Parshat K'doshim

"The Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

'Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them:

You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your G-d, am holy.'"

K'doshim famously contains the repetition of the Ten Commandments, but Shabbat Mom also loves to focus on the following:

"'You shall each revere his mother and his father, and keep My sabbaths:

'I the Lord am your G-d.'"

(It is erev Mother's Day, after all!)

If last week's sexual prohibitions were meant to ensure Holiness through "clean" living, this week's moral prescriptions are meant to sanctify His people's souls.

They include protecting the vulnerable ("'You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind...When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt'"); agricultural restrictions ("'...you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed'"); and the directive that Rabbi Hillel famously used to sum up the Torah when asked to recite the entire Bible while standing on one foot: ("'Love your fellow as yourself: I am the Lord.'") The rest, Hillel said, is commentary.

Shabbat Shalom!