Act sanctified or be sanctified?

B"H

Vaikra (Leviticus), Chapter 11:44 reads:
והתקדשתם והייתם קְדֹשִׁים כי קדוש אני

Loosely translated as follows:
And you shall sanctify your so that you shall become sanctified, for I'm sanctified.

I heard a very nice drasha the Rabbi on Shabbat Parashat Shmini. To paraphrase the main point:
The language used in the passage is a bit odd. If we take an example from day-to-day life we can see why. If you tell a child: "Get dressed so that you shall be dressed" we will get a bizarre stare from the child, no doubt. After all, what's the point of getting dressed if not to be dressed. There seems to be some sort of redundancy redundancy here.

So to in our passage. The aforementioned passage from Leviticus could have just as easy read: והתקדשתם, כי קדוש אני (=sanctify yourself for I am sanctified). So, why indeed does it uses a wordier phrase than necessary -- sanctified yourself and you shall be sanctified, for I am sanctified.

The answer in a way of an example: we might approach a person and tell him/her: "Listen, why not keep Kosher? <or some other mitzvah>" To which his/her reply might be "Who me? Don't you know I don't keep <insert your favorite mitzvah here>, so why should I keep kosher? I don't want to be a hypocrite." or how about the all-time favorite reply: "I'll keep kosher when I have the urge from the inside. When I feel it -- I'll do it."

In either cases, the Torah preempts this by saying: והתקדשתם (=you shall sanctify yourself.) The first step is to actively do what is expected of us. Be it keeping Kosher, or keeping Shabbat, or any one of the other 611 mitzvahs (commandments).

Once a person is actively involved in performing the mitzvahs, he/she will come the next stage: והייתם קדשים (=and you shall be sanctified) In other words, everyone and anyone can reach sanctity, but there must be an initiative by the person.

In other words, an awakening from below (והתקדשתם) will initiate and awakening from above (והייתם קדשים).

This follows the principle outlined in Talmud Yerushalmi, Tractate Pe'ah, chapter 8:
וכל מי שאינו לא חיגר ולא סומא ולא פיסח ועושה עצמו כאחד מהן אינו מת מן הזקנה עד שיהא כאחד מהן

Loosely translated:
Any anyone who's not crippled, blind or limping but behaves as such, does not pass-away from old age until he indeeds becomes such.

So too in the positive case anyone who is not sanctified but behaves as such, will not be allowed to leave this world until eventually he/she becomes such.

We see this also in the example of a Jewish wedding: everyone joyously dancing and singing with the bride and groom. Everyone, except one person, that is, just stands there with his arms crossed looking more like he's in a funeral (לא עלינו).

When asked why he's not participating, you might get the answer: "I'm not feeling particularly happy at the moment, but as soon as I do, you'll certainly see me joining in."

To which we answer: "אחרי הלבבות ימשכו המעשים (the feeling follows the deed.) Join the fun, behave as though you're happy and eventually you will be happy. Guaranteed!"

The point is that by והתקדשתם, i.e., doing on our on accord, from below, even if we're not 100% sincere -- Hashem promises to sanctify us from above, והייתם קדשים.

Dedicated to the memory of the 6 million קדשים Jews who were killed by the Nazis.
לזכר וע"נ שש-מאות ריבוא קדושים, מאחינו ב"י שנרצחו על קידוש-השם, בידי הנאצים י"ש וזכרם. ת.נ.צ.ב.ה