Parashat Kedoshimפָּרָשַׁת קְדֹשִׁים

Kedoshim (“Holy”) opens by instructing the Israelites to be holy. It details dozens of laws regulating all aspects of life, including observing Shabbat, loving one’s neighbor, and leaving portions of a field for the poor. It ends by detailing punishments for certain types of idolatry and sexual misconduct. Kedoshim is the heart of what scholars call the "Holiness Code" (Leviticus 17-26), and its defining move is to fuse holiness with ethics: sanctity is achieved not through ritual alone but through the righteous treatment of other people. The opening charge, "You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy," frames the dozens of mitzvot that follow as concrete expressions of that ideal. Many of its commands read as practical social justice, demanding honest weights and measures, impartial judgment that favors neither rich nor poor, prompt payment of workers, care for the poor and the resident stranger, and the prohibition of slander, vengeance, and grudge-bearing. Several of its phrasings deliberately echo the Ten Commandments, presenting holiness as something lived out in everyday business, family, and communal life.

Because Kedoshim is usually paired with the preceding portion Achrei Mot and only read on its own in some years, the haftarah customs vary by rite and calendar. In most Ashkenazi communities the reading is Amos 9:7-15, which answers Kedoshim's theme that God set Israel apart to be holy: Amos warns that chosenness brings heightened accountability rather than exemption from judgment ("Are you not like the Ethiopians to Me, O Israel?"). In most Sephardi communities the haftarah is Ezekiel 20:2-20, in which God arraigns Israel for its abominations and recalls the divine laws "by which a person shall live," echoing the parashah's call to live by God's statutes. Some calendars list Ezekiel 22:1-19 as the Ashkenazi reading instead.

Kedoshim contains one of the most famous verses in the entire Torah, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord" (Leviticus 19:18). Rabbi Akiva called this "a great principle of the Torah," and the teaching of Hillel, that this is the whole Torah and "the rest is commentary," is traditionally tied to it. The portion pairs that command with the closely related charge to love the resident stranger as yourself (Leviticus 19:34) and the ethical demand "You shall not stand idly by the blood of your fellow" (Leviticus 19:16). The name "Kedoshim" means "Holy [ones]," drawn from the opening command in Leviticus 19:2, and the section is the centerpiece of the "Holiness Code," a term coined by the scholar August Klostermann in 1877.