Kedoshim

In the synagogue the Torah is read aloud in a fixed annual cycle of fifty-four weekly portions (parashiyot), one each Shabbat morning, with certain adjacent portions doubled in ordinary years so the sequence fits the calendar. Each portion is named for a distinctive word near its opening and is paired with a haftarah, a reading from the Prophets. The cycle closes and restarts on Simchat Torah. Kedoshim ('Holy Ones', Leviticus 19:1-20:27) contains the Holiness Code, opening 'you shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.' Amid laws of justice, honesty, care for the poor and the stranger stands the command 'you shall love your neighbour as yourself' (19:18), called by the sage Rabbi Akiva a great principle of the Torah.

Rabbi Akiva's designation of 'love your neighbour as yourself' (Leviticus 19:18) as a great principle of the Torah is recorded in the Jerusalem Talmud and stands alongside a rival formulation attributed to his contemporary Ben Azzai, who instead pointed to the verse on humanity's creation in the divine image (Genesis 5:1) as an even more fundamental principle, since it grounds ethical obligation in universal human dignity rather than only in relations between covenant members.

Kedoshim gathers the ethical heart of Leviticus, its command to imitate divine holiness expressed through concrete justice: leaving the gleanings for the poor, paying wages promptly, using honest measures, and not standing idle at a neighbour's peril. The verse 'love your neighbour as yourself' (19:18) became foundational to Jewish and Christian ethics alike, and in ordinary years the portion is read together with Achrei Mot.

The command to love the stranger 'as yourself,' echoing the neighbour command almost verbatim but extended explicitly to the non-Israelite resident (Leviticus 19:34), is read by commentators as closing a circle the portion opens with love of neighbour, extending the same ethical demand beyond the covenant community itself and grounding it, as with the parallel command in Mishpatim, in Israel's own memory of having been strangers in Egypt. The portion's warning against practices associated with divination, mediums and consulting the dead (Leviticus 19:31, 20:6) is read by classical commentary as part of a broader Levitical concern to distinguish Israelite worship from the ritual practices of neighbouring peoples. The severe penalties prescribed later in the portion for various forms of forbidden sexual relation (Leviticus 20) are read by the rabbinic legal tradition through an extensive body of interpretive qualification around evidentiary standards required for capital cases, standards the Mishnah and Talmud describe as so exacting that a court executing even one person in seven years was considered a bloody court, reflecting deep rabbinic discomfort with capital punishment's actual application.