Drash – Acharei Mot–Kedoshim

Cantor Michel Laloum

Temple Beth Israel, Melbourne

Acharei Mot–Kedoshim: Holiness, Love, and the Work of a Troubled Hear

This week’s parashah brings us face to face with holiness in its most demanding form. It opens with the tragic deaths of Nadav and Avihu, moves through the solemn rites of the High Priest on Yom Kippur, and then unfolds the holiness code of Kedoshim, beginning with the command: “You shall be holy, for I, Adonai your God, am holy.” In the middle of that code stands a line that has shaped Jewish moral imagination for two millennia: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Rabbi Akiva called it the cardinal principle of the Torah; Hillel said it is the Torah’s essence, the rest commentary.

The holiness demanded by the Torah is not abstract. It is practical and relational, it is our responsibility to be ‘like unto God’. To be holy is to emulate the Divine attributes justice, compassion, integrity in the way we live with others. The Yom Kippur ritual with its two goats dramatizes a truth about communal life: we are bound together. One goat is offered; the other bears away what separates us from God and from one another. The ritual asks us to reckon honestly with sin, responsibility, and repair.

We live in a time of acute moral strain. War, terror, and rising antisemitism make the command to “love your neighbour” feel, at times, almost impossible. Many of us are grieving, frightened, and angry. We must name that reality plainly: when synagogues are threatened, when our people are attacked, when hatred rises in our streets, the instinct to harden our hearts is real and understandable.

At the same time, the Torah asks us to hold two truths together: the imperative to protect life and community, and the imperative to preserve our moral soul. Loving our neighbour does not mean naiveté. It does not require us to ignore threats or to blur the difference between civilians and those who perpetrate violence. Loving our neighbour as ourselves includes protecting the vulnerable, seeking justice, and refusing to let hatred define us.

How We Live the Parashah Now — Practical Steps for the Community

Mourn and remember. Observe Yom Hazikaron and the rituals of memory that bind us to those we have lost. Grief is not a private luxury; it is communal work.
Act to protect. Support synagogue security, look out for one another, and ensure our communal spaces are safe for prayer, study, and gathering.
Care for the wounded heart. Offer pastoral care, counselling, and listening circles for those carrying trauma, fear, or rage.
Stand against antisemitism and all hatred. Educate, report incidents, and build alliances with other communities who oppose bigotry.
Practice discernment and compassion. Distinguish between those who suffer and those who perpetrate violence; advocate for civilians caught in conflict and for policies that protect innocent life.
Do mitzvot of repair. Feed the hungry, visit the sick, welcome the stranger, and give tzedakah—acts that sanctify the world and our hearts.

Our calendar teaches a movement: from Yom Hazikaron’s remembrance to Yom Ha’atzmaut’s hope. Memory without hope can calcify into despair; hope without memory can become reckless. The Jewish people have learned to move from grief to resilience, from mourning to rebuilding. Israel and the Jewish people will not accept the role of lamb; we will stand, defend, and extend the olive branch from a place of strength and moral clarity.

This parashah asks each of us a searching question: How will I be holy in the week ahead? Not by grand gestures alone, but by the small, steady acts that make a community holy by protecting one another, by refusing to answer hatred with hatred, by tending the broken, and by loving our neighbours in ways that preserve both truth and compassion.

May we be granted courage to protect and wisdom to judge rightly. May our grief be transformed into acts of repair. May our love for our people and for all who suffer be fierce and discerning. And may the God who calls us to holiness strengthen us to live that calling in these difficult days.

Shabbat shalom.