Kedoshim

Kedoshim is sometimes called the Holiness Code, because holiness is a key concept within this sidrah. This holiness takes on a decidedly ethical tone, as in this verse, though there is ritual, too. At the level of peshat, the plain meaning, this text is clearly about kindness towards strangers.

In rabbinic literature, this principle was applied to converts to Judaism. But is there a specifically spiritual dimension to this commandment?Hayyim ibn Attar, the 18th-century Moroccan kabbalist and Torah commentator, suggests that there is. In his comment on this verse, he offers two interpretations of "a stranger".

One follows the rabbinic line, while the other is more kabbalistic. He says: "It might allude to the dwelling of the Shechinah, the presence of God, among us. God is [thus] commanding us that a stranger from an exalted place is with us." And on the phrase "you shall not wrong him", ibn Attar takes the view that "there is no wrong worse than that inflicted on the Shechinah".

How can we inflict wrong on the Shechinah? Surely God's presence is perfect and indestructible? The answer is that we wrong the Shechinah when we harm its manifestations. What are its manifestations? Only everything that exists. But let's focus, and start with the verse at hand. In the first instance, "the stranger", the Shechinah, manifests as "a stranger residing with you". Surely that includes immigrants and refugees, as well as converts to Judaism. When we wrong them, we wrong the Shechinah. When we help them, we help the Shechinah.

But all of nature is a manifestation of the Shechinah. We wrong the Shechinah when we treat nature with contempt, polluting her, burning fossil fuels recklessly, driving her creatures to extinction. Doing right by the Shechinah demands a personal and a global approach.