[Avodah] Underlying Truth of the Realm Holiness in Israel

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 08:52:59AM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote:
: The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Shemos 35
...
:> The underlying truth of the realm of holiness in Israel is that this
:> realm is not superhuman, towering above and negating ordinary life
:> and its conditions. On the contrary, the altar must be erected on the
:> earth itself, with nothing intervening between the altar and the earth.

Addressing the first clause, the Meshekh Chokhmah repeatedly explains
that qedushah of an item or location is never inherent; it is always
the consequence of a person embuing it.

Qedushah is only inherent to Hashem. People can make things qadosh when
they dedicate them to avodas Hashem.

The canonical source is his comment on Shemos 19:13, constrasting Har
Sinai being holy during an event, and Har haBayis. The latter was
human consecrated. Divine Revelation is a holy event, but no person
consecrated the mountain for avodas Hashem.

But even "umiqdashi tira'u" (Vayiqra 19:30) gets a comment quoting
Yavamos 6b, "Not of the miqdash should you have yir'ah, but from He
Who commanded about the miqdash." A consecrated item isn't an ontology.

As I wrote here in 2009
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol26/v26n191.shtml#07>
> According to the Meshech Chokhmah, all qedushah derives from human
> activity. There is no such thing as an inherently holy place or object.
> E.g. his explanation of cheit ha'eigel as being based in the error
> that Benei Yisrael thought Moshe's qedushah was intrinstic. And
> the lesson of the breaking of the luchos is that even something
> carved by HQBH Himself has no qedushah if not a focus of avodah. See
> http://www.vbm-torah.org/archive/modern/20modern.htm for R' Elyakim
> Krumbein's longer discussion with numerous examples.

See also MC on Bamidbar 3:45

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
micha at aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
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