"You shall observe My commandments and perform them; I am Hashem.
You shall not desecrate My holy Name;
rather I should be sanctified among the Children of Israel."
(from this week's Torah portion)
A
really interesting question came up this week as a friend and I were
discussing the extremely upsetting events out of Boston. She asked me
if I thought there was a concept of "kiddush Hashem"
(sanctification of God's name) among other faiths, whereby a violent or
radical element of a particular faith would be viewed badly by kinder,
gentler factions with a certain degree of resentment for giving their
faith a bad name and tarnishing God's image in the larger public eye.
I
know for a fact that I am not an authority on any faith outside of
Judaism, and even in Judaism there are many instances where my
scholarship has many more miles to go before I sleep. So I do not know
the answer to this particular question.
But
then another topic came up in a mussar class this past Monday morning.
We were studying the Mishnaic injunction that scholars be very
judicious with their words, because their remarks are watched and
studied very carefully, and can easily be construed wrongly or taken out
of context (especially in the digital age). On the other hand, we
raised, silence is also a loud statement. If there is something
incorrect going on within Judaism, does a person of authority within
Judaism have a responsibility to speak out? Is it ever OK to just
abstain from comment, or is that a statement in and of itself?
Sometimes
things happen within Judaism that are in the public eye and I consider
making a public statement. But then it all goes back to the words with
which I began:
You shall not desecrate My holy name.
That's a big deal in Judaism.
So sometimes, coming out with a definitive statement is a
sanctification of God's name, and sometimes, refraining from comment is a
sanctification of God's name. One thing is always true, though. The
life of a proudly identified Jew is always going to be either one or the
other: either a sanctification, or a desecration.
I recently interviewed a convert. I asked her:
Is there anything you miss about life before Judaism?
She said:
I
miss how easy everything was. Who cares who I marry? Who cares what I
eat? Why not work on Saturday? Now, I have to give a lot more thought to
the personal decisions I make, both in terms of what will best set me
up for success in my Jewish practices, but also because if I'm the only
Jew someone ever meets, I don't want them thinking we're all jerks or
something. So in that sense, I do think that I feel a certain level of
pressure to behave in such a way as to be a positive reflection on other
Jews (I don't claim to always measure up to that goal, but I do my
best).
Yup. That's what it's all about. Meaningfulness, mindfulness, and being a representative.
Shabbat Shalom,
Ruchi
