Essential Explanations and Examples – Lesson 5

This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

🔗 Link to the original lecture

🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI

The nature of the field of Jewish thought versus Jewish law and tradition
Entrenched conceptions, society’s reaction, and the price of “bringing thought into the binding corpus”
Haredi “hashkafah” versus Religious Zionist “faith,” and the status of the Kuzari
Intuition, the decline of the generations, and the authority of earlier generations
What counts as sanctifying God’s name in the Holocaust: the question and presentation of positions
Choice, atonement, and the distinction between atonement and fulfilling the commandment of sanctifying God’s name
The interpretation that “one’s stance creates sanctification of God’s name” and the words of Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman
The common use of the title “those who sanctified God’s name” and the objection to cheapening the concept
Rabbi Shach and the Lubavitcher Rebbe on interpreting the Holocaust and linking it to holiness
The responsum of Mishneh Halakhot as a systematic halakhic source and the critique of its proofs

Summary

General Overview

The text argues that Jewish thought is not a traditional field in the sense that Jewish law is an ongoing interpretive tradition, and therefore there is no justification for turning worldviews and myths into a binding system like Jewish law. The speaker describes how bringing “faith” and “outlook” into a binding corpus creates both a psychological and intellectual difficulty in breaking free of entrenched conceptions, and also long-term educational and communal costs. He proposes a moderate “anarchistic / nihilistic” position of intellectual openness and renewed examination of the positions of great thinkers. From within this framework, he enters the issue of sanctifying God’s name in the Holocaust and argues that the common claim that being killed “for being Jewish” automatically makes the victim one who “sanctified God’s name” is a myth without source—at most connected to the atonement of suffering and death, or to the person’s conscious response at the moment of death.

The nature of the field of Jewish thought versus Jewish law and tradition

Jewish law is described as a developing process in which there are disputes, reasoning, and different conceptions, but the consciousness of those who engage in it remains traditional and interpretive: one receives a body that passes from generation to generation and interprets it. Jewish thought, by contrast, is described as a field in which different thinkers such as Maimonides, Saadia Gaon, Maharal, Rabbi Kook, Rabbi Tzadok, and various Hasidic schools present radically different conceptual worlds and foundational assumptions, to the point that it is hard to speak of a true “intellectual tradition.” The speaker distinguishes between a few very basic principles and the many ideas built around them that are absorbed through education until they seem like part of the alphabet itself, and he emphasizes the need to examine them from the outside.

Entrenched conceptions, society’s reaction, and the price of “bringing thought into the binding corpus”

The speaker describes, from experience in online forums, how even people who declare that they do not believe and do not observe anything still respond by labeling as “heretical” any conception that does not match what they “grew up on,” as though this were an unquestionable boundary of Jewish identity. He argues that it is very hard to uproot foundational conceptions such as “Torah authority” and ideas about providence, evil in the world, and similar issues, once they have been woven into the “body of Torah” as though they were a binding part of the corpus. He presents the historical attempt to insert worldviews into the binding corpus as a move that creates cohesion in the short term but exacts heavy costs in the long term—both because it is not true and because it is not necessarily effective.

Haredi “hashkafah” versus Religious Zionist “faith,” and the status of the Kuzari

In the Haredi world, “hashkafah” is described as a shell that is presented as having come from Sinai precisely to the extent that it seems more absurd, because if it did not come from Sinai there would be no reason to accept it, and so it becomes embedded as “what we have always received from time immemorial.” In the Religious Zionist world, a parallel process is described in which the book Kuzari acquired an almost mythical status due to the special regard of the Vilna Gaon and Rabbi Kook, to the point that many feel it is forbidden to disagree with it just as one does not disagree with medieval authorities (Rishonim) in Jewish law. The speaker presents this as a new phenomenon of the last few decades and connects it to a linguistic and institutional shift in which “faith” became an organized subject of study and a body of knowledge with “experts” who teach what faith is.

Intuition, the decline of the generations, and the authority of earlier generations

A debate develops over the claim that the decline of the generations means a decline in intuitive ability, and the speaker distinguishes between greater trust in intuition and actually stronger intuition. He illustrates this through the notion of a Torah scholar’s “visual recognition” in the Talmud, which he says is not a better power of recognition but rather a moral assumption that such a person lies less. He agrees that there has been a cultural shift toward analytical and controlled thinking, but argues that even if there is some decline in intuition, that does not create binding authority in thought, because binding authority rests on a chain of transmission, and the realm of thought does not function that way.

What counts as sanctifying God’s name in the Holocaust: the question and presentation of positions

A question from the ghettos is presented: does going to one’s death at the hands of the Germans count as sanctifying God’s name when there is no free choice? The text cites an article by Dr. Yechezkel Lichtenstein, as well as the words of Rabbi Aronson and the Slonim Rebbe, who emphasize the puzzle that most of those killed did not “sacrifice themselves” and had neither choice nor peace of mind. A statement attributed by Rabbi Shimon Huberband in the name of Rabbi Hillel Zeitlin says that a Jew killed “because of his Judaism” is called holy, supposedly because “that is how Maimonides rules,” and the speaker declares that there is no such Maimonides and defines this as a quoted myth.

Choice, atonement, and the distinction between atonement and fulfilling the commandment of sanctifying God’s name

The speaker sharpens the point that the issue is not merely semantic but concerns the difference between actively fulfilling a commandment and a process imposed on a person against his will. He cites the Talmud in Yoma on the divisions of atonement, where only death atones for desecration of God’s name. He explains that death and suffering can function as atonement even without initiative or choice on the person’s part, but that does not mean the person fulfilled the commandment of sanctifying God’s name or deserves positive evaluation for an “act” he did not choose. He suggests it may be possible to call such a state “purification” or a clearing of accounts, but rejects the inference that this is sanctifying God’s name in the commandment sense.

The interpretation that “one’s stance creates sanctification of God’s name” and the words of Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman

The text brings the words of Rabbi Aharaleh Rabin of Lanowitz, who urged those condemned to death to go joyfully because suffering atones and such a death “is considered like death for sanctifying God’s name,” and it cites Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman’s words that “we must remember that we truly will be sanctifiers of God’s name” and avoid an improper thought “like piggul that disqualifies a sacrifice.” The speaker interprets a different logic here: not that forced death in itself is sanctifying God’s name, but that a person’s consciousness and stance within the situation can turn it into an act of sanctifying God’s name. He stresses that sanctifying God’s name is not only “before others” but also an objective or metaphysical concept of God’s manifestation in the world, just as desecration of God’s name exists even in private.

The common use of the title “those who sanctified God’s name” and the objection to cheapening the concept

The speaker describes how in memorial books, commemorative literature, prayer books, and elegies, Holocaust victims are constantly described as “holy and pure” and as “those who sanctified God’s name,” and he objects to the norm whereby not calling someone “holy” is perceived as offensive. He argues that this expansion cheapens the concept of holiness and confuses moral appreciation and gratitude with the category of the commandment to sanctify God’s name. He extends the critique to attributing “sanctification of God’s name” to pioneers and atheist soldiers when there was no religious intention, accepting at most the claim that the outcomes created sanctification of God’s name or that the act was “for the sanctification of the people of Israel” as a different concept.

Rabbi Shach and the Lubavitcher Rebbe on interpreting the Holocaust and linking it to holiness

The text cites Rabbi Shach’s words that the Holocaust was a precise heavenly account of punishment, and that anyone not fully accepting this is “denying a basic principle.” In contrast, it cites the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s words that the Holocaust cannot be punishment for sins, that it has no explanation within the wisdom of Torah beyond “be silent, thus it arose in thought before Me,” and that all those killed are “holy” because they were killed “for the sanctity of God’s name (because they were Jews),” with citations from Av HaRachamim and biblical verses about “His servants.” The speaker suggests a partial possibility of understanding sanctification of God’s name in a consequential sense—as making God present in the world through the very struggle against Jews—but also mentions testimony in the name of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein that the Holocaust was the greatest desecration of God’s name since the creation of the world, and presents the tension between these two perspectives.

The responsum of Mishneh Halakhot as a systematic halakhic source and the critique of its proofs

The speaker presents a responsum by the author of Mishneh Halakhot, Rabbi Menashe Klein, on the topic “whether an apostate who was killed for being Jewish falls under the category of sanctifying God’s name,” and describes it as the only systematic discussion he found, but one whose conclusions rest on problematic assumptions. He shows that in most of the sources cited there, the discussion concerns mourning and atonement for one who was “killed in his wickedness” as opposed to one who “died in his wickedness,” and the presumption of thoughts of repentance—not the fulfillment of the commandment of sanctifying God’s name. He emphasizes that the proofs brought from those killed by the government, the martyrs of Lod, and from Maimonides all concern people who actually gave their lives for God’s unity or for the rescue of Israel, not those killed against their will merely because they were identified as Jews. Therefore he concludes that the attempt to ground the claim that mere killing “for being Jewish” is sanctifying God’s name has no source and is, in his words, a “legerdemain act.”

Full Transcript

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re dealing with—how should I even call it—principles without foundation in Jewish thought, let’s call it something like that, or principles without source in Jewish thought. Last time, I thought I was already going to deal with this issue of sanctifying God’s name, but it expanded into the discussion I wanted to reach at the end, because it really seals this year. So I think it’s a good topic to finish with, and it’s really the question: what is the nature of this field? What is Jewish thought? Right—say Jewish law. We talked about this last time, I’m not going into it again, just putting things in context. I think that over the course of the few topics we touched on this year, you could get the impression that there is something different about this field from the other halakhic fields. And it seems to me that now, at the end of the year, you can see that same—I think I spoke about it a bit at the beginning of the year, I don’t remember anymore—but at the end of the year, after dealing with a few topics, we can come back and look again at the difference, the differences between these two areas: Jewish law, or the halakhic tradition, and thought—which, I’m even talking about an intellectual tradition, though it’s a little hard to speak of that concept in the realm of thought.

The claim was that in the halakhic tradition it’s clear that there is development and expansion and branching out, and that depends on how people look at things and their reasoning and their ways of conceptualizing. No question—there are disputes, there are different approaches in Jewish law. Obviously, the “hollow pipe” conception is naive. Meaning, it’s not that Jewish law came down as a closed and complete body at Mount Sinai and then passed from generation to generation until it reached us. Of course not. But the basic consciousness of those who engage in Jewish law is still a traditional or interpretive consciousness. Meaning, you receive something that came to you, you interpret it, expand it, adapt it—whatever each person does—and pass it on. Now by nature, the interpreter is part of the interpretive product. Meaning, the interpretive product is certainly also a function of the interpreter’s intellectual world and basic assumptions. But still, there is some body of knowledge, or body—I don’t know—something, some thing that passes through this tradition, and that is what is being handled and interpreted.

And I think it’s hard to say that there is such a thing in the realm of thought. In the realm of thought, somehow—at least the feeling one gets—is that every so often there is some very prominent thinker: Maimonides, or Saadia Gaon, or Maharal, or Rabbi Kook, or Rabbi Tzadok, Hasidism, whatever, all kinds of types—where each one brings with him a completely different world, a different conceptual universe, different assumptions, a fundamentally different way of looking. Not just some nuance, not some influence here or there, not a slightly different angle—everything is different. One talks about all these issues in terms of upper worlds and how they affect our world; another isn’t interested in upper worlds at all, he talks about human psychology; a third speaks about the Jewish people as the whole story, and doesn’t even bring the individual into the picture—everything revolves around the role of the Jewish people, and so on. And therefore I think the feeling you get here is not the feeling of something that is a tradition, even if we take the most dynamic and flexible definitions of the concept of tradition. It seems to me that it misses the truth a bit to say that there is an intellectual tradition.

Now again, I’m not talking about a few very fundamental principles—that the Holy One exists, yes, and that there was Abraham our father or Moses our teacher, okay, fine, true. But I mean all the ideas around that, which sometimes really guide us in life and are so deeply embedded in us that it’s hard even to try to look at them from the outside and ask whether they’re really true or not, because they’re perceived as part of the alphabet we grew up on, were educated on. And I think here we really do need to do that. Meaning, in this field—certainly in the field of thought—there is definitely room for doing that. A person has to know that in many respects he is a product of his environment. Meaning, he is the product of his upbringing, and many times—I think I’ve told this story more than once—that in an internet forum I participate in, all kinds of discussions and arguments come up about Judaism and philosophy and things like that. Some people aren’t willing to pay the price involved in coming out of the closet in that sense, and another part has already really left completely. And still, in the arguments, when they raise all kinds of questions—some of them, of course, and I assume a large portion of them, are questions that troubled them and also caused this shift in their outlook—and I try to offer them different answers from the ones they were used to in the religious education they had, usually Haredi but not only, I am immediately defined as a heretic. Meaning, what do you mean? It can’t be, that’s not what we grew up on. Yes, the God we don’t believe in is not the God you’re talking about, and they’re not willing to accept it.

But it’s unbelievable. I mean, these are people who believe in nothing—they say so about themselves: nothing, no belief, keep nothing, nothing. But if you tell them that the people of Israel did not literally stand at Mount Sinai in ranks of threes, then you’re a heretic. They don’t believe they stood there, but obviously Judaism means believing they did stand there, and anyone who wants to say they didn’t stand there literally—he’s a heretic. That’s not Judaism. We don’t believe in Judaism—not in your religion. And it’s terribly hard to uproot from people all kinds of foundational conceptions, basic beliefs, “Torah authority,” whatever, all sorts of things of that kind, which are embedded in them in a way inseparable from the bodies of Torah themselves.

[Speaker B] It’s something written in the Torah, that all the people of Israel stood at Mount Sinai, all the people who were—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So, the point is all the souls and so on—we talked about that too once. All kinds of things. The example—I meant everything from “Torah authority” to conceptions of providence and evil in the world and attitudes toward all this; we talked about all these things. So when I present them with another conception, which in my opinion answers their questions well—fine—but that’s not Judaism. That, I know too. Judaism is what we learned in kindergarten, and no one is taking that away from us. Meaning, that’s what we choose not to believe in—not to believe in your Judaism.

Now, it’s very funny, but you can see examples—it really is amazing. And I think part of this is the price paid for a process happening in the Haredi world too, by the way, and also in the Religious Zionist world: bringing thought, or the intellectual envelope, into the binding religious corpus. Meaning, throughout history, I think generally people knew how to distinguish—at least in the periods of history more familiar to us; I don’t know what happened in the biblical period or even among the Sages—but I think in later periods, which are more known to us, people knew how to distinguish: what is Jewish law, what is thought, what is worldview, what is the status of each thing. And the attempt to bring worldviews and thought and everything into the binding corpus, as part of Torah, may perhaps achieve short-term goals—cohesion of the camp and keeping people from going in all sorts of directions—but I think in the long term it has some pretty heavy costs. Besides the fact that it isn’t true—that’s the first thing—but beyond that, it also has costs. People think: right, it isn’t true, but at least it’s useful, it’s efficient. And I’m saying even the question of efficiency deserves another thought, because I don’t think it’s necessarily all that effective.

So it seems to me there’s actually something very healthy in this anarchistic or nihilistic lesson that maybe one can come away with after our learning this year, which says that basically, almost everything is open. Meaning, a person can, overall, rethink things, not simply accept what Maimonides or Maharal or Saadia Gaon or Kuzari or Rabbi Kook or whoever says, but say: fine, I think differently, so I say differently. I don’t think that even on the practical plane this necessarily leads to worse results, at least in the long run. But beyond that, of course—beyond the practical plane—I think first of all what determines things is whether it’s true, and it’s obvious that it isn’t true. In my opinion there’s no question about that. So I think the practical question is secondary.

Now, within this framework, the expressions of this distinction are the expressions I’m talking about in these meetings. I started with the special quality of Israel—that’s another one of the myths. I said this is a process that happens both in the Haredi world and in the Religious Zionist world, and I think for very similar reasons, because… In the Haredi world it’s “hashkafah,” the worldview, where the more absurd it gets—in my eyes at least—the more it comes from Sinai. Because if it didn’t come from Sinai, why would anyone accept this nonsense? So you have to present it as part of the binding corpus. “This is what we have received from our rabbis from time immemorial, no one ever disagreed about it.” Jacob was an old man sitting in a yeshiva, all kinds of things of that sort, where really—anyone who sees it laughs; almost anyone who sees it laughs. But there are people who don’t see, so they don’t laugh, and they bring these things into the corpus in order to close ranks, to create that Roman phalanx fighting all the threats from outside, tightly united against all the external threats.

Now in that sense there is—maybe it’s a backlash, maybe it’s a reaction—in the Religious Zionist world too, where the intellectual wing is also beginning to enter the binding corpus. Today, when you see, for example, references to Kuzari—the Kuzari, for some reason, got some sort of status following the Vilna Gaon and Rabbi Kook, it seems to me, who had a very special regard for the Kuzari. What? Maharal too, but I think there’s something in the Kuzari that is very—I don’t know, that’s my impression.

[Speaker D] Maharal absorbed from the Kuzari.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, okay. But in any case, to people it’s completely obvious that disagreeing with Kuzari is like disagreeing with Maimonides or with the Talmud—in Jewish law, I mean. And that simply wasn’t—twenty years ago that would have been a joke if you said such a thing. Factually. I’m not now getting into whether it’s right or not. Factually, this is something from just the last few decades. There was never such a thing. I mean, I don’t know how much Torah learning the author of the Kuzari had or what the stature of his Torah scholarship was—I have no idea—but he didn’t leave behind, let’s say, something that could give me a different impression. Again, he was a wonderful poet, and maybe he was a very wise man, and maybe he was also a tremendous Torah scholar—I really don’t know. But I don’t know how suddenly in the twentieth century, even mid-twentieth century, you could say, he acquired almost a mythical status. Something it’s forbidden to disagree with. Like one of the medieval authorities (Rishonim)—just as it is accepted that one does not disagree with the medieval authorities (Rishonim) in Jewish law, though even there people exaggerate that a bit, but—

[Speaker C] Kuzari—who specifically attributed that to him?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s the Religious Zionist wing and the Kuzari. I’ve now moved to the process in the Religious Zionist wing. I think it started with Rabbi Kook; I think Rabbi Kook held the Kuzari in very high regard. It follows the Vilna Gaon; there’s some process here. It was built in a certain way, and it reached dimensions that are completely parallel to hashkafah in the Haredi sense. Only there it’s “hashkafah” with a different pronunciation. Today it’s called “faith.” Meaning, today they don’t study Shevet Yisrael, they study faith. Faith too has become a body of knowledge. There are people who hold the faith, explain what faith is, and now you know what faith is. There’s an organized class; you can learn from those who know the material and they’ll explain to you what faith is. It has become a body of knowledge, and I don’t think there was ever such a thing. It wasn’t perceived that way. Again, there was trust in people, everything was fine, but no—it wasn’t perceived as material that you have to study and know what the Torah says about this topic or that topic.

[Speaker E] Rabbi, you’ve referred a few times, in the context of the decline of the generations, to a decline in our intuitive ability to see. Meaning, we use intellect and thought more, and the medieval authorities (Rishonim), why are they more correct? Apparently because they saw things more clearly. Why can’t that also be true in relation to thought? Meaning, that they had stronger intuitions about—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think there’s a tendency—because this process, or this field, called thought, is not a traditional field in its essence—there’s no value in the fact that you lived two hundred years before me or a thousand years before me. If there is a tradition that passes from generation to generation, it began at Sinai and reaches me in one way or another.

[Speaker E] Not tradition—not intuition aimed at what happened at Sinai, but intuition for perceiving reality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. I’m not sure that if—

[Speaker E] That you have the ability, but—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not sure it’s true that they had better intuitive ability in areas that are not—

[Speaker E] The fact that they were closer—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To the source? So you—it’s like someone—

[Speaker E] Their worldview was different, there wasn’t—

[Speaker C] They had better intuition.

[Speaker E] I’m not sure, not necessarily, I’m not sure, because the world changed in a more—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is a certain tendency among those who think analytically and logically and systematically—yes, that does somewhat weaken intuitive ability. I agree with that process. But I don’t think I would derive from that some binding principle like one I’m prepared to accept in the field of Jewish law.

[Speaker E] That there are principles there where maybe the language is different and not always all that clear, but the rabbi also many times brought from there things where they had intuitions about matters that later on we can analyze and understand. Okay. So if they could arrive at it without analytical abilities, just because it seemed obvious to them, that does indicate stronger intuition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It indicates greater trust in intuition, not the fact that you have more intuition. Today when people say that, we label them New Age types. You see? People who communicate with aliens. Because today our tendency is to dismiss these sorts of intuitions—even mine, to dismiss this type of intuition—because we believe more in recursive thinking. I’m not sure that’s a real decline. You know, it’s like the visual recognition of a Torah scholar. They return a lost object to a Torah scholar based on visual recognition, and in standard yeshiva jargon, “he has the visual recognition of a talmid chokhom.” As if—now, from the Talmud you see that that’s not true, that a Torah scholar has better visual recognition than an ordinary person. Rather, he simply lies less. Clearly. Everyone has visual recognition. The Talmud assumes that a person has a kind of visual recognition of an object that was his, even if he can’t give clear identifying marks that this is the object he lost. So here we say: okay, don’t give identifying marks; if you recognize it as yours, apparently you have some capacity to recognize it. That’s the visual recognition a person has regarding his objects.

What’s the issue? With an ordinary person, maybe he’s lying. He wants me to return the lost object even though it’s not his, so he can always say, “I recognize it, it’s mine.” Therefore we require identifying marks. For a Torah scholar, the assumption is that he doesn’t lie, aside from those three matters the Talmud mentions, and therefore there we believe him if he says he recognizes it. But the Talmud does not say that a Torah scholar has more visual recognition than an ordinary person. It doesn’t say that in the Talmud. Maybe in the Rosh you once found it—I looked to see whether anyone really interprets the Talmud that way and I didn’t find it, except maybe among the spiritual supervisors of the last generation. But maybe in the Rosh there’s some expression that could be understood that way; even there I’m doubtful. I don’t think it’s necessary.

So I’m saying here too: the fact that I trust my intuition doesn’t mean I have more intuition. It only means I’m more willing to go with it. It’s a question of worldview, personality, I don’t know what, of how you conceive of yourself. There are people who may have intuition no less good than mine, but they aren’t willing to follow it, because they suspect intuition. They say intuition is something—you never know where it came from, it just arose in you, you have no control over its source. I want something controlled, grounded, that I can check in a scientific or logical and orderly way. Fine. So many times it’s a matter of—I think it’s pretty clear that part of the difference between the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) is trust in intuition, not the level of intuition you have. The medieval authorities (Rishonim) were prepared to rule according to what seemed right to them, and that’s it. The later authorities (Acharonim) don’t have that confidence. They need proofs and arguments and setting things up and analyzing them and so on.

Although I don’t know—if you asked him what your initial intuition is, what do you say the law is in such a case, he might say exactly what the medieval authorities (Rishonim) said. He just doesn’t trust it; he isn’t willing to trust it, for whatever reasons. Therefore—even if it is true that there has been some decline in intuitive ability—I think it’s not enough to establish binding authority, unless it is joined by the advantage you have in the process of transmission. If you are earlier in the chain of transmission, the process of transmission is built on the fact that you trust the previous link in the chain. If you don’t trust the previous link in the chain, there is no tradition. Therefore I definitely see logic—both essential logic and methodological logic—in establishing the authority of earlier generations in a field that is traditional by essence. But in the realm of thought, it’s not like that. So I think there it’s a bit hard to transfer that same attitude.

[Speaker D] Rabbi, but even if you paint the picture as though a binding source in the field of faith is something new—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That they always saw in it, always saw some—

[Speaker D] Boundaries—that’s clearly been there since Saadia Gaon and Maimonides and Rashba. You see that there were always disputes about what enters in—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I said: I’m not talking about the fundamental things, that the Holy One created the world. There were disputes there too, everything is true, but in the end I think there was some difference. It wasn’t in the study hall. Guide for the Perplexed—even those who argued with it and even those who agreed with it didn’t bring it into the study hall. It was a philosophy book.

[Speaker D] But I feel that the approach the rabbi called nihilistic, that was being proposed—it wasn’t there in the past either.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be because the degree of criticism, critical thinking, was lower then, parallel to the other differences I described earlier. There really was less ability to define for yourself and say: look, this is the field of thought and it has such-and-such a character. That too is analytical analysis, you see, and they did less of that too. But I think overall the behavior said it. If these things are so fundamental and basic and they are part of the material, why did no one study them? Why did no one engage in them? Why? It was clear to people: fine, this is something for each person himself, whether he deals with it or—

[Speaker D] That’s already about what is studied or not studied, that’s one thing. But to say everyone should do what—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not everyone should do what he wants. No—everyone should think what he—

[Speaker D] Thinks.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Thinks, and we see that when someone did propose some suggestion like that— Not that I meant everyone should think whatever he thinks. I meant everyone does this in his private world; it’s not part of the body of knowledge. I did not mean I’m prepared to accept every position. I agree—there were disputes about it, they also burned books here and there, and still there were not so many of them, and not all the extreme cases that we remember. There was something with Maimonides too, and there was something—just a second—the something was also more blatant, because Maimonides openly drew from foreign sources, and that was very frightening. I think that was an inseparable part of the struggle, beyond the contents of what he said. There was some revolution there in your willingness to put this scholasticism on the table, meaning this appeal to Aristotle and philosophers and Muslim sages and things like that.

Even today, when you look at Maimonides—you know, I think we talked about this once—the sixth chapter of Eight Chapters, where he begins with an apparent contradiction between what the philosophers say—that it’s preferable for a person to identify with what he does, rather than do it as though compelled by a demon—versus the Sages, who say: “I could desire it and I could desire it, but what can I do? My Father in Heaven decreed it upon me.” Meaning, with eating pork, you don’t have to identify with it—on the contrary, do it as someone who… out of halakhic obligation. Now, without getting into the answers he gives there, the very presentation of the question is fascinating. An ordinary contemporary person who sees this—he dies. What do you mean, a contradiction between what the philosopher says…? Right, there’s another contradiction too: the philosophers also say there is no God and the Sages say there is, so let’s resolve that now. What do you mean? The philosophers say many things, so what? What does that have to do with us? So they’re wrong. They say things and they’re wrong. And such a thing too. There is some outlook here that says: no, that’s part of the issue.

And now that I think about it, in that sense it may be that the war against Maimonides was because his approach was the one I’m describing today: he wanted to bring thought in as part of the Torah corpus itself. Even though he did it in a separate book, it was still interwoven for him. Even in Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah there are such chapters in Maimonides. So once he did that, I think maybe that itself was part of what seemed to people to be a deviation from tradition, from what they were used to, beyond the content of what he said. That’s how it seems to me, at least.

But anyway, we talked about that last time. So now we’re dealing with the holy ones and whoever dies for his Judaism and so on. So maybe I’ll read you a few references just so we can see what we’re talking about. It’s a sensitive time to deal with this. Hm?

[Speaker I] A sensitive time to deal with this.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t plan it in advance. Oh, here. Right. More than once the question was asked—I’m reading from an article I found in Bar-Ilan’s weekly page, by Dr. Yechezkel Lichtenstein; I don’t know him. More than once the question was asked in the ghettos: does going to one’s death at the hands of the Germans involve sanctifying God’s name? After all, there is no free choice here. The Germans murdered you because you were Jewish, but you didn’t choose to die. Again, there were those who did choose, and I’m not talking about them. Again, those who actually gave their lives or took actions that led to their deaths—I’m not talking about them at all; there it’s straightforward. I’m talking about those who were simply caught—on the contrary, even though they tried to hide their Judaism, or whatever. There were all kinds of cases. We’re talking only about them—don’t mix the categories. Does this involve sanctifying God’s name? But there’s no free choice.

So Rabbi Aronson testifies that this question gnawed at his mind incessantly, even on the threshold of the crematoria, while still in the valley of the shadow of death in the death camps Auschwitz and Buchenwald. That’s what he writes there, and he writes as follows: all those millions of holy ones who were put to death by the Nazis in bizarre deaths—is their death a death of sanctifying God’s name? Did they fulfill through their death the exalted commandment, “And I shall be sanctified among the children of Israel,” about whose fulfillers it is said that no creature can stand in their presence? The question is whether a Jew who was put to death for being Jewish fulfills this. Can such a death be called sanctifying God’s name? At first glance, all the Talmudic passages and our medieval authorities (Rishonim) discuss only a gentile forcing someone to violate the faith, in the manner of and similar to: “Why are you being taken out to be stoned? Because I circumcised my son; because I kept the Sabbath; because I ate matzah”—that’s Vayikra Rabbah, a midrash. That’s sanctifying God’s name. But the question is, if they simply seize you because you’re Jewish and kill you, is that too sanctifying God’s name?

He doesn’t bring the answer here; I didn’t see the passage inside. The excerpt he quotes is one that raises the question. And the Slonim Rebbe writes: behold, to the extent that the story of extermination and destruction is a mystery without solution, even greater is the puzzlement when one contemplates the matter through the illuminating lens of sanctifying God’s name. On the one hand, the greatest vision imaginable: six million holy Jews—six million, sorry—who attained the exalted level of being killed for the sanctity of His blessed Name, regarding whom it is said, “Gather to Me My faithful ones, those who made a covenant with Me through sacrifice,” than whom there is no higher level. But on the other hand, every thinking heart is deeply troubled that this was arranged by the upper providence in such a way that in practice most of those killed did not merit to sacrifice themselves for the sanctity of His Name, since they had no choice, and most did not have peace of mind at the time they were killed. So how can this be called sanctifying God’s name?

So they pose the question. They don’t answer it; he doesn’t express a position. Then he brings a few sources where positions on this issue were also offered. For example, they brought in the name of Hillel Zeitlin—through Shimon Huberband. Rabbi Shimon Huberband says there was a definition common in the ghetto: “Maimonides has already ruled that a Jew who was killed, even not because they wanted to make him violate his religion, but only because he is a Jew, is called holy.” And so too Lenski brings in the name of Rabbi Hillel Zeitlin, one of the Jewish spiritual figures in the Warsaw Ghetto: “If a Jew is found murdered on the road, he is to be called holy, since he was killed because of his Judaism. That is how Maimonides rules.” According to this, the essence of the holiness is death due to belonging to Judaism. A Jew can therefore attain the crown of holiness without having stood before a test.

Already here I want to comment: first of all, there is no such Maimonides. It’s a myth. This is a classic example—there is no such Maimonides. Here and there you can find—there’s a Hatam Sofer somewhere who talks about this. I think they mean Maimonides’ Epistle on Apostasy, and there there is no such thing. I went through it carefully to look for it—there is nothing like this there. There is discussion there, of course, of someone who was killed because he gave his life for his Judaism in the sense of having chosen to do so, but there is no statement there of the kind people quote, about a Jew found lying on the road or something like that. You can say about a Jew found lying on the road that maybe the assumption is that he probably sanctified God’s name—I don’t know—because you don’t know how it happened. So the question is, if he was killed, maybe he was killed for—I don’t know, perhaps. But even that I don’t know what it’s based on, and surely it depends on context and so on. There is no such Maimonides. But this myth somehow spread, and everyone quotes it, and it really is a classic example. By the way, here I’m not even sure whether it’s a classic example of an intellectual principle or a halakhic principle, because “Maimonides has already ruled,” right? In a certain sense they treat it as some kind of halakhic ruling.

[Speaker E] And what is its halakhic significance?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know—regarding burial, that he shouldn’t be buried among complete wicked people, for example, I don’t know. If he was wicked all his life, maybe they say Kaddish for him, because for a wicked person they don’t say Kaddish. I don’t know. There could be practical ramifications. But I don’t think those practical ramifications—and I’ll speak about this in a moment—necessarily depend on fulfilling the commandment of sanctifying God’s name. So we’ll get to that. Therefore it seems to me these are very, very problematic statements. He brings more examples, but—

[Speaker J] Wait, this touches a bit on the general question. Surely it seems to me that in the rabbi’s style we usually tend, and all the more so rationally, to test the significance of a person’s stature specifically in relation to his chosen actions. But one could raise this—you know, one could open it up for discussion.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One could. I just don’t think that—

[Speaker J] No, so clearly… Look, apropos of what you mentioned, Kaddish that a child says for him, the well-known story with Rabbi Akiva, that the child answered like this, he answered that, and Rabbi Akiva taught him to say Kaddish, or all kinds of things of that sort, or in general the fact that a Jew—”all Israel have a share in the world to come”—which of course is part of Maimonides’ approach in the chapter Helek, what exactly that means; but you see that there is something we, as Israel, merit by the fact that he is Israel and belongs to the general collective, but…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] About that I’ll speak later. Also about the Kaddish, also about what he merited—that still doesn’t mean fulfillment of the commandment of sanctifying God’s name.

[Speaker J] I’ll still speak about that. No, I agree that there’s the issue of fulfilling a commandment on the level of fulfilling a commandment for the sake of a blessing, things like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s what I’m talking about. Okay. We’ll talk about it, because my way of relating to a person is not only in the sense of whether he fulfilled a commandment as a question of Jewish law, but what my attitude toward the person is—whether he is truly holy. A kind of attitude. You could say that I say Kaddish for him, and Jewish law no longer forbids saying Kaddish for him. You could say—I’ll maybe jump ahead a bit.

[Speaker J] Attitude is often—again, there’s a tension here between, on the one hand, what we claim, that the Kantian person, let’s call him that, is defined entirely by intention, and on the other hand, the fact that sometimes there are results for a person. For instance, without opening that up—was Herzl an important person or not, holy or not? No, you can say he was a man who did not observe Torah and commandments. On the other hand, he caused something very great.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, and that’s something else, because he really intended to cause what he caused.

[Speaker J] So what if he didn’t intend it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then the question is—so I’m saying there’s some kind of slope here, and we’ll discuss every stage of it. Yes, for example, apropos of those three boys, those youths who were murdered, people say that they caused an intensity of prayers and all kinds of things of that sort. Alternatively, there are results to actions, although even there—I, even with that, it’s hard for me to accept that claim.

[Speaker J] I agree, I’m only raising it because it’s clear that again, our basic premise is that it’s the person’s choice that does it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying, at most you can say, “merit is brought about through one who is meritorious.” It’s an indication that they were good people, because the Holy One, blessed be He, brought all that merit about through them. Maybe—that’s an argument I’m at least willing to hear; it holds water.

[Speaker E] But how does that work with the Holocaust? What came out of it, what was brought about by it, that…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I’m saying when something positive did come about. Afterward we’ll also talk about things where nothing positive came about. But even if it did, and even on the simple halakhic level: if someone was forced and ate matzah, he did not fulfill the obligation. Meaning, in fulfilling commandments, when someone forces you, the Talmud in Rosh Hashanah, right?—when someone forces you to do a commandment, you have not fulfilled the commandment. Just on the simple halakhic level, forget Kant.

[Speaker K] According to the view that commandments require intention.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? According to the view that commandments require intention. According to the view that commandments require intention—alternatively, maybe then he did fulfill his obligation. But even in the sense of fulfilling an obligation—after all, sanctifying God’s name is not an obligation; there’s no obligation here to “fulfill.” So I think in the essential sense it seems obvious that no. Now, about this—I think I once spoke about it, I wrote an article about it—commandments require faith / belief. Even according to the view that commandments do not require intention. Meaning that someone who has no faith / belief in the Holy One, blessed be He, is not capable of fulfilling commandments. Meaning, even according to the view that commandments do not require intention. If commandments do not require intention, then you say it’s just not for its own sake. Fine. If he did it—if he puts on tefillin, he didn’t intend a commandment right now, but he…

[Speaker L] Sits in the shade and happens to enter a sukkah, with Sukkot not motivating him at all, like…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s even mere preoccupation; it’s not even without intention, it’s even worse. Yes.

[Speaker L] He sits in a sukkah because he happens to be Jewish and happened to find some roofing like that—so that turns him into…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, there’s a statement here that—we’ll discuss it on a few levels—but it really does seem problematic on its face. But I meant to preface one more thing, because it keeps coming up. Look, in Yoma there are the distinctions in atonement. For every kind of sin, what a person has to undergo in order to gain atonement. There are things where if you repent, it’s atoned for; Yom Kippur, repentance, suffering—and for desecration of God’s name, only death. And that death is not execution by a religious court, because for desecration of God’s name there is no liability to execution by a religious court. Religious courts do not punish someone who desecrated God’s name. So what is this death? This death is that he dies. Death simply found him. Okay? Now, you see in the Talmud that death is like suffering. And suffering also does not come by my own initiative, so why should it change my status at all? The fact that I underwent suffering—so I’m miserable, but what does that have to do with anything? The claim is that once you—like people say today—you’ve paid your debt to society, right? Once you bore the punishment, you already received the suffering that was due to you for what you did, then as far as we’re concerned you’re clean. It’s not because you fulfilled the commandment of sanctifying God’s name, but because you got what you were supposed to get for what you did, and that cleansed you. Do you understand? That’s something completely different from saying…

[Speaker E] But presumably it changes you too. What? Presumably it also changes you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe, although death doesn’t change you. Suffering maybe yes, but death no. Death changes nothing. You die, that’s it—they shoot you in the head. What? What’s the next stage? What’s the next stage? In the world to come you change because you died? So it’s not… why, why?

[Speaker J] I think that’s a very reductive way of looking at it. Suffering—and again, you can understand it that way—I also think the idea is, both suffering and death are supposed to transform you, they put you through processes. They put you through processes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Death? I said, execution by a religious court—you’re right, because in execution by a religious court you have to confess. But death—someone you don’t even see, they shoot you in the head from behind—so what then, the essence…

[Speaker J] Something happens, something happens.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, something happens? There’s no time for anything to happen!

[Speaker J] You die! Consciousness doesn’t change in a death of one second? After death. Death has a process to it.

[Speaker I] No, but that’s exactly what…

[Speaker J] We’re talking about the principle, that consciousness. You yourself spoke about the fact that sometimes maybe we attribute—we don’t know what happens in very short spans of time—but the experience of death, we all feel, is something very significant, and it could be that even a person who takes a bullet to the head experiences something very significant.

[Speaker I] But that’s the point—they’re not talking here about experience, they’re talking here about the principle.

[Speaker J] No, he experiences—the bullet did something to him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the bullet did something to him?

[Speaker J] Right, but he didn’t do…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Any of it himself. It changed nothing essentially.

[Speaker J] I don’t think so. On the level of consciousness, let’s say that when a person experiences death he understands something, he underwent some cleansing that cleaned him. But not on the level of having paid his debt to society in the sense that he got two lashings or whatever.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So something cleansed him, but he did not cleanse himself—again.

[Speaker J] He didn’t choose; I didn’t say he chose.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s why I’m saying—the problem of choice is not solved by that.

[Speaker J] But then again, nothing solves the problem of choice. When a person is born among good people and proceeds along the positive track and in the end becomes, you know, a pampered kid who always did what he was supposed to and in the end also got a medal—okay, from the standpoint of choice, it will always remain a question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? Choice is not a question. He has choice, because it’s easier for him—so what? But for free? His reward, I assume, will be proportional to the effort. Right? Fine. So what’s the problem with that? But he still chose; you can choose otherwise. Even when you’re born at a good starting point, you can choose not to continue in that direction.

[Speaker J] That’s not the point. I think the question of choice is not resolved.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, this argument isn’t important for my larger point, because I’m willing to accept the claim that this thing atoned for you. Whether you say it paid your debt to society, or if you want to say even more than that, that you underwent some process—but we’ll agree that it’s not a process aimed at, initiated by, or resulting from my choice. So I’m willing to accept some statement that right now you’re clean, in all the senses we spoke about, without entering that debate—but not the statement that you fulfilled the commandment of sanctifying God’s name, that you are holy in the positive sense. To say: it’s over, you’re clean. Like someone who sat in prison—I can’t then say to him again, look, you’re a thief. No, it’s over, he sat in prison, paid his debt, he didn’t choose that, he was caught, evidence was brought against him, he was put in prison. Right. But afterward it’s over—we start again. So I’m saying in that sense I can accept that a person who suffered, or died, or something like that—fine, that’s it, he starts over. That’s okay, and you can even call him holy, by the way, in that sense—holy in the sense of completely clean. Now you can start over. Pure—I would call it that more than holy, maybe. Really, he was cleansed. Now the accounting starts anew, if there is still anyone to settle accounts with. But when we talk about sanctifying God’s name in the active sense, in the sense of fulfilling the commandment, in the sense of how I evaluate the person—not that I forgive him for his sins of years past, but that I value him for something he underwent—I don’t understand how one can say such a thing.

[Speaker E] Then the Jewish part of it also isn’t relevant here. What? Because the fact that he’s Jewish also doesn’t enter this equation. Exactly. It doesn’t matter if you were robbed and went through these things—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right, you went through the same thing. Right. Although you could say—again, in the experiential sense—it could be that if they killed you because you—again, if they killed you because you’re Jewish and you also knew that, then maybe it did something to you, I don’t know. Maybe. I’m sure there are people—and actually it’s obviously true—that there are people who, the moment they entered the situation that they were being killed because they were Jews, suddenly really became Jews. I’m sure something like that can happen, that at the last moment you suddenly undergo a quick repentance in a second and you…

[Speaker M] But why does he have to become Jewish specifically in that situation where they killed him? Someone who was Jewish all along, and when they killed him, he in fact chose all along to be Jewish even though he knew there were risks like that—why does it have to be at that moment when they killed him for that to enter the equation?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—again, we talked about that last time. After all, I already started with this. I said: there is room to go back and say, look, the very fact that you chose to live as a Jew is what caused, in the end, someone to come, put a gun to your head, and shoot you so that you would be nothing. If you had denied that, then maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Right. I’m saying, one can make that argument, and then it takes us back to the point of choice—that is, there was some element of choice for you on the way to that point.

[Speaker J] But then in a certain sense all of us right now are sanctifying God’s name, because the potential—sorry for the jargon—to be killed for sanctifying God’s name…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. Meaning in that sense, sanctifying God’s name is not on the same…

[Speaker M] I agree that it’s not on the same level as someone who is…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, more than that—what is there in the fact that I was killed beyond the fact that I simply live this way? And if I didn’t merit to be killed, despite living as a Jew, then what? I made my choices in exactly the same way, only in my case they happened not to kill me.

[Speaker M] Right, I agree.

[Speaker N] The Netziv on the portion Kedoshim—what does “holy” mean? “Holy” means separate. Parenthetically there and all that. Now in that sense it fits very well here. Look, they killed a man because he was Jewish, because he was separate, because he was distinct from the nations.

[Speaker L] That’s…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The next step—Jews pray—is a problem. If you’re talking about holy in the sense of distinct from the Gentiles, fine. But then it’s a completely banal statement. Fine, you’re holy against your will. Fine, true, you’re distinct from the Gentiles. Fine—if that’s the case, then we’ve emptied the concept of its essential content, and I’m willing to accept that. Meaning, that’s—but that’s a semantic question.

[Speaker O] Did he fulfill a commandment?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s why I’m saying—not in the sense of fulfilling a commandment.

[Speaker F] Why? I think sanctifying God’s name is a commandment. Yes. Where is that written?

[Speaker O] What, the three severe transgressions—transgress and do not be killed—and “I shall be sanctified among the children of Israel.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “I shall be sanctified among the children of Israel” is a counted commandment. Sanctifying God’s name and the prohibition of desecrating God’s name. Now of course I’ll add what Yossi said earlier: all in all, in the Holocaust there were also quite a few people who were killed even though they were Jews, even though they denied their Judaism. Not because they lived as Jews; on the contrary, they tried with all their might not to live as Jews—there were such people—and still they were killed. So did they too become holy? I don’t think these statements really hinge on the element of choice, and in that sense I truly do not agree with them. The God I don’t believe in is that God. Meaning, the statement I do not agree with is the statement that goes beyond all the rationalizations you all tried to make here, one way or another, and says that by the very fact that you were killed for being a Jew, that itself turns you into holy. Every time you make some rationalization or other, I’ll already be willing to accept it—meaning, yes, fine, on one level or another. But I’m talking about statements of that kind. Now look at two more examples, where one also has to pay a bit of attention. Rabbi Aharaleh Rabin, the rabbi of Mlynov, preached before members of his community as he went out with them on the way to the cemetery, dressed in a kittel. He said this: “Dear brothers, we are now passing into the kingdom of heaven. After the great suffering and the torments of hell that we suffered on earth, you are assured that you will arrive inside the Garden of Eden.” Again—suffering brings atonement. Here it’s clear that it’s not because you are righteous, but rather the claim is that suffering brings atonement. “Therefore do not worry; go joyfully toward your fate. Happy are you, happy are we, that we have merited to die as Jews. Such a death is considered a death for sanctifying God’s name, because all our crime is that we are Jews.” Now here this really is the point. It may be that what he means to say is that we lived as Jews and therefore were caught and killed, so we have some share in…

[Speaker J] But there’s identification here now that is intensified.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly—that’s the second point I want to make. I think the purpose—and in a moment we’ll get to Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman; that’s the most famous part, the most famous statement—I think that here there is some claim that the attitude actually constructs the sanctification of God’s name. Not: this is the proper attitude toward those who sanctify God’s name; rather: if you relate to it correctly, then it will be sanctification of God’s name. That’s a different statement. For example, I’ll read you the passage from Rabbi Elchanan, yes, it appears at the beginning of Kovetz Shiurim. There are some disputes about whether it really happened or not, as is the way of historical nitpickers, but these are famous things. And so too from the words of Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, may God avenge his blood, before his execution: “We must remember that we truly become sanctifiers of God’s name; we shall go with heads held high, and Heaven forbid no improper thought should arise, one that is like sacrificial invalidation that disqualifies the offering. We are now fulfilling the great commandment of sanctifying God’s name; the fire will burn our bodies, and this will repair the people of Israel anew.” Now here he says it quite clearly: he is talking about how we are to undergo this death. There is the simple fact that we were caught and killed; I don’t know whether he means that this itself is a death for sanctifying God’s name. Rather, the question is how we stand within that situation, and here he says that we are called upon to be sanctifiers of God’s name. So again, I think this is not the statement we are used to. Meaning, I don’t think this is the statement that was being discussed earlier.

[Speaker E] He talked about thought—is that not relevant, but also the way you look when you walk, fine—but what you think as you walk, is that not relevant?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Ah, you mean in terms of what it projects outward. No, fine—there is sanctifying God’s name, I think, not only in the sense of projecting outward.

[Speaker J] Rather?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sanctifying God’s name toward yourself? Yes, why not? There’s a lot of evidence for that.

[Speaker J] Every transgression…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That you do even in the innermost privacy is considered desecration of God’s name—Talmudic passages.

[Speaker J] More than that, I think that very often people—Gentiles or people with a general worldview—will see many commandments as desecration of God’s name…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You…

[Speaker J] You seem like a fanatic or something.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And the well-known Maimonides we once saw—

[Speaker J] That only…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people”—Maimonides, yes. Maimonides really derives how we should behave here on the basis of the reasons for the commandments. He says all kinds of things like that—he says, how can it be that we don’t have… Meaning, there is some reference here to how people see them, but certainly that is not exclusive.

[Speaker H] On the contrary, it’s language of punishment, so that afterward they’ll see that it does help.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but it has to help and they have to see—meaning without that, it’s not. And it was also reported in his name—this is apparently Elchanan, if I understand correctly, though maybe not, no, maybe it isn’t Elchanan, maybe yes, I don’t know whom he means—that he instructed them to recite a blessing with God’s name and kingship, to sanctify His name in public, following the wording of the Shelah. Every Jew in the ghettos and camps also saw in their brothers being led to death holy ones who went for sanctifying God’s name. Yes, the title “sanctifiers of God’s name” with which Holocaust victims were crowned appears often in every memorial book, in traditional literature, in commemorative literature. That is how it was engraved also into the prayer books and lamentations: “elevations of holy and pure ones.” Meaning, we say this at every turn; it’s something that became very habitual, very deeply ingrained. So really here I say again: I don’t know whether I’m willing to accept such a claim—in fact I know I’m not willing to accept such a claim. Meaning, I don’t think that in this matter as such—and I’m not talking about Elchanan, or how you do it, or that you caused it so that in the end they killed you, and even there I say again: even if you caused it so they killed you, it depends whether you knew in advance that this really was the risk you were taking. Because if you did something and in the end they killed you because of it, I still think that doesn’t add enough. In short, there’s a lot to discuss here on different nuances, but I’m setting that aside. About the nuances one can argue separately. Let’s take the claim in its pure form—the claim that the mere fact that you were killed because you are Jewish turns you into holy. I think it’s very hard to accept such a thing, even from reason; there is no source for it anywhere, it’s simply an invention. And everyone says it all the time. That doesn’t stop anyone from citing it as though it were pure truth. What would you say?

[Speaker D] What did you say? Or what would you say? What would you say in a eulogy for Binyamin?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In what context? If it’s a eulogy for a soldier, then I would say… if it’s a Holocaust eulogy, then I would say: they were miserable, they were killed for sanctifying God’s name, I hope things will be better for them in heaven. That’s what I would say. We’re terribly used to the idea that if you don’t say he is holy, then you insulted him or his family or I don’t know, his memory. Why? Because that cheapens the concept of holiness. Now that already really is problematic; now it’s almost perceived as offensive to say things like what I’m saying, because now some kind of standard has been created, that if you’re not holy, you don’t count, you’re not in the game. But that’s a certain cheapening, with all due respect. Again, they suffered terrible suffering, and I’m not speaking against them. Not to mention pioneer swamp-drainers or soldiers or people like that—where there too I object to defining them as sanctifiers of God’s name—but there I’m even full of gratitude for what they did for me. But still, from there to saying that this is sanctifying God’s name—I don’t think that’s correct. Now again, these are statements that can be perceived as offensive. I don’t think it’s right to say this to someone whose dead lies before him now, certainly not under the norms accepted today. But fine, we’re here in a class, so we can clarify the matter a bit more coolly.

[Speaker F] And the people of the Land of Israel—is that not sanctifying God’s name? What? The pioneers—was that not sanctifying God’s name?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So it depends. I said, it depends. If they did it for that purpose, then yes. But if they were completely atheistic people who, within the framework of the national awakening of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, had their Jewish nationalism awakened, and so they came here to drain swamps—they had no interest at all either in God or in sanctifying His name, and they did not acknowledge Him or know Him. With regard to those people—not all were like that, but with regard to those who were in that state—can I say that they were sanctifiers of God’s name? What sanctifiers of God’s name?

[Speaker E] They didn’t just die for sanctifying…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They died for the sanctification of the Jewish people.

[Speaker E] Fine, that you can say—that’s a new concept.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right—but did they die for sanctifying God’s name? In the sense of a result, yes. That’s already a line of results.

[Speaker E] The question…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Is whether you can say that their actions, the results of their actions, did lead to some sanctification of God’s name—that people see that the Jewish people returned to its homeland, stood back up on its feet. Fine. Then that has a different value.

[Speaker M] It has some value—a different value? What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Moral value, human value. Of course I am full of appreciation for those people, both in the sense of personal gratitude for what they gave me, and in the sense of what they sacrificed—the human level, what they were willing to sacrifice of themselves, certainly, certainly. But I don’t think it’s right to connect that to sanctifying God’s name.

[Speaker N] But they themselves also don’t see it as sanctifying God’s name.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. That’s why I say there’s no need to mix the subject of sanctifying God’s name into every such thing.

[Speaker M] That’s exactly what I’m saying now. When the Talmud says that a transgression for its own proper sake is great, in what sense is this transgression great? Even a transgression from which something good came out?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—”for its own proper sake”—but that’s the opposite, that’s because of the benefit. A transgression for the sake of a commandment—that is the holiness; that’s what it says there. On the contrary, there it’s about the benefit. Exactly the novelty of what I’m saying—that everything depends on intention; it doesn’t depend on the question of what you do.

[Speaker J] I think this comes, for example, from Rabbi Kook—there’s a kind of view there that the subtext, the general atmosphere, kind of determines things for you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s something from within, some Jewish spark…

[Speaker J] From within—you’re already in a messianic mindset even if you don’t want to be. And it’s connected to the unique quality of Israel, soul-level, instinctive, which exists within you and is imposed on you, and even if you claim you’re not, necessarily you are.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s true. So that’s why I’m saying, here it really takes us back to the discussion about the unique quality of Israel, to the previous discussion. I see it as part of a normal national awakening, as happened in other times too, where there was self-sacrifice in exactly the same way and all that is true.

[Speaker J] But Rabbi Kook certainly doesn’t.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously not. That’s why I’m saying these things depend on each other; I understand. But I’m saying, assuming I see it as part of the national awakening, I don’t see how one can connect it to the concept of sanctifying God’s name. There’s an article here that I saw, about the controversy between Rabbi Shach and the Lubavitcher Rebbe also around this issue of the Holocaust. Rabbi Shach asks: “I ask how and in what way should a Jew think in the face of this Holocaust? What is the accounting for all this? For centuries there was no such event. Clearly the answer is crystal clear: the Holy One, blessed be He, kept account one by one, a long account stretching across hundreds of years until it accumulated to the account of six million Jews, and thus the Holocaust occurred. That is how a Jew must believe, and if the Jew is not whole in this belief, he is a heretic in a fundamental principle.” Apparently I’m a heretic in a fundamental principle. “And the explanation is simple: this is counsel of the Holy One, blessed be He, and it is necessarily punishment, and if we do not accept it as punishment, then it is as if we do not believe in the Holy One, blessed be He, Heaven forbid.” That is what Rabbi Shach writes. And then he brings against this an article that cites passages—I don’t know the source of this article—that brings the Lubavitcher Rebbe responding to these words of Rabbi Shach; it’s very interesting. So the Lubavitcher Rebbe writes as follows, in the same week that those words were said.

[Speaker J] Really a difficult and outrageous article, but there is something in the rebuke passages—that calamities come because of sins.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so that’s a discussion that has to be held separately, clearly. He didn’t invent that view; that’s obvious. But no, I’m speaking right now from another aspect, not from the aspect of providence, which we discussed in the past. So he says this: “There are undesirable matters that do not come as punishment for sins, but because the Holy One, blessed be He, decreed so, with no reason or explanation at all in the intellect and wisdom of the Torah.” And in the language of the Sages regarding Rabbi Akiva’s execution with iron combs: “Be silent, for thus it arose in My thought”—it is a decree from before Me. “And regarding this it was not said, ‘Is the Holy One, blessed be He, suspect of acting unjustly without justice?’” For after all, it could be that the Holy One, blessed be He, punishes someone who doesn’t deserve it, and there is in fact such a claim—so how does that fit? He says: regarding this, it was not said. He doesn’t explain why, but he claims that in fact we do see such statements of the Sages, or not only of the Sages, also verses. “And all this is the decree of the covenant between the pieces,” as it is written: “Know surely that your seed shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall enslave them and afflict them four hundred years”—that is not because of sins, but because the Holy One, blessed be He, decreed so. And then he says: “The destruction of six million Jews in the greatest and most terrible cruelty, an awful Holocaust the like of which never was and never will be, God save us, throughout all generations, cannot be as punishment for sins. For even Satan himself could not find a reckoning of sin”—apparently a calculation of sins—”in that generation that would justify, Heaven forbid, so severe a punishment. We have no explanation or clarification at all regarding the Holocaust; we have no explanation or clarification according to the wisdom of the Torah at all regarding the Holocaust, except only the knowledge of the fact that thus it arose in His thought, that it is a decree from before Him, and certainly, certainly not the explanation that it is punishment for sins. On the contrary, all those who were killed in the Holocaust are holy, as they are called by all Israel, since they were killed for the holiness of God’s name”—in parentheses, because they were Jews—”and may God avenge their blood”—in parentheses, as every Jew adds when mentioning the victims of the Holocaust; I don’t know whether the parentheses are the article writer’s or in the original. “And in the wording of the prayer Av HaRachamim: ‘the holy communities who gave their lives for the holiness of God’s name,’ and ‘may He avenge the spilled blood of His servants,’ as it is written in the Torah of Moses, ‘for He will avenge the blood of His servants’; and in the Holy Writings it says, ‘Let it be known among the nations before our eyes, the vengeance for the spilled blood of Your servants.’ Meaning that the Holy One, blessed be He, testifies about them that they are His servants, whose very existence is the existence of the master, and promises to avenge the spilled blood of His servants, since the spilling of their blood is the opposite of His will.” Meaning, the fact that there are servants means there is also a master. And in that sense maybe there is some consequential aspect in this sanctification of God’s name, that the very fact that Jews are persecuted makes the Holy One, blessed be He, present in the world in some way, because otherwise why persecute them? They persecute them because they are Jews. So in the consequential sense maybe there is room—although even here I’m a little uncertain, we talked about this—whether one can see this in the consequential sense as sanctifying God’s name, as something not because this is your great virtue, that you are holy in the positive sense worthy of appreciation, but simply that a result emerged that is sanctification of God’s name from what was done to you, because the Holy One, blessed be He, is evidently present in the world. Sometimes persecuting someone is less bad than ignoring him. To ignore is in a way—meaning, when people ignore the Holy One, blessed be He, when He is no longer even an issue—I once wrote, I think, in the context of whether the State of Israel is a Jewish state. And I said that I tend not to think so. Again, a state with many Jews in it, or whose government is a Jewish government—yes, that’s obvious. But a Jewish state—the connotation of that, at least, I think includes something more, and I’m not sure the State of Israel is that. By the way, it is becoming more so. Compared to previous years, there is a very clear process of becoming more Jewish.

[Speaker D] More, yes, more Jewish, in my opinion.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Unquestionably there is a process—no, in every respect—the public atmosphere, the discourse, much more, immeasurably more. In my opinion there is a very significant process. Hm?

[Speaker D] In line with the Rabbi’s view?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. The question is where the line is, where it crosses over—it’s hard to know. But definitely yes. Meaning, I think we are getting closer to a point where I would change my mind; there is something there, there is such a process.

[Speaker J] There’s a feeling that there’s some tension here, maybe—I feel it at least—because on the one hand there is very, very Jewish discourse, and songs are sung, and Ariel songs and so on, but on the other hand, at least in the legal system, you see, I don’t know, writing a marriage contract for same-sex couples.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, those are two different things. Meaning, more Jewish does not mean commitment to Jewish law. That clearly is not yet present in the state.

[Speaker J] But in the sense of relation, in the most basic sense of…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A Jewish conception—why, in the sense of rights? Clearly there is still a conception of individual rights or civil rights that remains fully in force, certainly among the established elites—legal, journalistic, academic, and the like. That is certainly true. But I wasn’t speaking on that plane when I said it lacks a Jewish character; I meant that Judaism is not present here. It’s not that you commit sins—fine, lots of people commit sins, that’s not the point. I meant exactly to get to that in the next sentence. So they said to me, wait, what about Ahab? The state of Ahab—”Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not head of the tribes of Israel?” So what do you mean? You see that he is still considered king of Israel, with all the idolatry and everything. So my feeling was: right, because even when people rebel against the Holy One, blessed be He, it is still a Jewish state—He is still here, you are quarreling with Him. But in the state I had in mind, at least when I wrote that, He was not present at all. Meaning, He simply didn’t interest anyone. Whoever talked about Him—it was a political issue or a subjective issue. Meaning, it was unimportant; it wasn’t even an issue at all. They weren’t quarreling with Him, they weren’t fighting Him. When they fight Him, that’s already something—that already means He’s here. After all, what did that great persecution of Judaism stem from—I once thought that in, say, the 1950s, there really was persecution—so I think it stemmed from some connection people felt, or frustrations people felt within themselves, that’s how it seems to me. Again, that’s cheap psychology, but that’s what I think. That means there was still some kind of connection there. Once you’re indifferent to the matter, you don’t persecute anyone. On the contrary—no problem, everyone with his own nonsense. Why should it bother you that someone does all kinds of nonsense? Only where it irritates you, where it is still present in your world, do you fight it, do you persecute that thing. And in that sense, maybe one can accept what the Lubavitcher Rebbe says here: that the result, that Jews are killed, means that the Holy One, blessed be He, is still an issue in the world; some struggle is still going on here. In that sense, the fact that the Jews ultimately survived and continued to live, etc., is one great process that still makes present the struggle over the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world, and not something that has already been lost, gone off the stage, left the scene. In that sense one can perhaps see in the result something connected to sanctifying God’s name. I don’t know, maybe. Although as I said, I also mentioned what Rabbi Shabtai—the rabbi here—told me. He’s married to a granddaughter of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, and he once told me that he spoke with Rabbi Moshe Feinstein about this, and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said there had been no greater desecration of God’s name than the Holocaust since the creation of the world. I don’t know—maybe the destruction of the Temple. But it is a terrible desecration of God’s name. Meaning—but of course that doesn’t contradict what I said earlier—and it is a desecration of God’s name. Desecration of God’s name in the sense that Jews become trampled underfoot, but there is perhaps also a dimension here in that the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, is still an issue, people are still fighting over it, and in that sense there is also a more complex way of looking at it.

[Speaker G] It simply depends on the answer to this question—sanctifying God’s name before whom, for example? The Crusades, for us, are sanctifying God’s name in any case—maybe except for the Rabbi—the slaughter of all the Ashkenazic communities all along the way to the Land of Israel. But that didn’t leave such an impression on the nations of the world, so we—so they composed Av HaRachamim, yes? Before whom is the sanctifying God’s name?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Before God, blessed be He? Before Israel? No, but I mentioned—I spoke about this earlier—that the concept of sanctifying God’s name may really have needed to be treated separately. The concept of sanctifying God’s name is not always directed against other people. There is something that is sanctifying God’s name in some objective sense. The name of the Holy One, blessed be He, is sanctified—not in people’s eyes, but it appears more in the world, it is more present in the world; that itself is considered sanctifying God’s name, even if no one sees it. There is such a dimension too of sanctifying God’s name. We need to collect sources and see—it’s a separate subject for discussion—but there is certainly such a concept, and also of desecration of God’s name, by the way. Desecration of God’s name is the same way—there is desecration of God’s name in private, not only in public. When a person commits a transgression in private, that is desecration of God’s name. It is desecration of God’s name because the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, is desecrated. Think of it in the ontological, metaphysical sense. Meaning, there is such a thing as the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, and fulfilling commandments elevates it to a better state—it appears more—and committing a transgression lowers it, or desecrates it. Yes, it’s not in the sense of—we’re very used to these concepts in terms of how it looks in people’s eyes, of public appearance. But no, there is something in the thing itself: the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, is sanctified or desecrated. If the people who bear His name behave appropriately, in a better way, and the whole world does not appreciate it because the whole world is in terrible moral shape, say, it would still be sanctifying God’s name. Even though there is no one in whose eyes it happens.

[Speaker J] So Abraham did sanctify God’s name even though many people thought he was on the other side?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is something objective in the concept of sanctifying and desecrating God’s name, and I think that’s in the sources; it’s not an expansion of the concept—it’s in the sources.

[Speaker G] On the contrary, the example of Abraham is not a good one in this context; his deeds influenced…

[Speaker J] Yes, but I’m not sure that was true all the time. There was a time when Abraham was on one side and the whole world was on the other side, and everyone laughed at him and saw him as delusional. Later he succeeded.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When you behave properly and all—say, for example, someone who keeps the Sabbath in a way that is very conspicuous to people, and everyone scorns it and thinks it is simply nonsense what he is doing—the thing can definitely be considered sanctifying God’s name, even though no one advances spiritually as a result and no one becomes closer to the Holy One, blessed be He. The person himself?

[Speaker E] Or in reality itself?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think it’s not even that. There’s something about sanctifying God’s name: the Holy One, blessed be He, is present in the world through one more piece of reality. That itself is called sanctifying God’s name, regardless of what impression it makes on people, even on the person himself. Meaning, I don’t think you need to get to that, even though it may be true, but I think that’s also the meaning of the term in the sources. It’s not just a conceptual extension. Okay, here there’s already something that I—if you want, I’ll hand it out to you, you can read it afterward if you’d like. I don’t think we’ll get through all of it. But here is the responsum that people usually bring in actual halakhic / of Jewish law discussion, the only one I know of, regarding this idea of dying for the sanctification of God’s name, in the sense of dying because you are Jewish as an act of sanctifying God’s name. It’s a responsum by the author of Mishneh Halakhot, Rabbi Menashe Klein the younger. A very interesting Jew in many ways, even though I really don’t like a large part of his responsa and his halakhic / of Jewish law mode of analysis. But there’s something very interesting and original about him in many respects, and it’s even hard to classify him. He’s very Haredi (ultra-Orthodox), yes, very Haredi (ultra-Orthodox), but there’s still something there from another era; meaning, he’s not completely stereotypical the way we’re used to today. I could show that in quite a few of his responsa—there are interesting things there. This responsum, by the way, is completely stereotypical, but it’s the only source where I found a systematic, orderly, detailed discussion of this issue, and that’s its advantage. He says: “An apostate who was killed for being Jewish—does that fall under sanctifying God’s name?” Is that considered sanctifying God’s name? He is deliberately talking about an apostate, meaning not someone who intended to die for sanctifying God’s name, and not someone who lived as a Jew, but an apostate whom they killed. Nothing—he has no share in this at all.

[Speaker P] I saw the responsum a second ago.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The last one, maybe. Let’s see. Maybe it is sanctifying God’s name. The fact that he repented means he’s a penitent, but that doesn’t mean he sanctifies God’s name. Meaning, a penitent, fine—but what does that have to do with sanctifying God’s name? In other words, sanctifying God’s name means that you did something that sanctified God’s name by being killed. They did it to you against your will. You didn’t even try to be Jewish. They caught you because they found on some list in the population registry that your father or grandfather was Jewish, and you failed to erase it from there even though you really tried. So in what sense did you sanctify God’s name? That’s what he’s discussing. Now look at the difference between sanctifying God’s name as a result of my choice, and dying for my Judaism as a result of my choice in that conduct, versus something done to me against my will. But somehow all his proofs completely ignore that issue. I really don’t understand this point, because he’s aware of the nuance and deliberately ignores it. I mean, I don’t know—it’s very strange. “On the twenty-fourth of the month of mercy, may the Giver of life inscribe and seal us for life, in the month of Elul. To the honor of my dear friend, the great Rabbi Yitzhak Zilberstein, rabbi of Bnei Brak, after sending greetings to his honor: I received a fax from my dear son, the mara de’atra and rabbi of the Ungvar community. In his handwriting he transmitted from the honor of his eminence regarding the letter that I had written. Although time has caused this, nevertheless, since we are seeking merits, especially at this time before the Day of Judgment, and the Haredi author wrote in the laws of the Land of Israel that anyone who constantly finds merit in the Jewish people becomes a chariot for the Divine Presence, therefore I said: I will go and find merit before the great and awesome day. And just as I find merit below, so may the ministering angels above find merits for us and for all Israel,” and so on.

[Speaker J] Concerning—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Regarding what they raised as a new point: that what they said in the Talmud / Talmudic text, Sanhedrin 47, that truly, when someone dies in his wickedness, one does not mourn for him. And the Talmud / Talmudic text there distinguishes, Rava against Abaye, and says: Are you comparing one who was killed in his wickedness to one who died in his wickedness? There is a difference between being killed and dying, yes. If he died in his wickedness, since he died in the normal way”—he died normally, just died—“he did not achieve atonement. If he was killed in his wickedness, since he did not die in the normal way, he did achieve atonement.” Since he was killed in his wickedness—they killed him—so he didn’t just die in the normal way, and therefore he achieved atonement. “Know this, for it is written: ‘A psalm of Asaph,’ and so on… ‘Your servants’ and ‘Your pious ones’—are not ‘Your pious ones’ truly pious ones? ‘Your servants’ refers to those who were originally liable to judgment, and once they were killed, Scripture calls them ‘Your servants.’” And Abaye said to him: yes, they call them servants because they were in fact deserving of death, and they served Him, the Holy One, blessed be He, and so you see this atoned for them. “And Abaye said to him: Are you comparing those killed by the government to those executed by a religious court? Those killed by the government, since they are not killed according to law, receive atonement.” Those killed by the government—meaning idol-worshipers, gentiles, gentiles killed Jews—“they receive atonement.” And his eminence brings that our rabbis the Levush and the Shakh—this is Rabbi Zilberstein, yes—“that our rabbis the Levush and the Shakh and those with them dispute in Yoreh De’ah 340 regarding an apostate who was killed by gentiles: whether one mourns for him.” And the later authorities (Acharonim) disputed this, may their memory be blessed. So at any rate, this matter is subject to dispute. “And if so, here too”—for our issue—“this person who was killed in Bnei Brak,” meaning by the Scuds, “at any rate, according to those views, still requires atonement.” By the way, someone who was killed in Bnei Brak by the Scuds—this was a Jew I knew. He suffocated because of a gas mask, and he was a Jew who observed Torah and commandments. I don’t know what that has to do with an apostate; he prayed with me in synagogue three times a day.

[Speaker G] In Bnei Brak there won’t be anyone killed; there’s a blessing of—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —the Chazon Ish, as is well known.

[Speaker G] And in Modiin too, only Religious Zionists.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Religious Zionists are the heavenly Bnei Brak, not the earthly Bnei Brak, so they added Modiin. Okay. “And in my humble opinion one must distinguish between an apostate killed by individual gentiles because he stole or robbed, at any rate because of some personal score they had with him—in that case we require that through the suffering he suffered at the hands of the gentiles in being killed unlawfully and unjustly, and by an unusual death, his sins were atoned for.” Notice: this is not about the commandment of sanctifying God’s name; it’s about atonement. I already said that suffering or death atones for a person’s sins—that’s fine—but that is not the claim that this is considered sanctifying God’s name. “Or perhaps we say that at any rate he had thoughts of repentance in his final moment.” And similarly, this was written in the responsa of Maharshal K… regarding the words of our master and teacher of Israel, the Hatam Sofer, on the issue of violating the Sabbath: whether one may violate the Sabbath for the sake of a person who violates the Sabbath, God save us. And the Maharshal K… wrote that every apostate, even in time of distress, has thoughts of repentance. And at any rate, we follow the majority, and it seems that this is the view of the Levush and our master the Shakh in section 340. And see the responsa of Maharil, who says as follows—this is one of the sources that they always bring: “What I wrote about those who were killed in their wickedness, that they are called holy and pious—indeed Scripture itself says so.” Yes, one who was killed in his wickedness is considered holy and pious, and I stand by what I wrote—so says the Maharil. “Scripture also says: ‘They have given the dead bodies of Your servants…’ and we establish that this refers to those who were killed in their wickedness.” And see Or Zarua, the laws of mourning, section 428, at length. So you learn from this that according to both Abaye and Rava, one who dies in his wickedness does not receive atonement; one who is killed in his wickedness by gentiles does receive atonement. Their dispute is about those executed by religious court. Yes, so if he was killed by—and this one was killed by gentiles—regarding those executed by religious court, that’s the dispute between Abaye and Rava. And it is fully agreed that if he just died normally, then it means nothing. If he was killed by gentiles, that gives atonement. If he died by court execution, then there is room to discuss it. I assume the meaning is that he died by court execution without repentance; otherwise it’s obvious that it atones, that is explicit in the Talmud / Talmudic text. “Now it is obvious that all these medieval authorities (Rishonim) wrote nothing at all about thoughts of repentance, only about the law of one killed by gentiles or by Jews, where the very fact of being killed by gentiles itself atones.” But notice: atones. That does not mean that it becomes sanctifying God’s name. Rather, death atones just as suffering atones. “However, in my humble opinion, for us this does not depend on the dispute of the Levush and the Shakh that we mentioned. Rather, there is here a distinction between those killed by the government and those killed by gentiles who are not the government. Or even those killed by the government, but not because they were Jews; rather they were killed for their wickedness or for one of the wicked acts they did, such as stealing and the like, and for that they were killed, or because of money. And regarding this they dispute whether thoughts of repentance are needed, or whether the pain of being killed is sufficient.” Is the suffering of being killed enough, as the Levush writes there in section 340: “Some say that if he was killed at the hands of a gentile, one mourns for him, because there is a presumption that he had thoughts of repentance.” Again, notice: the claim is that one mourns for him, not that he sanctified God’s name. And even the fact that one mourns for him is only because there is a presumption that he had thoughts of repentance, and then he truly repented, so his sins were atoned for, so he is no longer wicked. But there is not the slightest hint in the whole discussion until now to the question whether he really performed an act of sanctifying God’s name. Not a shred of a hint on that issue. Obviously it’s not there. It was clear to all these Jews that this was not true. The whole question is whether that death atoned for him, and when it atones—that is the question. And this law derives from the Talmud / Talmudic text in Pesahim, where Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: “He fell ill and recovered, and when he returned he said: I heard them saying, ‘Happy is he who comes here with his learning in his hand,’ and I heard them saying, ‘Those killed by the government—no one can stand in their partition.’ Who are they? If you say Rabbi Akiva and his companions—just because they were killed by the government and nothing more? Rabbi Akiva—no creature can stand in his partition not because he was one of those killed by the government, but because he was Rabbi Akiva. So who are they talking about when they speak of those killed by the government? Rather, the martyrs of Lod.” Everybody always brings this, and it has nothing to do with our subject. The martyrs of Lod were people who gave their lives in order to save the Jewish people. There was some decree there—they thought that the Jewish people had killed some king’s daughter, I think; I don’t remember exactly anymore, some gentile woman or whatever—and they took the blame upon themselves, they were executed, and in that way the Jewish people were saved, or the residents of that region, whatever, were saved. There’s even a question whether they were gentiles or Jews, I think—Lupus and Pappus and Lulianus. I think they were Jews according to all opinions. In any case, the martyrs of Lod are obviously a case of a human being deciding to give up his life. These are not people killed because they were Jews. I simply cannot understand all those who always bring the martyrs of Lod as the basis for this claim.

[Speaker Q] It’s because they gave their lives to save Jews, not like Rabbi Akiva, who was killed for the sake of Torah study.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—saving Jews: someone who gives his life to save Jews, I can understand why that would be considered sanctifying God’s name, because that too is a commandment. It’s a commandment. He gave his life for a very important commandment—to save Jews. And of course all the commandments they will then do afterward, and so on: “Violate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths.” That I am willing to accept as sanctifying God’s name. And in Maimonides’ Epistle, the Treatise on Sanctifying God’s Name, under the heading “The third category among those who are killed,” he counted people like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, and Daniel, and the ten martyrs of the government, and the seven sons of Hannah, and the rest of Israel who were killed for the sanctity of God’s name—may the Merciful One soon avenge their blood. And regarding such a person it is said: “Gather My pious ones to Me, those who made My covenant by sacrifice,” and so on. And our sages said: “I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem,” and so on—“for they fulfilled My will and I fulfilled theirs,” “or by the gazelles of the field,” who poured out their blood for Me like the blood of a gazelle or a deer, and regarding them it says, “For Your sake we are killed all the day long.” And a person whom God grants to rise to such an exalted level—meaning that he is killed for sanctifying God’s name—even if his sins were like Jeroboam son of Nebat and his companions, he is a person of the World to Come, even if he was not a Torah scholar. And similarly they said, peace be upon them—sorry—“The place where those killed by the government stand, no creature can stand in their partition.” See there. And none of this is relevant. This is talking about a person who is an ignoramus, or even wicked, but who gave his life for sanctifying God’s name. How does all this relate to our discussion? Since he counts there Rabbi Akiva and his companions and Torah scholars, and also one who is neither this nor that, but wicked like Jeroboam son of Nebat and his companions, and nevertheless no creature can stand in their partition—and he did not mention or allude at all to the law of thoughts of repentance. Correct: you do not need thoughts of repentance if you gave your life for sanctifying God’s name. So I can understand that a state like that is truly considered sanctifying God’s name. “And in my humble opinion it is obvious that this refers to any Jew who is killed in such a war, where the gentiles threw Scuds to kill Jews in the Land of Israel, wherever they were, because they were Jews, and the Jews do not flee when they have the ability to flee”—so here there is already an element that they did choose. So that, I am prepared to accept. But his initial assumption is simply not correct. “And they are killed because they are Jews—this falls under one who sanctifies God’s name, one who dies at the hands of a gentile government because he is Jewish, and even if he is from the camp of Jeroboam son of Nebat and his companions, nevertheless he belongs to the World to Come. And this is not the case of one who was killed by a gentile while still standing in his wickedness, which the Levush discussed.” And I found this distinction stated explicitly in the essay of Or Zarua, who disagreed with our teacher Rabbi Shemarya, who ruled that one should not mourn for the holy ones who were killed by gentiles. And he discussed at length the Talmud / Talmudic text in Sanhedrin and the dispute of Abaye and Rava about one killed by gentiles, what we saw above in the Talmud / Talmudic text in Sanhedrin. And in the end he wrote as follows: “Then I found that my grandfather, our teacher, wrote in his collection in the name of Sefer HaMiktzo’ot, and this is the wording of my grandfather, our teacher, who wrote in Sefer HaMiktzo’ot: One who is killed for the unification of God’s name and for the sanctifying of the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, whether in a time of persecution or not in a time of persecution, for example if they say to him, ‘Worship idolatry or else we will kill you,’ and he gives himself over to death and is killed, or hanged, or burned for the unification of God’s name—since he sanctified God’s name with his soul and with his body, all Israel are obligated to mourn for him and to cry and eulogize him in synagogues and study halls, and his wife may never remarry, because of the honor of Heaven and because of his honor.” And he concluded, and so on. So here he made two distinctions. One, regarding those killed by gentiles in their wickedness, where since they did not die in the normal way, they receive atonement, and on this depends the whole dispute between Abaye and Rava in the Talmud / Talmudic text in Sanhedrin. But someone who was killed for sanctifying God’s name because he was Jewish—such a person is called holy in any case. That is simply not true. What is written here is that someone who truly gave his life for sanctifying God’s name—not just someone who happened to die. Where he sees that here, I have no idea.

[Speaker J] Apparently that’s the basic assumption point—that it doesn’t depend on choice.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but from where? What proofs is he trying to bring? The proofs I don’t see. And this is the only place I found someone saying this and trying to discuss it systematically and bring proofs. All of his proofs—not one of his proofs even begins to say this. Nothing. On the contrary, they constantly introduce that added component of where you nevertheless contributed something to the matter, in order to justify it—or at most they’re talking about the fact that it atones for you, not that you performed an act of sanctifying God’s name. Death atones—we said that already—that’s a separate topic. And therefore it seems, in my humble opinion, regarding this man who was killed—okay, this is already the conclusion regarding the person who was killed by the Scuds—but it seems to me that this attempt to show it from sources is a pointless exercise. Meaning, it shows that there are no sources for it. I mean—I don’t—it also makes no sense, and there are no sources for it. I think it doesn’t even get off the ground. Okay.

Essential Explanations and Examples – Lesson 5

Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

The nature of the field of Jewish thought versus Jewish law and tradition

Entrenched conceptions, society’s reaction, and the price of “bringing thought into the binding corpus”

Haredi “hashkafah” versus Religious Zionist “faith,” and the status of the Kuzari

Intuition, the decline of the generations, and the authority of earlier generations

What counts as sanctifying God’s name in the Holocaust: the question and presentation of positions

Choice, atonement, and the distinction between atonement and fulfilling the commandment of sanctifying God’s name

The interpretation that “one’s stance creates sanctification of God’s name” and the words of Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman

The common use of the title “those who sanctified God’s name” and the objection to cheapening the concept

Rabbi Shach and the Lubavitcher Rebbe on interpreting the Holocaust and linking it to holiness

The responsum of Mishneh Halakhot as a systematic halakhic source and the critique of its proofs

Full Transcript

Leave a ReplyCancel reply

Table of Contents

Summary

General Overview

The nature of the field of Jewish thought versus Jewish law and tradition

Entrenched conceptions, society’s reaction, and the price of “bringing thought into the binding corpus”

Haredi “hashkafah” versus Religious Zionist “faith,” and the status of the Kuzari

Intuition, the decline of the generations, and the authority of earlier generations

What counts as sanctifying God’s name in the Holocaust: the question and presentation of positions

Choice, atonement, and the distinction between atonement and fulfilling the commandment of sanctifying God’s name

The interpretation that “one’s stance creates sanctification of God’s name” and the words of Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman

The common use of the title “those who sanctified God’s name” and the objection to cheapening the concept

Rabbi Shach and the Lubavitcher Rebbe on interpreting the Holocaust and linking it to holiness

The responsum of Mishneh Halakhot as a systematic halakhic source and the critique of its proofs

Full Transcript

שתף

Leave a ReplyCancel reply