There are no secular Jews. All Jews are holy, because when the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, all Jews became members of a holy nation.
True, they have free choice to decide what they want to do, to say, and to think. But they can’t change who they are, and they are all members of a holy people. Holiness is the polar opposite of secular.
Holiness is to love God so you understand what love is. God is love. He is our love. The Jew should know best. If the Jew understands that he is the image of God then he should know how to love the other as much as he loves himself. We are afraid to love. Love is learning how others who are different from you see themselves. If they do things that you feel are not Jewish enough, perhaps you should try to understand why they are not or if it really matters. We are all one. Jew and Nations are ONE and when we get that, this game will finally be over and we can just be who we are, the image of God who is our love 🙏 (I am not Jewish but I love the Jew and everyone else too) Reply
Can anybody explain to me whether holy/kadosh also refers to gerim? Were they meant to be gerim before, or is kadosh applied to them after their conversion?
BTW, "holy", "heilig" in German, originally, means being whole, unhurt, healthy, hence "heal"/"heilen", or even "Heil", which sometimes means "salvation", and is a common word in older German, more or less a greeting, like probably "hail"in English.
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You are perfectly right, Mhermine. However, HOLY is only one of the English words. The Hebrew word is Kadosh, which, like sacred/sanctus/sanctify. It means set aside, usually for G-d. All the variations of the Hebrew word include this meaning, including the groom's words when he betroths a bride: she is "sanctified: for him, that is, she is 'set aside for him." Reply
Holy is not a Latin word. It is a germanic/English word and relates to "whole" and "heal".
The Latin word is "sacred" and it means the same thing as "kadosh"--it means set apart. It can mean a wife "set apart" for her husband, or it can mean a nation which is "set apart" for Gd. Every member of that nation is set apart, even those who refuse to accept having been set apart.
Hitler resented Jews because Jews taught the world to believe in the One Gd and to strive for moral behavior, defined as the strong being kind and generous to the weak. Hitler believed and preached that the world belongs to the strong, and that kindness to the weak is offensive. That's why he went after all Jews without asking which ones believed in Jewish tenets or which ones worshipped Gd, much less which ones kept kosher or kept Shabbat.
Most Jews, including those totally divorced from Torah practice, DO believe in, & do practice, the idea of being kind and generous to the weak, just as the Torah commands.
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The sinner is judged finally and perfectly by the Scales of Justice on high which none of us mere mortals dare adjust the balance nor question the results. Nor is it even our part to record the outcome for anyothers than ourselves, should it even be revealed unto us in our days! It is sheer hubris (pardon the Greek) to copy the Almighty who knows our true value and all that lies in our hearts. It is mockery and false worship (indeed bordering on self aggrandizement to the point of self worship) and true blasphemy when one Jew pretends to know another Jew's heart and mind in their daily practice. Outward appearance and observed codes of daily practice may not always mirror what lies in the mind's hidden vaults nor the heart's deepest recesses. HaShem knows and finally judges all of us -sinners and observers alike. This is according to His Plan,as it should be and for all time immemorial! Getl Kasper-Kaplan Reply
Well said.
It seems to me that the essence of holiness is humility. When we "set apart" ourselves from our egos and recognize that we truly own nothing and nothing truly belongs to us. Even our son, "the one we love," then we can say, "Heneni" and enter a holy space.
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to everyone on this thread
With great respect to the moderators, to all on this thread, even the ones who protest too much.
There is holy language, the biblical Hebrew that Hashem spoke to Moses and Moses spoke the same to the elders all the way through the jewish people's echelon by level, and so forth.
There is Yiddish, there is English and other vernacular languages to reach all Jews, all Jews without any labels.
What you are reading is a translation of the original language of the Hayom Yom book.
Don't protest English words when those who wish to protest can easily go to the original source.
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SEE Exodus 19:6. Note what Gd says to the Children of Israel.
Gd says to the Children of Israel, "You shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests and a goi kadosh" where the last two words are rendered "holy nation".
But the word kadosh does not mean holy.
The word "holy" comes from the same root as "whole" "hale" "health" and "hello".
The word kadosh comes from the same root as "set apart". Gd told us he set us apart to Gd's service, and Gd told us, throughout the Torah and also in the prophets, what constituted that service. An integral part of serving Gd means not serving other people's gods. It can mean not serving money, which is not so difficult, but it also means not serving anger, which is more difficult.
But, like it or not, regardless of how misunerstood it may be, Gd CALLED UPON the Children of Israel to be "set apart" for Gd's service.
That's why the Rebbe said "every Jew is KADOSH"--because every Jew is called to be "set apart" for Gd's service. To do 613 commandments
Every human can be great/good/holy &c. Kadosh is something else
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'holy' examined
Elohim has the ability to see not only what you refer to as the divine spark within, but the heartfelt repentance (or lack thereof) and heartfelt obedience (or lack thereof) WITHIN us.
It is NOT our duty as 'humans' to look and judge, as you said, and I quote:
"But as humans we look at the outside of a person. We see all the mistakes and flaws and tell ourselves, they are not Holy."
But Elohim judges the thoughts and intents of the heart.
(we cannot nor are we able to do so)
Using a word like 'holy' is a deceptive word which has a'righteous' connotation.
That is dangerous, since that is telling someone who is outwardly quite wicked that they are still in fact righteous before Elohim.
Dangerous.
VERY dangerous and misleading.
I agree that we all have the divine 'spark' so to speak.
some embrace and walk worthy of it
some defecate on it.
Lets be careful.
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The Hebrew word is not "holy" but "kadosh"q
And "kadosh" means "set apart" (for Gd)
That means we have 613 mitzvos to enable us to serve Gd
And some of us keep Shabbos and keep as many of these Mitzvos as we can
It's not yet Shabbos here. This will be my last post today.
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We are all Holy The point is, that what we do, is not what we are. We have the Divine spark within each of us. We have to know that is how we are made. But as humans we look at the outside of a person. We see all the mistakes and flaws and tell ourselves, they are not Holy. This is the reason for statements weather a Jew this or that. Each person has the ability to make that spark brighter, to be seen by others. G-d see the spark at all times. Reply
SHOA .The Rebbe and Europe
This may explain a little more why the Rebbe (ZLB) could have given his help to a non religious Jewish doctor survivor of death camps and Shoa in Vienna, Dr Victor Frankl, but who lived more or less as a secular jew (at least in his mode of dress) and was married to a non Jewish woman.
Maybe G-d connected in a mysterious way these two exceptional personalities of the Hebrew people in the 20th Century for something we don't understand yet.
This occurred around the 1950's, but I think it has an invaluable projection to our times and future. It is told in some Chabad articles, and it's one of the most unusual for good tale of the Rebbe (ZLB) i have read. Thanks for sharing the inspired writing and thoughts of the Rebbe (ZLB), Rabbi T.Freeman.
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'holy' ?
HOLY???
Hard to use a 'roman' word to describe being set apart by Elohim.
There is no such thing as 'holy' it is a silly made up word.
Either you are set apart and righteous
or you have gone wandering after the ways of the world where there is no righteousness.
Scriptures teach that if a man turns from his righteousness and does wickedness, his righteousness from the past will not save him.
OF COURSE there are religious Jews and Secular ones.
There is distinct separation between bloodline and religiosity.
We are taught that there is ONE Torah for all. That is for the Ibrim and the stranger also.
Then there is the Hebrew who can follow his genealogy.
Elohim has set apart the Hebrews for a purpose.
Do NOT confuse that setting apart as 'holiness' which bears a dangerous hope.
PLEASE pick a better word.
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Secular jews
I am in such agreement. You do not need a black hat and tzitzits to be a Jew (nor a tznius dress and sheitel either!)
Treating each other as strangers is what our enemies secretly enjoy. Then we are a divided people and we lose our strength and solidarity.
This comment (every Jew is holy- as they are each imbued with the holy spark of life from Hashem) is proof of the Rebbe Rabbi M.M. Schneerson's own holy connection and beliefs. I personally agree with observing tsniut, the laws of modesty and all of the many mitzvot, but a Jew is a Jew-plain not fancy! Regards,
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All Jews and the Stranger too....
Finally the ultimate truth that all Jews, however they see themselves, however they practice, are all the same. GOD sent the "dyan" Hitler to show us that. He knew who a Jew was regardless of how that generation saw themselves, the labels they took, the clothes they wore, whether they were very observant or blind to observance.
Today we forget the instruction to love your brother and the stranger as yourself with baseless hate spewing from all corners of Judaism. And all we have are dusty old texts to show the way, no LIVING LEADER of love as the Rebbe was to hold our hands.
Last time there was this much hate we suffered destruction of our core. If we don't start loving our fellow Jews and the stranger as ourselves, GOD may have to send another Hitler to remind us.
The goal is to immediately identify with all Jews and the stranger and to experience them as part of ourselves. Love their essence, whether he/she is righteous, wicked, friend or enemy, observant of lost.
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Great danger can be in thinking one is more or better than others.
To me that is (hidden)ego-thing.
What burden others carry,what true Wisdom lies within them, G'd only knows. We all are in exile, on our journey
We may have our callings and tasks, that what "das Ganze macht", das Heile", the undivided One.
For people of "good will" try to make Earth blossom:Head does what head has to do, Heart takes the yoke too for the Heart.
Hands do the work, comfort, bake, feet,legs and backs labour and all suffer,learn, study, get raped, get up,grow, sing
A kabbalist teacher stated:Jewish souls are born in not jewish people too.
I was very happy with what Mike wrote:... ourselves Humanistic or Cultural Jews. We are only Holy in the sense that all Humans, and all living things, are Holy. If indeed G-D did create "all that is",then "all that is" is Holy - not just Jews!
Mike
Honolulu
We are all together on an Earth that lives. We should heal and respect her and each other. Give and receive
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They are holy too.
I could hug the Rebbe for what he said.
Every evening I pray for friends and family.
First come the ones who keep every little mitzvah. And I love them.
Then comes the group who would say, they are secular.
But I love them just as much. They are wonderful Jews, and I always wish that Hashem might love them also, the same way he loves his obedient children.
Now it makes me very happy hearing HE DOES,
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You're right. Everything is holy. Everything is WHOLE. All is HEALTHY.
Only of Jews does Gd say, "You are a kingdom of priests & a nation set apart for My service." (that is a more accurate translation than, "a holy nation").
No other group has a text in which their Gd says all of them are priests. Their texts, their deity, says this, "You are Peter and on this Rock...." Hence the pope.
They do not claim to be set aside for Gd's service. They do not want to be all popes or priests. We don't all want to, either. But we, unlike them, lack that choice. We are ALL priests, like it or not. We are ALL required to be devoted to Gd's service.
Catholic Priests avoid sex. Jews avoid almost all meats.
The world can eat bear meat or horse meat or camel meat or rabbit meat or dog meat or catfish or crabs or whatever. We are required to have sex so as to increase and multiply, but something equally essential....food...is restricted. Why? Same reason: to serve Gd. ALL Jews. Not just Cohanim (priests) or just Levites or just rabbis. ALL.
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We call ourselves Humanistic or Cultural Jews. We are only Holy in the sense that all Humans, and all living things, are Holy. If indeed G-D did create "all that is", then "all that is" is Holy - not just Jews! Reply
PLEASE read and appreciate the thought
and stop putting all these twists to the teaching.
all jews, from jewish mothers are holy.
without exception.
have a great month
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Righteous gentile
The righteous of all nations have a place in Olam HaBa.
We have always recognized righteous gentiles.
The woman you mention is extraordinarily righteous. Her place in Olam HaBa will be great.
She does not need to be "holy"--there is nothing so wonderful about being holy. It's like being a priest. Not everyone feels called to be a priest. This woman felt called, not to be a priest, but to be righteous. She is on a very high rung. Be happy for her.
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Why can't they change? Are you saying that they are hopelessly stuck, chas v'shalom?
I was one of those misguided Jews for 61 years. I thank HaShem that I changed four years ago!
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What term should we use when referring to Jews who dress and behave immodestly; do not honor or keep Shabbat and Yomim Tovim; reject what they know of Torah as being full of old stories/myths and outmoded laws; etc? Who flaunt their assimilation and don't know or care what a psalm is? And yet many of them shout to the world that they are Jewish and confuse the nations? Chas v'shalom!
Besides the words "sad," "pitiful," "willfully ignorant," "disrespectful," etc.
Their souls may be Jewish, but they clothe them (with thoughts, words, deeds, as well as literal clothing) in garments of unholiness and disgrace.
"Secular" seems a polite term.
...
I think we should spend more effort trying to wake them up, rather than excuse them.
May HaShem Yirachem guide us, and reveal Mashiach NOW!
True, we tend to see those things that are most visible, most important to us, and distinguish us from them. So we say we are observant and they are not.
But a tzadik sees the essence of each thing and of every person, the point at which we are all one. He sees the soul and it is a holy soul.
We believe in ourselves and divide ourselves apart. The tzadik believes in us and pulls us together.