The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1010 page)

 
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(1806–60).
German
Reform
Jewish leader. He represented the extreme trend in Reform Judaism; he held
Sabbath
services on a Sunday and defended the right of uncircumcised children to be accepted as full
Jews
. Abraham
Geiger
thought that he had gone too far, but nevertheless gave the eulogy at his funeral.

 
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Hol
or Hol
k
.

One of the important Hindu annual
festivals
. Celebrated all over India at the beginning of spring, its precise form and motivation display enormous variety. On its basic level, it is a rural, agricultural festival of fertility.

 
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(OE,
halignes
, ‘without blemish’). The state of being set apart for God, or for religious purposes. For R.
Otto
, the
Holy
is
Ganz Andere
, the Totally Other, and all that relates to it must be separated from the profane and sinful. Holiness
(Heb.,
kedushah
) is a fundamental requirement of Jewish religion. (Leviticus 19. 2). What does it mean to be holy? According to
Maimonides
, ‘When the Bible says, “Be holy”, it means precisely the same as if it had said, “Keep my commandments”.’
Torah
is thus the
syag
(‘fence’, a founding principle of rabbinic Judaism,
Pirqe
Avot
1. 1, ‘Be reflective in judgement, raise up many pupils, and build a
syag
around Torah') which prevents diffusion into randomness and uncertainty.
Christianity inherited the hope of holiness from Judaism, but no longer saw Torah as either a necessary or a sufficient condition. The
Holy
Spirit is the source of the making holy (i.e. sanctification) of Christians, who become (or are meant to become) temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6. 11 and 20; 1 Peter 2. 9).
The word ‘holiness’ is then widely used for comparable vocations and goals in other religions, although it then loses its more specific constituents. In particular, it merges with considerations of
purity
and
ablution
: see also
SACRED AND PROFANE
.

 
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Holiness Churches
.

Those churches which emphasize J.
Wesley's
doctrine of perfection. Such groups usually teach that ‘entire sanctification’, involving the removal of inbred sin, follows conversion and is experienced instantaneously by faith. Following this crisis, the believer is empowered to live without deliberate sin, though not without ‘weaknesses’.

 
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