In commenting on this week's Torah portion, Kedoshim, Rashi brings a Midrash which interprets the opening directive, kedoshim tihyu, - “be holy” - as perushim tihyu – literally, “be separate". It sounds a lot like the Torah is encouraging asceticism. Rashi tells us to be separate from illicit sexual relationships and from sin. But the Ramban tells us to be separate from even that which is permitted to us - even sexual relationships that are legal should be limited. But wait a minute, I thought Judaism was a religion that encouraged its adherents to be fully in the world! We get married, we eat whenever possible...
The Malbim sheds a little light on the question. He says on the same verse that one should separate from physicality in order to move toward godliness. The separateness has a point - to be godly. There is something behind it. Separateness here does not really describe a relationship to the world - it describes a relationship to godliness and how one's relationship to the world plays into that relationship.
It comes out that there are many different understandings of the extent to which a person should separate himself from the world. I believe this depends upon how much a person is in danger of losing touch with his godliness. If a person can be fully in the world, and fully retain his godliness, then he may be like Rabbi Yehuda, whose table never lacked, yet he said about himself that he never enjoyed even a pinky's breadth from this world. And if one is in danger, or if one really wants to be in touch with his godliness, perhaps he will want to spend time in the desert like Eliyahu.
Really one may make his own decision - but he should know that he will bear the consequences of his own decision in how much he sees godliness in his own life.
Rav Gavriel Goldfeder
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Rav Gavriel Goldfeder is one of the first semicha recipients of the yeshiva. A graduate of Drew University in Religious Studies, he came to Bat Ayin after stints in other yeshivot and found a spiritual and intellectual home. Here he met his wife, Ketriellah, who was a student in our short-lived Women's Yeshiva. Upon graduation, Gavriel took the position of rabbi of the Aish Kodesh Congregation in Boulder, Colorado and together with Ketriellah and their growing family, they are busy creating (in Gavriel's words), "a community infused with Torah values, passion for learning and prayer, consideration of one another, and action, as well as deep celebration of the joys of life." |