LEV284 The commandment, "Be ye holy, for I am holy," [this verse] articulates one of the basic motivations in the Jewish tradition. We are to become that which God is. Since God is beyond and above all our experience, we can fulfill ourselves only in the striving to transcend our own being. Creatures that we are, we are bidden to become like the Creator. Our "accidental" situation as children of nature is somewhat insufficient--we must rise above ourselves, as it were. Indeed, nothing is so characteristic of human nature at its best as our many-sided endeavor to push back the existential boundaries that hem us in. We rebel against the finality of death and seek to grasp Eternity; we realize that human satisfactions are illusions, and we yearn for the delight that we will not sour; we resent the bitter and manifold evils of life and we long for the realm of perfection. All these longings are blended together by the Psalmist in the one affirmation, "and I, the nearness of God is my good." Psalm 73:28.