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Emor Guard my commandments and keep them, I am Hashem. And do not desecrate My holy name and I must be sanctified among the Israelites, I am Hashem [and I] am making you sanctified. The ideas of sanctifying Hashem's name and desecrating it are extremes. Why do we juxtapose them? It is as if someone would tell his child, "Do not be a sinner who desecrates Hashem's name, be rather a Tzaddik who sanctifies Him." Is it not possible to travel a middle path where Hashem may not be sanctified but still He is not desecrated? Perhaps we can understand it as follows: · It is indeed possible to accomplish both a sanctification and desecration of Hashem's name at the same time. On the one hand sanctifying Hashem's name by building of the Land of Israel, strengthening society and the State, being involved in acts of charity and kindness. And at the very same time, desecrating the sanctity of Jewish people and the Land of Israel, denying our heritage in the cities of our forefathers such as Yerushalayim, Shechem and Chevron, creating an education system devoid of Mitzvos, belief in the Creator and the unique sanctity of the Jewish people. · In Poland around 100 years ago, Dr Bloch of Vienna, a leading Jewish scholar publicly and successfully destroyed the arguments of one Dr Rahling, a notorious anti-Semite. A great Kiddush Hashem was brought about through him. Many of the simple Jews of Galicia decided to send their children to study in the non-Jewish schools and universities with the expectation that their children would emulate Dr Bloch and bring about a Kiddush Hashem. In truth however, the vast majority of these children abandoned the traditions of their parents and a substantial minority in fact converted in order to achieve greater material success and brought about a great desecration of Hashem's name. This is then the sense of the verse - Guard my commandments and keep them... do not desecrate My holy name... even if you wish that I be sanctified among the Israelites. · R' Elimelech of Lizensk would encourage his students and tell them, "When you are doing nothing and not involved in Torah learning, for example, when you going to sleep, fulfil the Mitzvah of Kiddush Hashem. Imagine as if you were being given the choice of giving your life for the sanctity of the Creator - and you make that positive choice. In this way you will never be involved in desecrating Hashem's name rather you will be able to constantly fulfil the mitzvah of sanctifying Hashem." May we indeed merit following his example. The following words were said by the Gaon and Tzaddik, Rav Elchanan Wasserman HY"D, regarded as the leading student of the Chofetz Chaim ZT"L, as he and his students were about to be taken by the Germans to their death. (As told by R' Ephraim Oshry who was present and miraculously escaped.) "In heaven we are apparently thought of as Tzaddikim, for we are chosen to atone with our bodies on behalf of the Jewish people. Consequently it behoves us to repent totally and completely - immediately and in this place. Time is short. The road to the Ninth Fort (where the Jews of Slabodka-Kovna were slaughtered al Kiddush Hashem) is rapidly approaching. We must realise that our sacrifice will be more acceptable when it is accompanied by repentance. We will thereby rescue our brothers and sisters in America. "We are now in the process of fulfilling the greatest possible Mitzvah. "In fire You consumed it [Jerusalem] and in fire You are destined to rebuild it." The fire which will now consume our bodies is the very same fire which will give rise to the rebirth of the Jewish people." Zalmen Klienman gave the following as eyewitness testimony, at the trial of Adolph Eichman. Lying in my bunk in Aushwitz I saw an SS officer approaching to administer a brutal beating with a thick rubber hose to one of the inmates. The fourteen-year-old obviously knew that he was going to be beaten. We counted silently, twenty-five blows - the usual maximum - and he had not uttered a sound. At fifty the beatings stopped and still not a whimper. When the German left, we picked up the boy and placed him on his cot. We asked him why he was beaten. He replied, "It was worth it, I brought my chaverim - my friends - a number of siddurim with which to pray. "It was worth it." |
