On this coming Shabbat we will read in the book of Leviticus “You shall be holy.” We will recite a long list of deeds that would make us holy, of loving our fellow human beings, of caring for the poor and the stranger, a rich list of Mitzvot, forever timely. There are other Mitzvot, perhaps not as often quoted, yet in our time deserve attention.
Two of them I would like to highlight as right there on the list, both are so timely. To grasp their significance I turn to the admonition to fear God that appears only five times in the whole Torah. All five are in the book of Leviticus, and two appear in this Parasha, so fittingly named, K’doshim, Holy. Significantly, all the cases of the admonition to fear God are about transgressing relations we have with one other, bein adam l’havero. They are rooted in what the sages have defined as Mitzvot, obligations of the heart, in which there is no way to ascertain when the person has engaged in the transgression and there is no court to render a judgment. Thus, obligations of the heart are not in the legal realm, but rather they involve an ethical Mitzvah left to the person’s own conscience.
