Acharai-Kidoshim

Both the Rambam and Ramban do not list "Kidoshim Tihiyu" - one of the most repeated verses of the Torah - among their total lists of the Mitzvot. Commentators fancy ways to explain away this omission by claiming its inclusiveness or vagueness.

I found this year a wonderful explanation to why such a beautiful and spiritual forceful command would be left unused by the Talmudic system. Prof. Dov Landau of Bar Ilan University reads the general nature of the verse with a significant purpose:

Perhaps one could obey the commandments without specific intent, but holiness cannot be achieved without such intent. The commandments bring a person closer to holiness, but they do not confer holiness. We are to understand from the benediction which we recite, “who has sanctified us by His commandments,” that it is the Holy One, blessed be He, who makes us holy; but we still are obliged to strive and act with specific intent in order to actually rise to holiness. Therefore we say “who has sanctified us by His commandments” and not “through whose commandments we have become sanctified”; in order to become sanctified we must do more than simply obey the commandments.

I remember someone asking in school, that there is no pasuk in the Torah saying "light Shabbat/Chanukah candles" yet in the bracha we proclaim "who has sanctified us by His commandments". The Rabbis were given the authority to amend and interpret the Torah to enhance and expound the meaning of mitzvah.

Ultimately this command to be holy gives us the power to create new moments and especially new holidays. This time of year, between Yom Haatzmaut and Yom Yershualyim, arouses this sense of the curiosity of new holiness in an ancient tradition. For those who hesitate to say a bracha on these holidays, for they are unsure of the clear miracle in the mundane or divine certification of evoking Hashem's name for a secular state , we find again it is our mission and command to find these moments and risk the opportunity to bring holiness into this world. We indeed were "sanctified" by the Torah to pursue this end. "Kidoshim Tihyu" pushes us to find more ways to increase the presence of Hashem in this world. Gd willing, these holidays should strengthen and continue to be a light to Jewish people.