Parashat Kedoshim - Fourth Aliyah
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
In this aliyah the Torah continues to walk on the paths of justice and humanity, and establishes one of the greatest pillars of Jewish morality: the treatment of the stranger and the different one.
”Ve’ahavta lo kamokha”
“Ke’ezrach mikem yihyeh lakhem hager hagar itkhem ve’ahavta lo kamokha” (As one born among you shall the stranger be to you, and you shall love him as yourself, verse 34).
This mitzvah is perhaps among the most revolutionary and bold in the Torah. Not only to refrain from harming the stranger, but to truly love him, in the same manner that we are commanded to love ourselves.
The motivation for this transcends the usual rationale: “Ki gerim heyitem be’eretz Mitzrayim” (For you were strangers in the land of Egypt, verse 34). This is a deep call to emotional historical memory. To remember the trauma, the feeling of strangeness, the offense of alienation, and to act so as not to pass it on to others. The memory of slavery becomes a moral motive.
Justice in Weight and Measure
From here the Torah continues to another sphere of honesty: commerce, weighing, and measure.
“Lo ta’asu avel bamishpat bamidah bamishkal uvamesurah” (You shall not do injustice in judgment, in measure, in weight, or in volume, verse 35).
This prohibition demands uncompromising honesty, even in places where it is easy to cheat: behind the counter, in the marketplace, or on the grocery scale. This is a mitzvah of fear of Heaven within the economic routine. The Torah does not see faith in God as separated from daily life. On the contrary, it tests it through the precision of the weight and the fairness of commerce.
Rashi’s Commentary
Rashi (Leviticus 19:36) explains why the mention of the Exodus from Egypt is juxtaposed precisely here: “I distinguished in Egypt between the drop of seed of a firstborn and the drop that was not of a firstborn, and I am the Faithful One to exact punishment from the one who buries his weights in salt” (also Bava Metzia 61b).
What is the connection? But faith in “Ani Adonai eloheikhem asher hotzeti etkhem me’eretz Mitzrayim” (I am Hashem your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt) is not only in a historical event, but in the assertion that there is providence, order, judgment. And that even behind the scales, God stands.
A Personal Message
A person is tested not only by how he prays or feels, but by how he measures, weighs, speaks, sells, and buys. In a society that sanctifies achievement and power, the Torah reminds us that holiness is measured precisely in honesty, in fairness, in love for the stranger, and in awe before the elder. No less.
More Questions on the Parsha
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