The unintended consequence of ennobling our lives through holy acts will be to sanctify God. In the spirit of this rabbinic insight, I would like to argue that holiness in Judaism begins with self- denial. The basic thrust of the Torah is to limit our freedom of action. In Jewish law the proverbial 613 commandments break down into 365 proscriptions and only 248 prescriptions. The ideal is not to be governed by impulse, nor to try out everything that we are capable of doing.
Dissipation is a danger to both health and truth.
As Jews we elevate the natural by subjecting it to divine regulation. We sanctify ourselves by abstaining from eating whatever we please or working whenever we can or having sex with whomever we take a fancy to or keeping whatever we earn. After a day of fasting and prayer, study and introspection in the synagogue on Yom Kippur, we leave with a renewed sense of purity and wholeness. Boundaries help us to concentrate our energies and control our passions, creating space in our lives for God. If we take up all the room neither God nor anyone else can every enter the purview of our existence.