The Sanctity of a Jew Who Died Because of His Jewishness: “Mistaken Sanctifications” (Column 215)

I still haven’t read everything properly, but I’ll write anyway. One can respond in two ways. One is from the standpoint of providence according to Maimonides. A person’s conduct is a result of providence. Although Maimonides gave as an example a righteous person who is watched over in war and therefore saved from death in it, one can also say the opposite on the basis of the same principle. There is a righteous person who is saved from harm, but there is also a righteous person whose inner soul and providence lead him to the place where a soldier will fall. One can make distinctions, between harm that must necessarily come upon the nation and harm that need not necessarily come, but there is no need for that. In Judaism, it is not only fate that led to death for the nation, but at the very least also a hidden inner choice and providence, and from the latter side we see the fallen soldier as holy. Especially in light of the Maharal’s words that great events are under providence.
And one can respond from a second angle, in light of Rav Kook’s words about hidden choice at the time God created man, as well as other ideas, that there is choice on the most hidden planes of the human soul and spirit, a choice that sometimes ‘takes place’ even before a person is created on earth. Just as a Jew is born with a holy soul because he was created knowingly, so too a Jew who was created for a place and time that led him to death for the nation is holy because he chose this in a hidden choice. A choice that stands out and becomes evident in light of great and powerful events.
In general, I think one should give great respect and weight to the intuition of the whole people, and especially of God-fearing people, on these matters—an evaluation that affects our study of the issue.
By the way, it’s funny that here your opinion matches that of Amnon Yitzhak. He also said similar things, that in many cases there is no reason at all to regard a soldier who fell in war as someone who fell for the sanctification of God’s name.

You wrote: “A holy person is someone who added holiness to the world and offered a meaningful sacrifice for that purpose by his own choice, that is, someone who sanctified God’s name through his deeds.” A soldier killed in war, or a civilian from the Gaza border area who stuck to his mission and stayed in his home and was killed there by a missile—fits that criterion exactly. He did not flee but chose to risk his life so that the people of Israel could live on its land in its country; that means he sanctified God both in his life and in his death. Sanctified, in the sense that “he determined that this is so important and so meaningful that he is potentially and actually prepared to sacrifice his life for it.” The choice is indeed similar to yours, but someone who actually died realized that possibility, and thereby became a symbol and an example of the possibility itself, and therefore is called ‘holy.’
But perhaps the central point is the question why it is relevant at all whether or not someone is described as holy, since this gives rise to no halakhic commandment, it has no implications whatsoever—so why is it important to make this distinction? One person is called ‘holy’ because he abstains from pleasures and devotes himself to Torah study; another is called holy because he risks his life for his beliefs. What difference does it make to me one way or the other? Why is this so important?
To put it another way—can you give an example of someone who is holy in your eyes?

As for Amnon Yitzhak, even a stopped clock… But in my opinion ad hominem is relevant neither for criticism nor for support.
These things make no sense at all in my opinion. You can hang everything on mysticism about which none of us (including the writers) knows anything whatsoever. But even if one accepts this mysticism, nothing follows from it regarding a person’s holiness. An unconscious choice is not a choice and has no significance. Moreover, in most of these cases there was not even an unconscious choice (a terror victim did not unconsciously choose to die). And if the Holy One, blessed be He, chose him, that does not make him holy (I commented on this in the post itself: a sign, not a cause).

This reminds me of Leibowitz’s words. If I remember correctly, he argued that one should not distinguish between the heroism of the Warsaw Ghetto rebels and the SS fighting them.
As for what holiness is and how it differs from morality, R. Shimon Shkop argued that altruism is holiness, contrary to what is claimed in the article.
According to Nahmanides’ definition that a holy person is one who abstains, then even someone who studied Torah and was seized and executed against his will should not be considered holy.

Chayota, this response suffers from the same flaw as the explanations I mentioned in the post. Even if you are right, this is relevant to the residents of the Gaza border area. It is not relevant to people who were simply killed because of their Judaism, as for example under the Nazis. So this is not an explanation of the principle that categorically determines that anyone killed because of his Judaism is holy. At most it is an expansion of the cases in which I admitted he is holy (if he acted on his own initiative).
Not to mention that those living in the border area or soldiers who fell in the army but do not believe in the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot be considered holy or as having died for the sanctification of God’s name, even if they actually and deliberately gave themselves over. There is no sanctification of God’s name in an act done unawares, just as in any other commandment there is no fulfillment in an act done unawares.
Beyond that, as I wrote, I do not accept the consequentialist criterion. If we did the same thing, we are holy to the same degree. The fact that he died and I did not says nothing about his holiness. Or else I too am holy, in which case there applies to us “And your people are all righteous,” meaning that the concept of a righteous or holy person is emptied of content.
What troubles me and brings me to discuss the question of holiness is the conceptual error behind this matter. Cheapening the concept of holiness empties it of content.
You ask who is considered holy in my eyes? That seems to me a strange question, since that is my whole claim in the post itself: someone who gave himself over for the sanctification of God’s name. After all, my whole argument here is that this is the holy person, not those who did not give themselves over but simply died. This is not my own opinion but what emerges from all the sources. I am willing to accept referring to someone as holy also if he sanctifies God’s name in his life (one need not die for this, as many have already pointed out in Maimonides). So long as it is done by his choice and with awareness of the consequences.

Leibowitz, as usual, takes a correct principle too far. It is true that heroism can be found anywhere, but not every heroism is holiness, and not every heroism deserves the same evaluation (heroism for an exalted value is not like heroism for an improper and despicable act).
As for everything else, I did not understand the remarks, and even less their connection to what I wrote.

Against the consequentialist criterion (which is unimportant in your view) and the criterion of choice/awareness (which is important in your view, and whose absence therefore ‘disqualifies’ holiness) that you mentioned, there stands the literary-symbolic criterion.
And I still haven’t understood what practical difference it makes.

I’m not familiar with a literary-symbolic criterion. Literature expresses something; it does not stand in place of an argument.
As I wrote, there is no practical difference here aside from truth. What is called in yeshivas a practical difference regarding a woman’s betrothal, or a practical difference regarding logic and common sense. And if there is no practical difference, then what practical difference is there in saying that all these people are holy? The statement that they are not holy stands against that.
I have seen an upside-down world: if someone speaks nonsense, let him speak. If someone says the truth, they ask him what practical difference it makes.

If an unconscious choice is not a choice, then there is no choice at all, because the neurological process in which a person becomes aware of his choice happens after the process in which he actually chooses. What I mean to say is that there may very well be choice on hidden planes in the human soul that are not conscious, and even from the beginning of his existence. Even if you are uncomfortable with such a picture, I don’t think you can really reject it with confidence. And I claim that such a picture exists in the conception of the Sages and the great figures of Israel, and that it accords with most of the God-fearing public in Israel, and that this carries great weight.
As for a terror victim, it is an unconscious choice that a person lives in a certain city and married a woman who asked him to bring some item for a child whom he chose to bring into the world, from a place and time of an attack. A choice that is cleaving to truth to the point that truth guides my life and a person’s conduct down to the details, as in Maimonides’ picture of providence. A righteous person is saved from an arrow in war because he moved his head backward. This mental and physical movement is a result of providence according to Maimonides, which is a result of the righteous man’s righteousness. It is a result of choice. And so I claim the opposite as well. A righteous person who finds himself in a place where an Israeli soldier will be harmed may very well have arrived there through a hidden choice, at least in part, and from that aspect he may be called holy.
And if you have no understanding of mysticism, who says that the great men of Israel and the public, who are sons of prophets, do not?

Who am I to argue with prophets?! Especially since, as has been clarified, I am merely on the level of Amnon Yitzhak, Heaven forbid.
Only regarding the decisive neurological facts you cited will I note that you are mistaken. See my book Maddei HaFreedom, in the chapter on Libet.
And only regarding the opinion of the great men of Israel will I note that here too you are mistaken. There is no such view until the inventions of the later generations. And the fact is that those who discussed this did not find any source either.
But apart from the opinions of halakhic decisors, the facts, and logic, of course you are right about everything. And as is well known, Israel after the destruction, they too are sons of prophets.

Rabbi Michi, regarding the neurological facts, I learned them from a new and up-to-date professional book. As for the view of the great men of Israel, how do you explain the Sages’ statement that creatures were created with their knowledge? How do you explain what the Bible and the Sages say about the superiority of Israel? Why is a Jewish baby who is born holy of holies according to the meaning that emerges from our sages’ words throughout the generations?
Likewise, even with Maimonides’ picture alone one can argue for the basis of my claim. And regarding Amnon Yitzhak, of course that was only in jest.

Maimonides’ picture with respect to providence*

You can throw the up-to-date book into the trash (I mean, of course, only that claim in it). It’s nonsense.
Everything else seems like Chinese to me. At least its connection to us.

It seems to me one should distinguish between holiness in the object and holiness in the person. Your analysis treats holiness as a characteristic of the person who died—and therefore almost by definition it must refer to something he did, said, or was; there is something in him that made him holy, and thus one arrives at all kinds of absurdities. But it seems to me that when people speak of those murdered in the Holocaust or those who fell defending the homeland as “holy,” they mean something slightly different—that we, the human beings who were left behind, cannot treat their deaths lightly. There is nothing specifically special in them as individuals that turns them into holy people in the way you would say of people who chose to give their lives or did deeds for the sake of Heaven (of course sometimes there is, yes? The point is that it is not there by definition)—but their deaths, even if they were simply killed by mistake, do carry a charge that obligates us to relate to them differently from an ordinary death, and this different relation is perceived as “holiness.” It may be that there is conceptual confusion here and what is really meant is simply a very great (secular) respect, but it seems to me that when people say “holiness” they do not mean “respect,” but really holiness—because the special relation to this death derives from a religious conception of our role or duty as Jews before the Holy One, blessed be He. Thus, for example, the death of a Jew in the Holocaust is different from the ordinary death of a Jew, because it is interpreted against the background of the historical and/or spiritual uniqueness of the Jewish people. In other words, I agree with everything you wrote, but I simply think that when people speak of the “holy martyrs of the Holocaust” or of fallen IDF soldiers as holy, this is only confusing terminology describing something that does exist and is related to concepts of holiness. I would only add that to my mind all this fails to bring under the umbrella of holiness soldiers who were killed in a car accident while returning home from an outing, for example (for all the sorrow over their deaths, yes? They are not IDF fallen but people who died who happened to be soldiers). And the very need I feel to make that remark shows me that there is indeed some need here to define and explain how one death differs from another, out of a sense that such a thing really exists.

In the end everything is binary: true, not true.

It is hard to discuss feelings, and that is not my intention here either. My claim is that in the accepted sense there is no holiness here. If one wants to pour a different meaning into it—that is a different discussion. I will touch on it in the next post.

Not binary at all. I wrote articles and a book about non-binary truth, and I am among the greatest opponents of dichotomy. But logic here does not pertain to dichotomy but to truth. My claim is not that the truth here is not pure and complete, but that there is not even a shred of truth here. It is complete nonsense. Therefore claims that truth is non-binary are irrelevant to the discussion. One simply has to think with one’s head and not with one’s gut.

Chinese because I’m talking about my argument, and from your previous response it is clear that you are returning to the simple argument you reject in the article. I claim that in the Sages’ conception there is a conception of choice existing on a hidden psychological plane in man. I brought proof from their statement that creatures were created with their knowledge and consent. And likewise from the concept of the holiness of Israel as understood in its plain sense in the Sages’ words—that a Jew really is holier, closer, and more precious to God than a gentile. A concept that is understandable only in light of recognizing a hidden plane of choice, namely their statement that creatures were created with their knowledge and consent. And likewise in accordance with Rav Kook’s words concerning hidden choice in his letters.
And even without all that, Maimonides’ picture of providence allows us to see events that happened to a person as a direct result of his righteousness or unrighteousness; that is, there is a picture of a direct connection between an event such as falling in war and a person’s choices. Maimonides’ example is the opposite, that a righteous person will not be harmed, but I am pointing to the principle.
And of course the main thing is that I follow the path of the Sages and the prophets, and you the path of Amnon Yitzhak 😉

First, I have already written more than once that the Sages have no authority in factual and philosophical matters. Only in halakhah.
But here there is no need for that, because there is not the slightest connection between the rabbinic statements you cited and the conclusion you inferred from them. The statements that Israel are holy are not because of hidden choice. Where did you get this bizarre interpretation from?! And from here to infer that this is the Sages’ view?! I have not seen such wild begging the question in a long time.
So what is it, then? There can be several interpretations. For example, that they have a holy and special role (holy in the sense of special). And that is the meaning of a treasured people in Scripture. Or that they have some potential such that if they choose the good they will attain holiness, and so on.
Your interpretation of the second saying is simply bizarre as well. How do you see hidden choices there?! Even Amnon Yitzhak would not be able to understand that.
The next stage is that you will prove this is the Holy One’s own position, for after all He explicitly wrote “And Lotan’s sister was Timna.”
In short: not the Sages, not prophets, and nothing of the sort. And of course not logic, not reasoning, and not facts. But as I said, aside from that you are on the right path.?

Regarding those killed in the Holocaust and terror victims—I agree, and I have been saying so for a long time. The label ‘holy’ is rather ridiculous in this context.
As for soldiers—I do not quite agree. Holiness is not morality, as Rabbi Michael himself points out. Holiness is exaltedness—something set apart from the ordinary and accorded elevated status, and therefore it is not necessarily connected to his intention, though there may be such a connection. Let me explain: when one speaks of someone who was murdered for being a Jew without having had any choice in the matter—in my humble opinion there is nothing uglier and more contemptible than that, and may we never come to that. But a person who chooses to risk his life in order to defend his country definitely serves as an example and model for his people, and it makes very good sense to call him ‘holy,’ since he is indeed distinguished by his actions from most human beings, who are not really prepared to risk their lives, and the act is valued by us and even considered exalted. True, there are those who do this and remain alive, and their reward will be paid from Heaven, but here they are mostly simply ignored. When such a person dies, naturally people suddenly think more about the act he did and the context in which he died, and thus ‘sanctify’ him (holiness says nothing intrinsic about him; in our context it is subjective in the eyes of the beholder. In my humble opinion all holiness is like this, though one can argue about that). Indeed, from this standpoint there is no difference between a Belgian and a Jew; rather, because we are Jews and live in a Jewish state, we relate to our soldiers as holy and not to soldiers who are unrelated to us.

However, an interesting question is whether he can be considered as one who died for the sanctification of God’s name—if he does not acknowledge God.
In my humble opinion here too it depends on the eyes of the beholder, and less on how the person who was killed understood it. If his death is perceived in society as magnifying God’s name, because people assume that even if he did not recognize it, deep down his strength of spirit sprang from faith—
then it would be correct to say that he died for the sanctification of God’s name, even if that was not at all what he intended. That of course does not mean he will not roast in hell, but those are calculations of the One enthroned on high and not ours.

That is what I meant by the symbolic-literary dimension.

You did not address my argument from the side of providence according to Maimonides.
How do you understand their statement that creatures were created with their knowledge and consent?
I must say that the large gap in this dialogue of the deaf between us is rather amusing. And continuing my line of self-congratulation, I think that same gap is what made it hard for you to understand the value in Bible study in your article from some time back, if I remember correctly. And by the way, how do you study aggadic midrashim, and what benefit do you derive from them?

It seems to me that one should distinguish between a soldier who entered the war with religious consciousness and died, and a soldier who entered the war and did not die, because only death illustrates and reminds us all of the immense sacrifice that religious soldiers make for His great name, and in this way sanctifies Heaven’s name.
Is that not so?

It is not clear to me whether you replied to me or to David. In any case, if you meant me—I did not understand how you replied. In my opinion I wrote about the ordinary concept of holiness (even if it does not necessarily fit the formal halakhic definitions).

Many thanks for words spoken truthfully and without varnish.

I think the assumption that every soldier (or civilian) who dies in war is holy is because people assume that these people potentially would have been prepared to die solely for being Jews, even if bad luck decreed that this is not why they were killed; thus you are saying that their holiness is potential and not actual.

In addition, I think this assumption comes from the mistaken fact (in my humble opinion) that every Jew killed in any way whatsoever is killed only because he is a Jew and not for any other reason; that is, the mistake is factual and not conceptual.

Still, perhaps one may derive from the concept of dying for the sanctification of God’s name that one who dies for a lesser value is somewhat holy or holy in another sense?

With God’s help, 2 Iyar 5779

To Rabbi M. A.—greetings,

Sources in the words of the Sages were brought in Rabbi Yitzhak Greenblatt’s article, “Those Killed by the Government,” on the “Lemaaseh” site of the Torah and the Land Institute. There is the Gemara about the martyrs of Lod who were killed because they gave themselves over for the people of Israel.

The rationale for this may be either because of the greatness of the act of self-sacrifice for the sake of the collective—the peak of altruism—which brings one to the level of the World to Come in the most complete form.

It may also be that one who gave his life for the collective is no longer judged as an individual but as a limb not separate from the collective, as halakhic authorities explained that in war one does not judge by the laws of preserving the life of the individual because individuals are nullified with respect to the collective.

And there is the Gemara that expounded the verse “They gave the corpse of Your servants…”—that they were wicked, but since they were killed they appear as “Your servants” (according to Abaye because they were killed unlawfully, and according to Rava because they did not die in the ordinary way).

A similar principle also exists in the law that “once he has been flogged, he is your brother”: at the peak of suffering the circle closes and the soul returns to its pure source.

With blessings, S. Tz. Levinger

The Holocaust was a desecration of God’s name, and therefore the claim that people died for the sanctification of God’s name in the Holocaust (and thereby fulfilled the commandment “I shall be sanctified”) is simply incorrect.

On the other hand, the reason they were killed was not incidental like a car accident. Hitler himself explains that Jews brought faith in God into the world, and therefore morality, and that in order to eradicate faith in God one must eradicate the Jews. That is, Hitler was an enemy of God, but since he could not kill God, he killed the signifiers of God in this world, namely the Jews. A signifier of God is one upon whom the name of the Lord is called, and one upon whom the name of the Lord is called is holy—not with holiness in the person, but with holiness in the object, like Torah scrolls, tefillin, mezuzot, or the Temple (the Mishnah tells that the Hasmoneans stored away the stones of the altar after they had been defiled by idolatry).

Those who are killed in the State of Israel are also not killed merely because it is a colonial, occupying state, and the like. Implicitly, people feel that opposition to the State of Israel is opposition to Judaism itself, which the state represents, whether it wishes to or not. When there are UN decisions and bodies specifically against the State of Israel, such as the demand for the return of the refugees and UNRWA, which maintains the refugees in an exceptional way unlike the rest of the refugees in the world (and Rashba already argued that a law directed specifically against Jews does not have the status of “the law of the kingdom is law”), and when Arabs kill Jews because they are Jews, then the killed have the status of holy in the object.

What I am claiming is explicit in verses in Psalms and elsewhere:
“O God, do not keep silence; do not hold Your peace or be still, O God. For behold, Your enemies make an uproar, and those who hate You have lifted up their head. They devise crafty schemes against Your people and conspire against Your treasured ones. They say, ‘Come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more’” (Psalm 83).
But the rabbi apparently does not bother to read Psalms.

Hello to Rabbi Michael.
Rav Kook, in the famous article “Our Slain on the Heights,” addresses the matter of a secular soldier who fell in battle out of the idea of national revival for the people of Israel in the land of Israel, and there he explicitly says that he should be called holy. Even after his inner hesitation, he continues to define holiness as their portion because of their self-sacrifice.
I would be happy to hear your response.

This is not a discussion that can be conducted before defining the term “holy,” or at least as it is used in this context.
It seems that in the present context the use of this word does not mean that the dead people were, in our terms, more moral, but rather that we receive inspiration from their image, which has become exalted for us, distinct, unique, and perhaps also more connected to the divine sphere.
When Aaron’s sons died, Moses says that God had already said of them, “Through those who are near Me I will be sanctified”—that is, through these people, whom the Sages did not trouble to conceal their disgrace in certain midrashim, they are considered “those near Me,” and they caused holiness to spread more and more. And by what did they merit this?
And here, with the continuation of my words, you will not be able to agree, for there is one letter in the Torah that it seems you are unwilling to accept, and that is the holiness in the souls of Israel and their customs. In your view it is not correct to say “they are sons of prophets,” for you are unwilling to extend even a finger toward that which perhaps may not be understood by you, even a little. In your view it is in heaven, beyond mountains of darkness of logical laws to which almost no one but you has access. In your view the Torah was not given to the people but to individuals, if at all.
It seems to me that the remnant of the people that Zion has chosen, as a whole, and not always consciously, chose to identify exaltedness—perhaps divine holiness—in people who were cut down in certain circumstances in recent generations, and thus the soul of the nation cries out that the deaths of these people are a case of “I shall be sanctified through those close to Me,” a case of increasing the manifestation of divinity in the world through those close to Him whom He took to Himself. And what is close, you may ask, in a person who chose to live like a gentile and was cut down against his will by the Nazis? Well—to know who is really close to the Creator and in what way that closeness is expressed is not possible, except in the general sense that the people of Israel are close and the persecuted one is close, for “God seeks the pursued.” But when you wrote: “Even if one can argue that sometimes the Holy One, blessed be He, does take a person to Himself, we have no way of knowing whether this is the situation in the case before us”—and indeed we have no way of knowing truly anything except this moment—that is only an expression of your choice not to believe living Israel, in whose hearts is the Torah (“in your mouth and in your heart”) and you choose the tree of knowledge, and you have cut yourself off from the collective; and what have we gained here, and what good is there in cutting a person off from his people?

On a somewhat different but still related matter: in your view, are objects (holy books, mezuzot, etc.) holy in and of themselves, or in this case too, if there is no “sanctifier” who sanctifies them by his intention, attitude, or actions, are they considered just a collection of pages and ink?

As for the substance of the matter, it is likely you will dismiss this and say, “How do you know?” but it is Torah, and if not you then perhaps someone else will find something in these speculations, and maybe it will illuminate something.
I think that in this period there is a very high divine revelation, and precisely from within the concealment.
Rabbi Nachman says that within the complete concealment, precisely there are the secrets of God.
And what is more of a secret of God than an ordinary human face? Than a forgotten name? The Nazis knew this and tried to erase the name and turn it into a number. The labor on Holocaust Remembrance Day is to read and say that every person has a name, and in the human face there is holiness.
This is not specifically a story of the small details, and the holiness of the murdered does not lie in their distinction from other people but in that they were chosen to be the symbol of the holiness of life itself in the Torah of Israel that is in the heart of Israel.
And what is holiness at all if not a thin screen through which divine selfhood shines, even a bit more? There is holiness, there is revelation of divinity, in the human face, and even more so if he is connected to Israel and the name of Israel is called upon him, whether as holy seed or as a resident alien in Israel.
The holy ones in Israel’s wars are, in my view, offshoots of this point, from which new growth sprouts, a new tree, of divine revelation from man to land and soil and the general building.

I do not argue about psychology. Clearly, one who gave his life on his own initiative is in a different status. I wrote that explicitly as well. The difference between someone who eventually died and someone who did not—has no meaning in my eyes (except psychologically).

Health to you. By that logic one can say of any nonsense someone says that he meant something symbolic-literary. You have taken away the meaning of statements altogether and the ability to discuss them and argue with them.

Yonatan, and in your opinion what is the plain meaning of the verse “And Lotan’s sister was Timna”? What is the connection at all?! See Rashi there.
And indeed, in my opinion too this is the same point underlying all these disputes: common sense is what prevents me from seeing the meaning in the holiness of someone killed for his Judaism, the meaning of aggadot, and the lessons of the Bible. What can I do? I have some caprice for logic and common sense. To each his own madness…

“It reminds us” is a psychological matter. To me, blue resembles the sea, which resembles the sky, which resembles the Throne of Glory—so is the color blue the Throne of Glory? Besides, the sea resembles royal garments. Associations are nice, but you can’t take them grocery shopping…

In the future, continue the thread to which you are responding. I already answered there.

Someone who is prepared to die is indeed holy (potentially, if you like). I am not talking about those cases.
I am also not dealing with the question whether every Jew is killed because of his Judaism. In my opinion, even if he is killed because of his Judaism, he is not holy. Therefore the dispute is normative and not factual.
Why not? As long as it is a religious value. But then it is always sanctification of God’s name. Someone who is killed for a value is a person of values, but sanctification of God’s name is a concept that belongs to the religious semantic field.

S.Tz.L., I do not know the article, and I would be very surprised to see even one source for this absurd idea. I would be happy if you would bring one such source. The martyrs of Lod are not connected to this even by the thinnest thread. They gave themselves over to save Israel. Later authorities indeed bring them as proof, but that is nonsense.
In the rest of your remarks you are only repeating what I wrote, that holiness can be attributed only to a person whose actions involve self-sacrifice. I was talking about those who did not.

I do not agree with your analogy. The fact that the Holocaust was a desecration of God’s name does not mean that someone who died in it could not sanctify God’s name. It is true that the death itself did not sanctify God’s name, but that is so even if the Holocaust had not been a desecration of God’s name, because someone who dies for his Judaism does not sanctify God’s name. That is all.
If everyone upon whom God’s name is called is holy in the object (in my view, not so, and certainly not those who do not live that way), still there is no connection to their being killed.
You will not find in all of Psalms even a hint of this absurd principle, which even you do not agree with. So I do not understand your logic. But if your conclusion comes from Psalms, then that is truly another reason not to engage in this. Drawing such absurd conclusions only proves my claims about Bible study.

My response is written right there in the post above. What more do you want me to say? Or perhaps in your opinion Rav Kook’s words were given to Moses at Sinai, or are from “the secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him”? In what way is he better than all the other later authorities who write this absurd thing and whom I do not accept?! By the way, regarding these statements of his (such as the pioneers draining the swamps, who supposedly fulfill the commandment of settling the Land of Israel unknowingly), I have already written several times about how absurd they are.

First, yes, one can conduct it. The question is whether their actions were an act of sanctifying God’s name. That is a halakhic question. And the answer is: no.
I also do not draw any inspiration from Holocaust victims or fallen IDF soldiers. I draw inspiration from someone who acted on his own initiative and paid a price he took into account. But those indeed can be considered holy (at least if they did it with the motivation of sanctifying God’s name).
Indeed, I do not accept—and in fact do not understand—the holiness in the souls of Israel. I assume that you do not understand it either, so first set yourself right and define the term. I am speaking about the act of sanctifying God’s name, and therefore I have no interest in barren discussion of these vague matters.
You may be surprised, but in my opinion too the Torah was given to the public. You may not believe it, but I even wrote about this in several places. I only claim that each individual within that public wears two hats: a limb of the collective and an individual. Some people forget one, and some the other.
The rest of the people in Zion chose to identify exaltedness in people who are not exalted in any sense. Good for them. I can choose to see the angles of a triangle in every circle. If I speak about it with pathos and say that you do not understand the root of the matter, does that make it more logical? Or more acceptable?
I have a hard time coping with slogans. I usually try to speak in arguments. Certainly with someone who began his message by saying there is a need to define terms.

They are sanctified because the Holy One, blessed be He, determined that they are sanctified. But they did not do an act of sanctifying God’s name. You are mixing apples and oranges.

A song like that should be written in rhyme (and perhaps set to music). At least then people will not look for arguments in it.
Forgive the sarcasm, but what am I supposed to do with words that assert nothing?

Who are you, Michael Abraham, if not a random combination of a name and a face and a shifting, changing memory? Why should I bother addressing you, since the combination of those three together means nothing to me? You are like a number. And you could have been any other number. A generation ago you could also have engraved your number on your hand.
And perhaps you are a song, which thinks it is a rhyme unto itself, when in fact it is nothing.
And perhaps you really are a song, a revelation of the image of God, and perhaps there is something rhyming and unified in you that makes you more than just a random combination. And perhaps your name has meaning beyond the fact that it is rather strangely attributed to the molecules that make up the body attributed to the consciousness reading these words.
Your sarcasm is not an argument, pardon me, and your unwillingness to understand anything that is not measurable is merely one detached trait that makes you up, and certainly has no ownership of the truth.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is the choice of the people of Israel to be not at all what you are trying to represent.

There is much to answer in these remarks, some in agreement and some not. But I will suffice with one point, namely that we find in the Sages that they offered empty consolations (for example, Ketubot 10b) and things said “to settle his mind,” and from this it follows that rabbis too are sometimes permitted to give calming pills and even placebo pills (or placeebo—what is actually the correct Hebrew spelling?).
As the son of a bereaved family myself, I know that sometimes these “empty consolations” (if they are indeed empty) are the only thing keeping bereaved parents, widows, and others alive, literally! True, I do not need this, but for others, for whom this is their only consolation—why destroy it?
As stated, I have much more to answer as well, but I do not currently have the time, and it is a shame.

The dispute of Abaye and Rava about one who died while still wicked—when does he gain atonement—is in Sanhedrin 47a; and see Menachem Rubinstein’s article, “Those Killed by the Government,” Alon Shevut 48.

With blessings, S. Tz. Levinger

Indeed, this explanation is common, and I also mentioned it in my remarks. I am against empty consolations, unless the situation is hopeless and without them people will go completely downhill. Especially when these empty consolations dull an entire public mind and raise it on nonsense. Nowadays it does not at all seem that anyone thinks these are empty consolations but that one must nevertheless do it in order to save someone. It sounds like the Torah truth (just see the responses here on the site). And that is exactly the price of ignoring my arguments. This brings us back to the issue of holy lies (discussed in one of the first posts).

The Mishneh Halakhot that I cited (vol. 16, sec. 121) brings this proof from Abaye and Rava. Completely absurd, of course. There the issue is whether he achieved atonement and therefore people mourn him, not whether he is holy or whether he sanctified God’s name. The fact that a person died atones for him—this is the sugya of the categories of atonement in Yoma. But there is a difference between saying that death is a substitute punishment that atones, and saying that he sanctified God. By the way, I also mentioned this in the post.

Avi, sorry for butting in.
The point is that your mode of argument interests me (I admit the subject itself is not close to my heart at all).
From what I understood in your remarks, the main reason for accepting the holiness of those dead is a social decision of the Jewish people or something like that.
That seems to me a very lame justification, even on your own terms. The people of Israel and/or any other public in history have often been led astray by various ideas.
It is not clear to me why you propose listening to the voice of the masses in this case. Is this a kind of “wisdom of crowds”?

Doron: I think there is great depth in this wisdom of the masses too, and I tried to explain a little.
But that depth can be explained only to someone who in any case feels it, or some impression of it. To someone who from the outset decides to see this as crude mass-thinking, I have nothing more to add.
A Holocaust survivor can declare emotionally that victory over the Nazis lies in the continuation of life, and I would add that the ability to see holiness in life itself is also a victory, including and especially in the lives of those cut down in that war, which is far more than a war over the body alone—and foolish is the one who thinks it ended 70 years ago.
The cynic will say, what does that have to do with victory? The ones who actually won were the Allies, and he will not be willing to see any content beyond the dead matter before his eyes, and I too will have nothing to say to him.

Avi,
1. The assumption that the view you are contending with is “cynical” is mistaken in my opinion. Of course there are also people who, out of their cynicism, would want to deny the holiness of those dead. So what? The argument still stands, and it is with that that you must contend. In any case, Michi’s claim does not seem to me to come from a cynical place, and if so it does not seem fair to assume in advance that you come from a “cleaner” place than he does.
2. It seems from your remarks that you are not impressed by Jewish sources, and the Sages are not good enough support for you. Michi presented supports, and it is with them that you must contend. As a religious Jew, I would actually expect you to relate more seriously to those sources. No?
3. In your view, “the wisdom of crowds” says what you believe it says. In practice, it is far from certain that the masses throughout Jewish history actually held such a position. To know what they really held over the generations, you should at least bring examples. From your remarks here it seems this is not even important to you. Moreover, the masses in the precise sense also include the non-Jewish public. Do you really take into account the views of the Chinese, Indians, etc.?
4. The most important point: apparently when you speak of “feelings” you mean intuitions. In any case, it seems to me that you yourself undermine your intention to single out that intuitive capacity so precious to you. It is very easy to confuse instincts, emotions, and impulses with intuition. From your remarks it seems you are not worried at all about such confusion. You tell us what your “feelings” are (and those of others). But are you really talking about the basic intuitions within your soul? In that sense, it is not the intuitive faculty that you sanctify but rather other faculties, and even deficient ones.
5. The last point is less important, but in my opinion may be instructive. I myself am thoroughly secular, and from that standpoint the question of holy people and their status interests me about as much as the peel of a garlic clove in last year’s snow. Perhaps (just perhaps) this fact makes it easier for me to approach the topic objectively, since what intrigued me from the outset was mainly the methodological considerations in the background of your argument.

What is truth worth if it creates an inferior reality? Why is creating a more embracing reality for bereaved families, to whom we all owe so much, something invalid just because the truth does not hold in every tiny detail? We pray at least three times a day. Do you have any doubt whether the prayer “Heal us” really contributes to your health? Since the answer is no, would it then be right not to say the blessing “Who hears prayer”? For the sake of truth, of course. Or does halakhic obligation override issues of truth and falsehood?

Someone who dies for his Judaism just like that is not called one who sanctifies God’s name in the person (he does not fulfill the commandment “I shall be sanctified”), but he is holy in the object. He signified God’s name in the world and therefore died. The Gemara says that “one who stands by the dead at the moment the soul departs is obligated to rend his garments—to what is this comparable? To a Torah scroll that has been burned” (Shabbat 105b).
True, the halakhic authorities say this refers to a proper person, but the Hagahot Asheri writes that even an apostate killed by gentiles has this status. If the gentiles killed him because of his Judaism, he is like a Torah scroll that was burned. He signified God’s name in the world to a degree that brought the gentiles to kill him, and therefore he returns and receives the status of a holy object.

The verse says, “You shall not do so to the Lord your God.” The Gemara in Megillah distinguishes between a holy object, upon which God’s name rests (sacred writings and their accessories), to which the prohibition applies, and an object of commandment, which merely serves a commandment and may be thrown in the trash. From the storing away of the altar stones we learn that God’s name is not only on an object such as sacred writings but also on a person in the relation to a place as belonging to God—God’s house, God’s altar—which applies the prohibition to them. From the Gemara in Yoma 69 we learn that the awe of the Shekhinah remains in the world even after the destruction of the Temple through the continued existence of the people of Israel, and therefore we continue to say “awesome.” In place of the house of God there is the people of God, but the revelation of God’s name in the world remains, and with it the awe of the Shekhinah. From the Gemara comparing the death of a Jew to the burning of a Torah scroll, the circle is complete—the Jew is a holy object, and if he dies one rends one’s garments for him.

I don’t know if that is enough, and perhaps I would learn more if I read less Psalms (just joking; I only read the monthly division), but the argument is not as absurd as the rabbi claims.

And still my heart hesitates within me whether the rabbi isn’t right and whether they haven’t gone a bit too far with holiness inflation. Only yesterday I saw the following line:
The four slain, of blessed martyr memory—religious, Arab, ultra-Orthodox, secular
Now an Arab has been included in the package as well…

This is one of the more bizarre messages I’ve read here. Especially the link to “Heal us.” But let us leave it aside.

Why bizarre? After all, the rabbi does not entertain the idea that saying “Heal us” changes his health. Why, then, is saying “for You hear the prayer of every mouth” not a lie in your view?

First, it may help sometimes. I cannot rule that out completely. Second, I can direct my intention toward others. Third, there is a halakhic obligation here, and what is the comparison between that and a social custom? Fourth, if I do indeed reach the conclusion that it does not help—I will not say it despite the halakhic obligation. That is because such a statement has no meaning, and I do not fulfill my obligation if it is clear to me that it is not true. That is much worse than prayer without intention. There is no prayer here at all, only lip movement. I think I could come up with further bugs in this strange analogy, but I will leave it at that.

I would not call it common sense. I would say it is glorifying the empty tool called logic to the point of disconnecting it from the raw material it is supposed to clarify and serve, namely human desire and aspiration. You are so focused on the tools that the lights sometimes seem to you like coarse and dark raw material, lacking meaning, justification, and purpose, whereas it is the very matter itself, reality and truth itself. If we merit it, logic will describe the outlines of will and knowledge properly while we remain focused on knowing them themselves.

Yonatan, this discussion really requires patience. You are presenting almost a stereotype of slogans that I no longer have the strength to hear (forgive me, but that truly is the situation). I mean those who keep coming back and telling me that logic is not everything (while at the same time also saying it is everything, and also both, and also neither).
Logic is a necessary but not sufficient condition for truth. What is not logically consistent is nonsense. What is consistent is not necessarily true. In that sense logic really is not everything, and I have never claimed otherwise. I certainly have not written or assumed that here in any way.
After all, here we are not talking at all about logic in the sense of formal logic, but about straight thinking (= common sense), exactly as I wrote. When I say that a person who made no decision and did nothing on his own initiative cannot be considered holy just because something happened to him, that is not a logical argument. It is a claim from plain reasoning (= common sense). So what is the connection between that and viewing logic as everything?

What does prayer for others have to do with this? The question is whether you believe that the mechanism of prayer affects those objects for which I pray. I understood from the rabbi, both from past posts and from private correspondence, that the rabbi is highly skeptical regarding the influence of the mechanism of prayer on reality (empirically too this is hard to see), and since you certainly cannot determine unequivocally about the effect of prayer (you will have an inclination one way or the other just as now), the declaration that “if I reach the conclusion that prayer does not help, etc.” is just a declaration that is irrelevant, because all the evidence already points in the direction of no effect, so what exactly would suddenly cause the rabbi to be convinced? In any case, if I did not understand the rabbi’s previous remarks (regarding the regular ability of prayer to have an effect), then my apologies, and the analogy indeed turns out to be poor.

You spoke about “Heal us.” That is a general prayer and not for a specific person. Therefore I wrote that there is a remote possibility of an effect on me or on others. I have no indication of such an effect, but there is no logical contradiction or anything impossible here. Therefore that is not enough to uproot a halakhic obligation. When I become convinced that prayer does not help at the same level that someone who simply died in the Holocaust was not holy, I will not pray. That is all. The differences are self-evident, and I do not understand these ongoing casuistic discussions.

P.S. The claim that it is not false because one cannot rule out the efficacy of prayer completely can also be made regarding those Jews who did not observe Torah and commandments and at the moment of death decided to repent and die for the sanctification of God’s name. You prove that that did not happen (I am referring to those soldiers killed in battle).

I’m stopping here. I am sure that if you bother to think on your own, you will understand the distinction in one second.

And the rabbi addresses the halakhic obligation but ignores the moral obligation of gratitude to those who, at the end of the day, paid the price we all agreed to pay. Part of that recognition, at least in my humble opinion, is the possibility of easing their reality with a hope of a slightly rosier reality (but as I said, one possible on the theoretical level, certainly when speaking of soldiers who fought in battle).

I agree that this is not really logic, but the principle is the same. I am pointing to a deep intuitive knowledge that I and many others trust. I also explained it, in my humble opinion, in a deep and unique way. You dismiss it simply because you do not see it. From your perspective it simply does not exist, even though you have no argument that refutes it. This is the same psychological movement as those for whom the biological or physical plane of man is clear and stands at the center of their consciousness and research, and therefore they arrive at denying free choice and a spiritual plane. It is the same movement of judging by logic alone because of excessive attention to the sharpness and clarity that characterize it, which leads to contempt for intuitive judgment and cognition. The difference is quantitative. I claim, on the basis of deep philosophical foundations—held by little me, and, to distinguish, by some of the great figures of Israel, and in my claim even by the Sages—that there is a plane of hidden choice connected to providence and God’s governance, which has implications for our matter. You contemptuously dismiss this cognition/apprehension simply because you do not see/recognize this picture clearly. You will claim common sense, and deniers of spirituality/the soul will likewise claim rationality, honesty, and straightness. The difference is quantitative. I did not mean to weary you, Heaven forbid, although that is what happened. I do not usually bother, or trouble others, to confront this subject because of the great gap, but this time I said to myself I would try. I saw your honesty, patience, humor, and nerves of steel, and so I was not so worried about burdening you 🙂 Don’t worry, I’ll stop my arguments here 😉

I am not discussing here the precise meaning of the word “holy,” but there is certainly something special about these dead from two angles:
A. Just as the State of Israel remembers all the fallen soldiers of the IDF and victims of hostile acts, even if they did not do it by choice, and it does not honor road accident victims on the same level, because they are victims who died as a result of the war in the state, and for that very reason—that they were there—it understandably sees them as special and preferred victims, so too with the Holy One, blessed be He: someone who dies because he belongs to the people of God and in the context of the war against God is a special dead person from the standpoint of our conception as the people of God, and our attitude toward him is different.
B. Even though this person did not do it by choice, he is a descendant of those who set themselves up as the people of God with all that that entails and tied their fate to this destiny, even if they or their descendants would die. And if so, in his death a person dies because of the decision to follow God, and although this was not his choice, that does not contradict that he died for the sanctification of God’s name—just as it would make sense that an infant whom his mother, by choice, handed over to death rather than to be converted to Christianity could be seen as having died for the sanctification of God’s name, even though it was not by his choice, because the very fact of his death was by force of the decision to follow the Holy One, blessed be He, though it was not his own decision.
The author of the article began with the assumption that dying for the sanctification of God’s name is connected to the esteem we have for the dead person, and therefore he argued as he did, but it does not seem to me that anyone [sensible] ever claimed that.

Doron! You’re thoroughly secular and you keep dealing with Mount Sinai and the argument from testimony! Good for you! That only proves your soul was there, and the reason you are not religious is perhaps because the event did not happen…

1. On the contrary, I hope my reading is mistaken and there is no cynicism here. In any case, you are right that one should respond to the arguments themselves, and I did, I believe.
2. Rabbi Michi completely dismisses any rabbinic saying that does not seem right to him, even one with clear halakhic value, and first and foremost the rule “if they are not prophets, they are the sons of prophets,” whose halakhic implication is “go out and see what the people are doing,” and a cornerstone of his method is that the masses are foolish and one cannot learn anything from them in any way. In any case, I am not addressing the halakhic side of sanctifying God’s name at all, but the essential side in the specific context that God’s name is sanctified through those close to Him, similar to Aaron’s sons and as I wrote above; and as far as I can tell, the textual supports do not contradict this. If there is one that does in your opinion, you are invited to present it.
3. I indeed think something significant was renewed in the last generation, and if you still demand support, we find that the Sages checked among the masses whether it was fitting for an innovation to be accepted or not, since a decree that did not spread among Israel is automatically null. As for the continuation of your question, the wisdom of crowds says nothing if it does not concern you. For example, I do not see a commandment to light a barbecue on Independence Day. By contrast, commemorating the fallen seems to me in some sense sacred work, and not only because the masses chose it. And as to whether there is a difference between Israelis and Chinese—well, about the Chinese it was not said, “in your mouth and in your heart to do it.”
4. True, it is easy to get confused; only you know what touches the point of truth within you and what is mere cover-up. I do my part, and if you were not persuaded, you are welcome to move on. Incidentally, every morality whatever is a product of intuition, and only you can feel whether its source is faithful or counterfeit.
5. Now I understand that this discussion is not important to you. Well, to me it is. I did not come to play philosophical acrobatics or to sharpen concepts that cannot be used for anything. I am speaking about what seems to me foundational to life itself.
So best of luck to you.

You slipped into the tune that you would have prayed with the apostate who died from the missile. I didn’t understand: A. If he was an apostate, what was he doing in the synagogue? What kind of synagogue is that?!?! Haha (or perhaps the rabbi answering the responsum referred to the question generally and broadened the scope). B. Was anyone actually killed directly by a Scud missile in the Gulf War? The myth says he died of a heart attack and not directly from the missile—which strengthens the miracle that no one was hurt. By the way, was your feeling that there was indeed a statistical miracle there? (Here, for example, is the defense minister’s testimony about the miracle foreseen in advance by the Lubavitcher Rebbe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs6IUzy6TLA)

And now to the matter itself: there are two different points in the post. Regarding the first, namely the holiness of the dead, I have no source to support it. But with respect to the essential difference between the dead of Israel and the Belgian soldier, it seems there are quite a number of midrashic sources. For example:

“What is ‘and He did not forget the cry of the humble’? He does not forget the blood of Israel at the hands of the nations of the world. And not only the blood of the righteous, but everyone who is killed in times of persecution… R. Abbahu in the name of R. Elazar said: Every righteous person whom the nations of the world kill, the Holy One, blessed be He, writes him in His purple robe, as it says, ‘He will judge among the nations, filling with corpses.’ And the Holy One, blessed be He, says to the nations of the world: Why did you kill My righteous ones, such as R. Hanina ben Teradyon and all those killed for the sanctification of My name? And they deny it and say: We did not kill them. Immediately the Holy One, blessed be He, brings His purple robe, judges them, and gives them their sentence. Thus, ‘and He did not forget the cry of the humble.’
And another one:
‘He will judge among the nations, filling with corpses; He will crush the head over a broad land. He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore He will lift up the head’: ‘He will judge among the nations, filling with corpses’—our rabbis said: Every soul and soul that Esau killed from Israel, the Holy One, blessed be He, as it were took from the blood of each and every soul and dipped His purple garment into it until it was dyed with blood. And when the day of judgment arrives and He sits upon His tribunal to judge him, He wears that purple garment and shows him the body of every righteous person marked upon it, as it says, ‘He will judge among the nations, filling…’ ‘O God of vengeance… corpses.’ At that time the Holy One, blessed be He, takes twofold vengeance upon him, as it says, ‘O Lord, God of vengeance, shine forth,’ and in the future rivers will flow from the blood of the wicked, and the bird will come to drink from the brook of blood, as it says, ‘He will drink from the brook by the way.’ What is ‘therefore He will lift up the head’? When it comes to drink, the brook makes waves and the wave comes to sweep it away, and it lifts up its head. David said: Praise and thanksgiving I give You for all this; therefore it is said, Hallelujah.”

And many more like these are brought in Yehuda Liebes’s article https://liebes.huji.ac.il/files/helena.pdf

Doron! You’re thoroughly secular and you keep dealing with Mount Sinai and the argument from testimony! Good for you! That only proves your soul was there, and the reason you are not religious is perhaps because the event did not happen…?! (read: as above)

Why an apostate? He was a proper Jew, the prayer leader in the synagogue. Of Turkish origin, he knew all the liturgical rites.
All the sources you brought speak about a Jew who was murdered because of his Judaism. The difference between him and a gentile who simply died is understandable. Even if the Jew does not sanctify God’s name, the Holy One, blessed be He, avenges his blood. By the way, if there were a Belgian killed for being Belgian merely out of the killer’s wickedness, I do not know what his status would be in the eyes of the Holy One. But none of this really matters, because my argument regarding Belgium is an argument from plain reasoning. As for the sources, I claimed only that there are no sources about the holiness of someone killed because he is Jewish.

And what about the miracle from the Chabad Rebbe? You didn’t address that.

What is there to say about the “miracle”? A perfectly plausible statistical occurrence, and even that did not really happen except with excuses attached to it (that those who died did not die from the missiles. Only incidentally). With excuses like that I can predict what will happen in the whole universe in the next millennium.

Unlike the rabbi, I think that on this issue, and on many others, we must return to the foundations—that is, to the Bible (in general, if we assume that the Bible is the text spoken by God in the most direct way—as believed by the Sages, Maimonides, and nearly all the sages of Israel throughout the generations—then obviously any discussion of faith or halakhah must begin there).

In the Bible we find three kinds of sanctification of God’s name.

The first pertains only to one who chose to sanctify Heaven’s name, and it appears in the verse, “You shall not profane My holy name, and I shall be sanctified among the children of Israel,” and in Maimonides’ laws of sanctifying God’s name. This type of sanctification is not relevant to the discussion (for even the rabbi agrees that one who sanctified God by choice is considered holy), and therefore I will not discuss it.

The second is sanctification of God’s name that comes as a result of a national disaster intended to convey some message (not always known) of awe and honor toward God to the entire people. This is the sanctification of God’s name mentioned in the death of Nadav and Avihu—“Through those who are near Me I shall be sanctified, and before all the people I shall be glorified.” This is the sanctification of God’s name by which the holy martyrs of the Holocaust died, and everyone who dies in another national disaster as well, even though not by his own choice. Victims of traffic accidents and the like are not relevant, because their disaster is usually not perceived as national, and the verse “before all the people I shall be glorified” does not apply to them.

The third type appears in Ezekiel 20. Ezekiel describes there how God wanted several times to destroy the people, but each time refrained because of desecration of God’s name. And indeed the Sages said that exile is the greatest desecration of God’s name. Fallen IDF soldiers, and all the other fighters who prevented with their bodies a return of the people of Israel to the disgrace of exile, sanctify God’s name, regardless of whether they chose it. They sanctified God in the very fulfillment of their role, which prevents the desecration of His name.

It seems to me that nearly everyone whom we call “holy” or say “died for the sanctification of God’s name” falls into one of these last two categories. Of course there are also those who belong to both (the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, for example).

The rabbi asked why we do not call living IDF soldiers holy. The answer is quite simple: a living person is made up of commandments and transgressions, and it is hard to call a person who desecrates the Sabbath, for example, holy, even if in the army he does sacred work. But when a person dies, it is customary to bring into the equation the circumstances of his death and not only his life. Thus, for example, one can say that Nadav and Avihu sinned, and yet call them holy, because the sanctification of God’s name that came about through their death (as I explained above) somewhat overshadows their sin. Since fallen IDF soldiers died in defense of us and of the sanctity of His blessed name, we call them holy even if in their lives not all their deeds conformed to God’s will. Their death for God’s sanctity somewhat overshadows the less desirable deeds they did in their lives. (Of course this determination too is not simple, and Rav Kook struggled with it greatly in his article “Our Slain on the Heights.” But this is what was accepted in the people of Israel almost without dissent.)

Gil
I tell myself that you meant to compliment me. It is convenient for me to believe that.

Hello Rabbi,
In principle I would not have posted the following quotation here, especially since the remarks here require serious explanation,
but a Holocaust survivor whom I met these days referred me to them,
so I will add them to the slim collection of sources.

Sefer Hasidim, section 222:
There is one who is killed for the sanctification of God’s name, and there are righteous people who are not killed for the sanctification of God’s name but die by Heaven’s hand in their beds; yet had they lived in a time of persecution they would have been killed. Why should they lose out? Rather, some of the reward is reduced for them by the benefit that they should not come to that, so that they may live and bear children. And those who are killed have more reward than they, corresponding to the life of this world that they did not receive. And the attribute of justice rises to make a claim against the wicked: if He had brought them to a test and trial, they would not have been able to stand and accept punishment in place of the trial they could not withstand. And the righteous can say: the righteous have reward, for it is revealed and known to You that if we had come to a trial we would have been able to stand and would not have sinned. Many Jews are killed in a time of decree, and many resolved to be killed and were saved. And a certain Jew named Rabbi Shabbtai saw in a dream one of the slain, named Rabbi Shabtai. Rabbi Shabtai the slain one said: all those who resolved in their hearts to be killed for the sanctification of God’s name—their portion is with us in the Garden of Eden.

A. When Arabs carry out a terror attack, their aim is to murder Jews or undermine the sovereignty of the state of the Jews.
B. Every attack has chances of success, and the people who are harmed are random. It just as well could have been us / someone else.
C. But after the statistical calculation, there is someone who paid the price. And there is someone who remained alive.
D. The emotional obligation of a person who remained alive is not merely some fake feeling, but stems from the fact that in some sense the fallen person replaced the living one.
E. Since life here in the Jewish state, and Jewish life itself, is almost necessarily accompanied by mortal danger, one must honor and remember those who indeed paid the price with their lives.
F. This honor that we accord them, the feeling of obligation to ensure that their deaths were not in vain—this is the “holiness.”

And from combining the two Gemaras—the sinner who was killed has had his sins atoned for (and not only that, but he is called in Scripture “Your pious ones and Your servants”…) and he also gave his life for the collective—in this he rises to the supreme level of “those killed by the government, before whom no creature can stand,” even if he was an ordinary person like Pappos and Lulianus.

With blessings, S. Tz.

To Rabbi Michi,
You wrote in quite a few responses here that you oppose adopting a false idea that brings benefit (“empty consolations”), especially if it is an idea that stupefies an entire generation.
The idea of adopting useful beliefs (not necessarily true ones) is already raised by Maimonides in Guide of the Perplexed, part 3, chapter 28:

“So too the Torah calls for certain beliefs whose belief is necessary for the sound ordering of political states, such as our belief that He, exalted be He, is angered by one who rebels against His command, and therefore one must fear, dread, and beware of sin…” (Schwartz edition, p. 518. Maimonides distinguishes there between “true beliefs” and “beliefs necessary for the correction of political states.”)

Clearly this is not entirely similar to our case, but one can certainly learn from here the principle of adopting an idea that is not necessarily true because of the benefit created by adopting it. In our case, it seems that quite a few people find comfort when their slain relatives are referred to as holy. I assume you would certainly agree that this is, on the whole, a good result (reducing suffering in the world), but you nevertheless oppose it because in your view holding this belief stupefies the masses and causes damage. I do not understand what damage might arise from holding this belief beyond the damage of “believing something incorrect” (which we have already explained is quite okay if it brings benefit), so I would be glad if you could explain to me what real damage is created by holding this incorrect opinion.

Moving from one matter to another on the same topic:
In his book The Idea of the Holy, Rudolf Otto describes holiness as an intense emotional experience found in every religion. One need not agree with all his conceptions, but there is no doubt that the concept of holiness exists at least in the minds of human beings as an experience they have when they encounter something they perceive as holy. You go further and claim that there is objective holiness in the world; that is, there are objects that would be holy even if there were no human beings to perceive them as such, and since these dead people do not contain holiness, you object to using this word to describe them. But if human beings experience an experience of holiness on Memorial Day—how can you even tell them they are mistaken? You can tell them, “In terms of halakhic categories, this is not what is supposed to arouse in you the feeling of holiness, and you are not supposed to relate to it as something holy,” but there is nothing to do about it—they experience holiness; it exists in them in a real way. By the same token, you could say to a color-blind person, “In terms of color categories, you are not supposed to see this color as purple but as blue,” but there is nothing to do about it—he sees blue, and therefore he will use the word blue to describe what he sees.

In addition, how does your conception incorporate the idea that “Israel sanctify the times” (Berakhot 49a)? According to the view I presented earlier, this is very simple—the experience of holiness is created by the people, and that is what determines what is holy. According to your view, will you have to say, “God sanctifies what Israel choose to sanctify”? A somewhat strange sentence in my eyes.

Even if I accept your claim regarding the Bible, I do not see what you found there. What message was the Holocaust meant to convey? Zionism, as the thinkers of religious Zionism believe, or perhaps anti-Zionism, as the anti-Zionists believe? There is no message there except for the great desecration of God’s name that was there. Therefore, according to your third criterion, the whole Holocaust is nothing but one huge, absolutely gigantic desecration of God’s name.
As for the third homiletic insight together with its appendix, I see no need to respond.
And beyond all this, there still remains the question how there can be sanctification of God’s name by atheists, and what the difference is, if any, between Jewish soldiers and gentiles in the IDF. In addition, even if the result is sanctification of God’s name (and usually that is not true either, as stated), what place is there to regard those who did it incidentally (without their own initiative and decision) as holy?

First, even if Maimonides says this, I disagree with him. But clearly, even if these are his words, there is still no source from there for our matter.
Second, even if you are right, at most you are saying that a false idea is being adopted here for the public’s benefit. So you are not disputing that it is false, and that is my main claim. The question of disseminating holy lies is a policy question, and I dealt with it in one of the first posts. I indeed reject it outright, especially in our day (when information is open to all and esotericism does not exist).
Third, I have no argument with people’s delusions. I am making two claims: these people are not holy, and their deeds are not sanctification of God’s name. All the other delusions are the business of the deluded. A person can tell me that he feels holiness when standing before a telephone pole. How can I argue with his feelings?! He does indeed feel it. But there is no holiness there. I can also feel love toward triangular fairies with wings; that does not mean there are such fairies. Someone else may feel that he is Napoleon. Can you argue with him? That is indeed what he feels. But he is not Napoleon.

The remark from the sanctification of the times is really absurd.
1. Even if you are right that Israel sanctify time, there it was explicitly innovated that time is given over to the court. If the court is correct in its sanctification, then there is no problem at all, because it is only a procedure. But there it was innovated that even if the court is not correct, Heaven ratifies it (“whether you err, act deliberately, or are coerced”). Does that mean that every delusion receives objective and real validity and Heaven ratifies it?! If people decide that now is the 12th century, or that you are an angel, will Heaven ratify that? Where are these strange ideas drawn from?!
2. If Israel sanctify the times in your absurd (delusional-subjective) sense, then there is no holiness in any time (in my view), or there is holiness in telephone poles (in your view). Health to you.
3. By the way, in my opinion there it is not even speaking about holiness in the sense we are dealing with here. Sanctifying the month is not applying holiness to the month, but designating and establishing it as a special month (distinct from the previous one). So the holiness of times that Israel produce, in my opinion, has nothing to do with the concepts of holiness we are dealing with. In the context of times, holy = marked, distinguished. But that is only a parenthetical note. For our matter it is irrelevant in any way because of the previous points.

A. The only thing that emerges from the verses is that there is here an event intended to cause increased honor and awe of God, “and before all the people I shall be glorified.” This is true also in great disasters, as explained in the war of Gog and Magog, at the end of chapter 38 in Ezekiel. We cannot know what the specific message is, and it is not at all certain that there is such a message.

B. The Holocaust was sanctification of God’s name in one sense, and a terrible desecration of God’s name in another sense, as I explained.

C. You can call it a homiletic flourish, but what I brought are the plain meanings of the verses. Does the rabbi have a more plausible interpretation?

D. Nadav and Avihu can be considered holy in the sense that God’s name was sanctified through them, even if they did not choose this and even if in a certain sense they were sinners. The very fact that they were victims of a national disaster grants them this title. By the same token one can say that the martyrs of the Holocaust are holy.
Also in the second sense of sanctification of God’s name, namely preventing the disgrace of exile, we say that one who by his body prevented a return to exile (in a certain sense) and contributed to raising the stature of Israel has holiness in him even if he did not choose it, because what matters is the results of his actions.

E. In my humble opinion there is no difference between Jew and gentile in this matter, just as Pappos and Lulianus were not Jews (though they gave their lives by choice).

And incidentally, if the Gemara compares a Jew who dies to a Torah scroll, why can one not say that the comparison is valid also regarding holiness? After all, the rabbi does not dispute that a Torah scroll is holy even without dying for the sanctification of God’s name.

If you explained somewhere how the Holocaust was sanctification of God’s name, it was apparently not on this site. In any case, I have not encountered such an explanation here. In what sense did the Holocaust “increase God’s honor”? I do not really manage to discern that. I see only the opposite. Well, we have not gotten beyond slogans. But I think we are repeating ourselves.

Indeed, a comparison cannot be half-applied. Therefore I suggest burying these Jews in the ark of the synagogue (from the comparison to a Torah scroll). Is there no limit to homiletic flourishes?!

I do not think the rabbi would want to disagree with Maimonides on this: if the only way to do good for your son is to sell him holy lies, knowing that in due time he will realize that they are lies, would you withhold this good from him just to be a man of truth?

This is essentially Maimonides’ intent: that it is sometimes proper to lie for a while for the sake of future gain.

Of course, in this respect the rabbi’s words are correct: in our day, when we are a generation of knowledge (if one may say so), we no longer need those lies.

I think the comparison works the other way around: just as when a person dies one buries him in the ground, so too a Torah scroll that was burned is buried in the ground.

In my opinion the attack is unnecessary…

The distinction is that you refuse to define them as holy because the concept holy in its common meaning is understood either as the abstract concept of holy or alternatively as Tosafot’s words in Kiddushin—mekudash = special. This is correct if one assumes that these are the only meanings of holiness in Hebrew, since there is no connection between death—no matter for what reason—and a person’s deeds that grant him (apparently, though perhaps one can be holy from birth) holiness, or in any case they are personal. As explained in the article.

But in my opinion this is not precise. The statement “holy” about the slain usually does not come to grant them a status of personal holiness, but rather holiness as part of the sacrifices of the existing struggle (in exile—for example, the survival of the Jewish people despite hatred, or something like that. And in the land—the survival of the Jewish settlement against the enemy, etc.) in a sense more similar to the Arabic concept of shahid, which itself proves that it is not similar to the parallel of holiness in the word quds. Besides that, there is also some similarity between this concept and holiness in the sense of abstinence, because here the murdered person devoted his life (even if not willingly or consciously—why does that matter?) as a result of some struggle. There must be some similarity; not for nothing are they all called holy.

Therefore, in my opinion there really are “mistaken sanctifications” (and not entirely as a paraphrase) when one relates to holy in the senses of abstinence or holiness, but it is not impossible to place the shahid concept under the Hebrew word “holy.”

It may be that in the past the distinction was more precise when the murdered were defined as “those killed by the government” and not as holy, but such a discussion is irrelevant as long as in practice the term is also used for this, and therefore there is no point in attacking it either (especially since it is not certain that this is a mistake. And even if it is, there is no reason to change it. And not because of consolation for the poor families, Heaven protect us, but because this is a healthy development of language.)

Happy Independence Day.

Indeed, I see no essential difference between the fact that people perceive a book as holy and if they were to perceive a telephone pole as holy. In my view there is no objective holiness at all (I cannot even understand what you are talking about… what is objective holiness that is unrelated to the experience human beings have?!) and holiness is expressed as a subjective experience. And all the halakhic clarifications about the categories of holiness came at most only to clarify toward what we ought to feel holiness.
I also do not understand why you refer to my approach as “absurd” when it is you who is introducing an additional assumption here (everyone agrees there is an experience of holiness, but you newly claim that objective holiness exists. How do you know?)

There is an experience called a feeling of holiness (phenomenon), and in your view there is also objective holiness (noumenon). According to you, only toward objects that bear objective holiness should we experience holiness.
There are 3 strange things about your method:
1) It is crazy: people experience holiness in relation to Memorial Day… but you claim, “There is no holiness here in the noumenon (how do you know?) and therefore you are not supposed to feel holiness in the phenomenon.” That is a puzzling sentence… Regarding every other phenomenon that everyone feels in the phenomenon—if you do not feel it, they will put you in a madhouse.
2) It does not happen: if objective holiness exists, I would expect all human beings to feel it regardless of their religion (the phenomenon of the noumenon should appear in all human beings), but we know that this is not so…
3) It is pointless: everyone tells you, “We feel holiness,” and you say, “I do not feel holiness.” It is like arguing with a color-blind person about the difference between purple and blue. One thinks there is a difference and one thinks there is none, and each tries to persuade the other. To claim, “You are not supposed to feel holiness,” is as pointless as claiming, “You are not supposed to see purple.”

I once again feel that revulsion toward ignorance is overpowering reasoning and common sense. Is it really so terrible that people call the deceased holy? Such a disaster? And even if we assume that yes, is this the way to correct the ignorance and stupidity of the masses? Apparently not. The problem is much deeper than this pinpoint correction. And even if we assume that this really is so harmful to truth and human reason, is it not worth the psychological comfort people derive from it? (In addition to the pills…) The grief is so immense that a bit of human foolishness is worth a bit of consolation; I think that is quite obvious. The value of joy and happiness is more important than the truth, whose importance in this case is rather negligible and affects nothing special. I also do not understand the utterly decisive statement that this is stupefaction. At most this is an error with a fairly clear basis, because fallen IDF soldiers sacrificed themselves for the collective, unlike people who chose to stay at home; they went out to the battlefield for the collective and for the ideal, and therefore were also killed. One can debate whether his sacrifice is greater than that of another soldier who stayed alive, but as stated, the presentation as though this were such an important (and stupid) issue that one needs to devote a somewhat provocative post to it in these days…

I hit send before I finished and proofread the comment, but I think the idea is clear..

If you want to use the expression in a different meaning (even though I do not agree with that either)—health to you. Usually people mean the accepted meaning, and that is what I commented on.

If you see holiness in telephone poles, then our discussion should take place elsewhere and in a different framework.

To Rabbi Michi,
I did not say that I see holiness in telephone poles. I said that holiness is a human experience and does not exist in reality itself. This experience can be directed toward pagan idols, the hide of a cow, and telephone poles (though that would be strange), and the halakhic clarification of “what is holy” is at most a clarification of toward what it is proper to experience this feeling.
To say, “If you think telephone poles are holy, then too bad,” is demagoguery that does not address the argument. And you think the hide of a cow is holy because a few words were written on it.
And I would be very glad if you would answer the questions in the second half of the previous message.

You did indeed say that there is no difference between the holiness of a telephone pole and the holiness of a Torah scroll or a fallen soldier. Everything depends on whether people feel holiness toward it or not. That is what I responded to, and it is entirely relevant.
Let me explain again, because I suddenly thought I understand your misunderstanding. I am not basing my words on the claim that holiness is a property of the object, that is, some factual feature of reality (though that could certainly be true). Even if it were a property of the person with no anchor in objective reality, I would still say the same thing. My claim is that there are things toward which it is proper to feel holiness (by the way, “to feel” does not mean emotion or experience, but to ascribe holiness to them, even if cold and purely intellectual), and there are things toward which it is not. Therefore the fact that people feel holiness toward something does not mean there is holiness in it. That depends on whether it is fitting to be considered holy or not. Who decides? Reasoning, or the Holy One, blessed be He. And if these have determined that something has holiness, then it has holiness even if people do not know this and feel nothing. In that sense, in my view there is no connection between holiness and people’s feelings. But this is not necessarily a property of the object, meaning some factual reality.
Therefore I claim that the fact that some deluded people feel holiness toward telephone poles or toward casualties killed for being Jewish says nothing except that they are deluded. There are crazed people who can feel holiness toward anything in the world (hence the example of the telephone pole), and according to your approach, in all these cases such a thing has holiness, because in fact there are people who feel that way. That is nonsense.
Of course you may define concepts however you wish, and if you choose to call this holiness—health to you. By the same token you could call it a telephone pole or Yekum Purkan. My claim is that the accepted meaning of holiness in halakhah and in the Torah has nothing to do with this.

Hello.
A question: does an atheist who puts on tefillin worship God?
Is the action/deed itself considered worship of God?
Another question: does a secular person who does not kindle fire on the Sabbath (not out of belief in anything), but simply because that is what he wants,
in some way worship God?

No. And no. How can a person who does not believe in God worship Him?! See here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%94%D7%9B%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%AA-%D7%97%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%94/

Rabbi Michi—could you address, in the context of a soldier who was killed, the concept of an agent performing a commandment? Would it not be morally required that a system that sent a person by coercion to fulfill a commandment grant him some of the value that exists in that commandment, even though he would not have fulfilled it of his own free will—certainly if the fulfillment of that commandment cost him his life? And regarding a person killed in a terror attack, are you unwilling to acknowledge that if impurity and wickedness struck a certain person, he symbolizes the opposite in the eyes of the one who struck him? Even on the most minimal level, was he not chosen to represent the clash between good and evil?

Was he your agent to die? He is an agent to fight, just like any other soldier, except that he died. Beyond that, this is not a moral question. A value either exists or does not exist, and it does not depend on what I am obliged to grant him. If he sanctifies God’s name, then he is such even if I do not say so, and if he is not such, then he is not such even if I do say so.
I am not talking about symbols. A telephone pole can be a symbol too.

This article is mistaken, but the article about the attack at Merkaz is even worse.

The martyrs of Lod did not die in order to save the people of God, but in order to save the people of their city, like any gentile soldier. From this it follows that their holiness did not stem from intention (which is indeed noble, but not enough for us to make every American soldier who died holy), but from the fact that they died for the right reason—namely, for the existence of the people of Israel (whose whole purpose is to express sanctification of God’s name, and that does so more than any sanctification of God’s name that any private individual performs). And from here the later authorities rightly learned the greatness of one who dies for the sanctification of God’s name.

Clearly there is a difference (in terms of reward) between one who jumped on the grenade like Pappos and Lulianus and one on whom the grenade (or the Scud) jumped. And probably not about everyone is it said that no creature can stand in his presence. But the title “died for the sanctification of God’s name” derives from the context of the death and does not require meeting the criteria of Maimonides’ Yesodei HaTorah (= no intention other than sanctifying God’s name). So perhaps the title holy is exaggerated, but not the title “died for the sanctification of God’s name,” which you also denied to the Merkaz victims, entirely unjustly.
And in my opinion, for the Merkaz victims for example, who died for the sanctification of God’s name, one can even call them holy on the assumption that if the terrorist had told them to die or worship idolatry, they would have died and not transgressed—and therefore there was really no deficiency in personal stature and no deficiency in the act either, because they were killed for being worshipers of God. And because the terrorist did not offer them the option of worshiping idolatry, should they not be considered holy??

All of it is absurd, for it has already been said: “And Lotan’s sister was Timna.”