Every one of us has whispers inside us – or cartoon figures on our shoulders yelling at us – to pull us in two opposite directions. Judaism fully embraces this internal conflict without judgment. We do have dual inclinations, one tugging us toward good and order (yetzer hatov), and the other toward bad/evil or chaos (yetzer hara).But it is not a 50-50 proposition. This week’s Torah readings (in Kedoshim) offer us the tiebreaker, with an unequivocal and direct statement to the entire nation: “You are holy, for I your God am holy.” Period. These words are consistent with our creation story, that each of us is created in the image of the Divine, in our own unique ways. Taken together, we are taught that there is something inside of us, at our very core, a spiritual centering or maybe a light to guide us to aspire for more, no matter our circumstance or our pasts. These words “You are holy” were also spoken to the entire nation as guidance on how we are to live collectively. Our responsibility as a community is echoed elsewhere in the Torah, where we are described as a “kingdom of priests.” Taken together, we are given a high moral/ethical standard for our communities and our own role. We are taught our obligation to rise above the minimum basic laws of our lands and to be the best of ourselves and not the medium or worst of ourselves, to add to the collective good rather than to deplete it. The natural spinoff of each of us acting in ways inspired by our spiritual values is that we all help to create healthy and inspiring communities or “kingdoms of priests.”  In turn, our communities inspire us to find even more of our own holiness. Positives inspire positives. Negatives inspire negatives. We always have two spirals available to us – a downward spiral that brings out the worst of us individually and as a nation or an upward spiral that comes from small individual acts – of kindness, grace, charity, empathy and a million more like those. Frankly, we know that it is harder to walk up a set of stairs than to walk down, but this is exactly why the Torah puts these ideas of holiness before us.  It has to be our way if we are not only to survive but also thrive.   Shabbat shalom,Rabbi Allan