Shabbat Acharei Mot - Kedoshim, 2025

Recently, at the congregational retreat, I shared that at a women’s gathering I was at, someone at the event, and I’ll say her name, actually it’s Aviva de cornfield, who is a producer on This American Life, she shared her three areas that make life worth living, and I want to share them now with you. She said, here are the three things that make life worth living: One, small jokes with your friends. Two, having a crush or flirting, perhaps. And three: ideas for your brain to chew on…

I think that these are all present, which, if you look hard enough, which I have tried to do in Keddoshim. Perhaps God saying kedoshim ti’hi’u is God’s way of bringing us in on a personal joke. God is saying we are in it together. Perhaps all the talk about right relationships and wrong relationships is really about reminding us that feeling, that spark and that excitement in the other is part of what makes life worth living. And maybe all the attempts at telling us at how to live a just life, a life that emphasizes honesty and fairness, is an attempt at challenging us to think about society on a grand scale, that it is right for us to think deeply, challenge one another, try to come up with big and bold solutions, maybe not even ones that will always be right, but urging us not to stop the conversation, continue to let your brains churn and chew things over.

Rabbi Yael Werber gave this drashah on Friday, May 9, 2025 / 12 Iyar 5785. 

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