and intention, so that we may never again have to fulfill the aspects of holiness relating to martyrdom. As we said in the Haggadah, May HaShem pour forth His fury “upon the nations who do not know Him, and upon the kingdoms who do not recognize Him, for they have consumed Jacob and destroyed his place of residence.” May HaShem accept the sacrifices of the “Kedoshim” of the Holocaust, the wars fought by Israel for her national existence and the Intafada as the “fire with which he has consumed it” and bring forth the Holy Temple, with “the fire with which he will rebuild it,” as it says in Zechariah 2:9 and the Nachem Prayer of Tishah B’Av, “I will be for her, by the word of HaShem, a wall of fire around and I will be glorious in her midst.”

Rabbi Pinchas Frankel

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