Preparation plays a fundamental role in the observance of our beautiful holidays.
Our sages tell us that thirty days before a holiday, one must seek out and learn the laws pertaining to that holiday.
Reb Leib’le Eiger points out that we find ourselves just about thirty days before the holiday of Shavuot, a holiday which doesn’t really have any ways of specific preparation.
Our parsha this week, however, is itself the ultimate preparation.
‘Kedoshim Tihiyu – Be Holy’
Let’s ask a question that we think we know the answer to. What does it mean to be holy?
The Mei Hashiloach, Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner, Reb Leib’le Eiger’s Rebbe, tells us that when Hashem asks us to “be holy because HE is holy”, He is telling us that holiness means much more than what we think we mean when we use that word.
Holiness means to be ready.
Under a chuppa, when two souls become one, the ceremony is called kiddushin. On a deeper level, becoming holy to someone means being ready for them, for whatever it is they will ever need.
This past week we commemorated Yom Hazikaron for the kedoshim who gave their lives for Eretz Yisrael. These kedoshim were people who were READY. They were ready to give their lives for you and I, for Am Yisrael, for Hashem’s people.
We are now thirty days before receiving the Torah, G-d is telling us to simply be ready to feel Him, to hear Him, to allow Him to enter your consciousness at any given moment. Why? “Because,” G-d says, “I’m always always ready to hear what you have to say.”
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