KEDOSHIM

A world of passion and necessity,
Possessed by force and counterforce that drive
The human creature struggling to survive
Against the fellow-creature without pity
Is not the ultimate reality:
For this we have Your word, O G-d, who brought
Us out of Egypt, and on Sinai taught
The laws of freedom and of dignity.
Thus when we reverence the sacred Name,
Our parents, and the Sabbaths that You gave,
And strive to keep our weights and measures equal
And see Your image in the other’s frame,
We do so, not as bends the unwilling slave,
But from the awareness of a sacred people.