From Yom HaZikaron to Yom Ha’Atzma’ut
From “after the deaths” to “you shall be holy”.
If you have ever experienced Yom HaZikaron in Israel, you know about the siren. For two minutes, everything just stops. People pull over on the motorway, stand beside their cars, and wait in silence. And then, only a few hours later, the sun goes down and the fireworks begin. The intense grief of Memorial Day gives way almost instantly to the street parties of Yom Ha’Atzma’ut.
I must admit, I often find that shift quite jarring. It feels a bit too quick.
But when you look at our Torah reading for this week, you realise that moving straight from grief to a demanding present is actually a very old Jewish pattern. We are reading the double portion of Acharei Mot and Kedoshim. The text begins by bluntly naming a trauma: “And the Eternal spoke to Moses, after the death of the two sons of Aaron...” [1]. It doesn't linger on the pain or offer easy comfort. Instead, it moves straight into Kedoshim, delivering a radical communal command: “You shall be holy; for I the Eternal your God am holy” [2].
As Rabbi Steven Abraham observes, this is the very arc of our tradition, moving “from trauma to holiness, from death to moral obligation” [3]. The call to holiness does not wait for a time of peace and serenity. It arrives precisely in the unresolved space after death.
It is tempting to think of holiness as private piety, or perhaps just keeping strictly to the rules. But the medieval commentator Ramban warned that a person can follow the letter of the law and still be a “villain with the permission of the Torah” [4]. In other words, studying the rules, but not feeling them, or filling them with kindness and compassion, doesn’t make you holy. True holiness is recognising the ethical fabric of our society. It is the command to leave the gleanings of our harvest for the poor, to refuse to place a stumbling block before the blind, and to love the stranger as ourselves.
This week, as we mark Israel's 78th year of independence, the movement from grief to sovereignty feels more demanding than ever. The pain across the region remains acute, the political reality deeply fractured. What does it mean for us, sitting here in London, to mark this anniversary today?
It means that our response to loss cannot simply be despair. Our response must be a recommitment to the work of Kedoshim. We honour those who have fallen not merely by standing for a siren, but by insisting on a society—both there and here—built on justice, truth, and compassion.
As you enter Shabbat, I ask you: which verse from this holiness code will we, as the Wimbledon Synagogue community, choose to carry this year? Let us step out of the silence of mourning and into the demanding, necessary work of repair.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Adrian M. Schell
Endnotes: [1] Mechon Mamre, "Leviticus Chapter 16," English translation based on the 1917 JPS Tanakh, accessed 21 April 2026, https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0316.htm. [2] Gidon Rothstein, "Parshas Kedoshim: The Challenging Requirement To ‘Be Holy’," TorahMusings.com, 12 May 2016, quoting Leviticus 19:2 (JPS), accessed 21 April 2026. [3] Rabbi Steven Abraham, "Be Holy Anyway: Moral Courage in the Shadow of Loss," rabbistevenabraham.com, 3 May 2025, accessed 21 April 2026. [4] Ramban (Nachmanides) on Leviticus 19:2, translated and cited in "Introduction to Jewish Ethics," Sefaria sheet by Rabbi Mike Uram et al., 13 November 2018, accessed 21 April 2026.
