“Oy! What a chillul Hashem!” Whenever a negative story comes out about an ostensibly G-d-fearing Jew, or a group of Yidden not conducting themselves in a way that is befitting, most people’s first reaction is about the terrible chillul Hashem that was caused.
Now, make no mistake about it. Chillul Hashem is a colossal aveirah. In fact, it is questionable whether a person can even do teshuvah for a chillul Hashem. That is why it is so understandable that this terrible aveirah is foremost on people’s minds when they hear about conduct that causes Hashem’s name to be desecrated. Needless to say, when the desecration is done by any person or group of people who represent Hashem and His Torah, it is an even greater chillul Hashem.
That said, often, it is a misnomer when the first thing that comes to mind after a scandal of any sort is, “Oy! Such a chillul Hashem!”
First Things First
I would like to share a true story that I heard from Rabbi Avrohom Anisfeld, an esteemed menahel from Lakewood.
“It was my first year as menahel of Yeshiva Ketana of Lakewood. I can never forget the incident. One of our school buses was transporting a busload of children home when they stopped for a red light outside a local community center where a large group of non-Jews were playing basketball on the community center’s basketball court. One of the children on the bus did something terrible. He pulled down the window and screamed, ‘You stupid…[racial slur]!’
“Suddenly, the basketball playing stopped. There was a shocked silence on the court. A second later, a tall, burly, black teenager ran off the court and into the street, and began pounding on the door of the school bus. The bus driver, shocked by the pounding, inadvertently opened the door, and before he could move, the teen was on the bus. The teen began to curse and scream, demanding to know who had made that racist remark. The boys, all under bar mitzvah, were terror-stricken and terrorized. Of course, no one admitted. It took some time, but finally, the bus driver figured out how to convince the intruder to get off the bus. The damage, however, had been done. The children on the bus, some of them very young, were traumatized.
“As soon as I heard about the incident that evening, I realized that I had work to do,” Rabbi Anisfeld continued. “I would have to address the boys and talk about the terrible incident that happened on the bus. How would I explain to them the magnitude of the terrible chillul Hashem that had transpired? This was not a transgression that I could just let pass.
“As a rookie menahel, I was not sure how to approach this ticking time bomb, so I decided to put in a call to my rosh yeshiva, Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky, to discuss it.
“After telling Rav Shmuel the entire sorry tale, I ended off by asking him, ‘How do I explain to them what a terrible chillul Hashem they have caused?’
“‘Chillul Hashem?!’ Rav Shmuel exclaimed. ‘Is that what worries you now? The first thing that you must talk about is anushius, basic human decency. This is not just a problem of chillul Hashem. This boy displayed a glaring lack of the most basic mentchlichkeit and human decency. How can someone just get up and scream out unprovoked racial slurs? This is so basic. If children don’t understand this, that means that they are missing an important part of what it means to be a human being!’”
Are We Acting with Basic Humanity?
This important yet basic lesson, taught by Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky, has so many applications. Whenever a negative story about an individual in our community, an institution, or institutions in the collective frum world hits the fan, the list of adjectives begins with “chillul Hashem,” “bizayon haTorah,” “middos raos,” “lack of kavod haTorah,” etc.
While all these things may be true, perhaps the first thing we should ask ourselves is whether or not we are acting with basic humanity. Have we descended to the jungle? To the survival of the fittest, where one animal cruelly kills, tortures, or tramples on another for self-elevation?
As our communities grow and our footprint becomes bigger and bigger in the cities and states where we live, it is very important to contemplate this lesson taught by Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky. The exalted status of being a Yid only comes after the more basic requirement to be a human being.
Before Worrying About Chillul Hashem, Let’s Make Sure Our Humanity is Intact
In many frum communities, our growth has come with growing pains. As we grow, the institutions and even the basic physical infrastructure that we have are becoming increasingly stretched. As a result, people feel compelled to become more and more aggressive simply to survive.
A most mundane example is the way we drive our cars. Because the infrastructure is so behind, it is often impossible to get by unless one aggressively sticks his car’s nose into traffic. In most places in the world, this type of driving is simply rude. For many of us, it has sadly become a way of life.
Another painful reality of growth is the difficulty of getting our sons and daughters into chinuch institutions. This area has become fraught with aggression. Often, in this process, lines are crossed, and those lines might even be ones that show a basic lack of human decency – no, not just a minor lack of refinement and middos, but the most basic human decency. And this is before we can even contemplate ideals such as kiddush Hashem and chillul Hashem.
I am not here to judge, but to point out things that should be obvious.
We are now studying the parshiyos that detail Yetzias Mitzrayim. One of the tactics used by Paroh to ensure that the Bnei Yisroel would continue to act like robotic slaves without questioning and without rebelling against him was the idea of “tichbad ha’avodah,” forcing them to work so hard and be busy day and night filling quotas and risking severe beatings if they didn’t that they simply would have no time to think.
The frum lifestyle often feels like tichbad ha’avodah. The frum family is under assault in so many ways. There is so much to do. There is learning, davening, engaging in parnassah, paying the bills, and having to comply with community standards for simchos, how to dress, how not to look like a “neb,” and how to make a “name for yourself” so that you are not a no-name who will be rejected…
There is just so much tichbad ha’avodah that many of us cannot stop and think, “Are we behaving like humans in this rat race?”
Hashem created Adam first. The first thing we must remember is not to lose our anushiyus, our humanity.
