The Torah is Not for Lemmings
The easiest justification for doing something is when you see everyone around you doing it. God commands Jews to be independent of the crowd. We are commanded to be holy, or separate, by going against the tide.
You must not imitate the practices of Egypt, where you dwelt, and you must not imitate the practices of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. Moreover, you must not follow their social conventions. (Vayikra 18:1)
Every week, at the end of Shabbat, we bless Hashem for separating the holy and the mundane. To be holy is to separate yourself. The meaning of the word “holy” is separate.
Hashem commands us in Shema Yisrael that we recite twice daily, to wear tzitzit to remember and perform Hashem’s commandments and to be holy to our God. We wear tzitzit so we won’t explore after our heart and after our eyes from which we stray.1
Rashi’s comment on this verse warns us that the eyes see, the heart desires, and the body does the rest.
What do the eyes see? What everyone else is doing. If everyone decides to “dress to impress,” wearing tight shorts suddenly becomes the norm. If everyone is having a few extra drinks at the bar, it’s the accepted standard.
Holiness is Deviating from the Standard
Hashem is warning us, the Jewish people, not to be like everyone else.
He warns us that the Egyptians and Canaanites love lewdness, as do the Greeks, Romans, Europeans, and Americans. Western society injects so much sex into TV, the internet, movies, devices, and billboards; abomination becomes expected from you simply because everybody is doing it.
In fact, one of the tactics of Harvard-educated marketing men, in their desire to normalize sodomy, was to bombard the world with stories of Sodomites. They wanted to show how famous men throughout history were Sodomites. Their strategy in making sodomy appear normal and decency appear unnatural was to show how everyone was doing it.
During Mincha of Yom Kippur, moments before Neilah, holiest hour of the holiest day, we read Vayikra Chapter 18. This chapter deals with every type of sin of the body. From family members to non-biological relations, to meeting a woman at a bar, to sodomy, and all forms of filth, Hashem commands us not to do these things.
He opens the chapter by telling us not to be like the Egyptians and the Canaanites, because from Goshen to Jericho they were everybody, just like the Europeans and the Americans are the everybody right now.
God commands us, the Jewish People, to resist the pressure to join the party and to do what everyone is doing.
God commands us to be separate rather than imitate the lemmings. By commanding us to be separate, He is commanding us to be holy.
By standing against the tide, we stand with God. That’s what Ivri, or “Hebrew”, means: Avraham came from the other side of the Euphrates River.2 Avraham stood against the tide of the entire world. 3
Forget the en vogue rebels. We are the real dissidents of world order. We are the ones who are true to ourselves by being true to He Who created us.
Kedushah is a Matter of National Survival
But as for you, you must safeguard My rules and My ordinances; you must not engage in any of these abominations …. so the land will not vomit you out for having spiritually defiled it, just as it vomited out the nations who preceded you. (Vayikra 18:26, 28)
Holiness is separating ourselves from the consensus by following God and not the A-list celebs.
Hamas cannot dislodge us from our land. Iran cannot. Europe cannot. Only our sins can cause exile. Only our mitzvot can bring security. We wasted the last 77 years searching for peace: Camp David. Oslo. Abraham Accords.
Nonsense.
During all this time, we recite three times a day, May He Who makes peace in His heights, may He make peace for us, and among Israel, let us say: Amen.4
God makes peace. The only lasting peace. He promises us true peace in the Book of Devarim. A peace where we will rule over nations, and they will not rule over us.5
By resisting all forms of immodesty, we declare our own holiness. By not working on Shabbat, we are separating ourselves from the world to follow God. By not speaking like everyone else with gossip, insults, slander, or profanity, we make holy the one physical aspect Hashem gives us to distinguish from the apes.
Every act of holiness petitions our Maker, the Master of War, to protect us from our enemies.
Yom Kippur: The Day After
Life begins on Yom Kippur.
We take our first breath with the blowing of the shofar and the knowledge that He granted us a not-guilty verdict and another year of life.
We carry this holiness throughout the year by distancing from the human normal, and acting normal before the only One Whose opinion matters.
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David Ben Horin lives in the Jezreel Valley with his family, Afula’s famous sunflowers, and the local camel, Matilda. David loves to write about Judaism, Torah, Israel, and personal happiness.
1 Bamidbar (Numbers) 15:39
2 Bereishit (Genesis) 14:13
3 Bereishit Rabbah 42:8. The Midrash explains that Abraham earned this title not only for his birthplace but also for his faith and culture, which ran against the currents of popular belief. “The entire world was on one side, and he was willing to be on the other side.”
4 Final blessing at the end of the daily Shemonah Esrei of Shacharit, Mincha, and Maariv.
5 Devarim (Deuteronomy) 15:6
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