Avoiding Chilul HaShem

Chortkover Rebbe, R' Yisroel Friedman

There is no better validation about observations I’ve made about members of a community than hearing the same observation being made from a card carrying member of that community. Especially one that is an elder like Mishpacha Editor-in-Chief, Rabbi Moshe Grylak. I am talking about the act of making a Chilul HaShem. Rabbi Grylak warns us to ‘behave’  at this time of year when many people visit vacations spots where there are a lot of non Jews and few if any religious Jews:

A Jewish child with peyos who throws candy bar wrappers on the ground, even on narrow mountain paths, is not just a child who is acting playfully and enjoying himself. He is executing a chillul Hashem and bears the weight of the resulting hatred of Jews. The gentile who sees him immediately tags him with his stigma regarding Jews. And when we witness an outburst of fury by a loathing non-Jew, we will never know how many small incidents that we ourselves are scornful about, have accumulated to form a mass of hate in his heart. (“What’s the big deal about what I did?” the little boy cries when he is forced to pick up the piece of paper that he threw on some remote path.) 

Sadly, I had occasion to witness  similar behavior  (which I have written about in the past). But it was by adults. Here is what happened. A family of Chasidic looking Jews boarded a flight to Israel. When they got to their seats they started ordering the flight attendant around as though she was their personal servant. I was so disgusted by this that I stopped her as she was about to pass me by and tried to apologize for their bad behavior. Her response was telling. She said she is used to it but knew that not all Jews behave this way.

She was used to it?! How often does this happen? But the individuals in that Chasidic family are not the only ones guilty of making a Chilul HaShem. 

Es Chatoei Ani Mazkir HaYom. Last Friday as I left a fruit store in which I regularly shop, I did what I always do.  I dodged traffic as I crossed in the middle of the street to get to my car. One fellow stopped his car and called me a name I will not repeat and added something to the effect that I should watch where I’m going.

I don’t know if that was intended as a simple warning he might have made to anybody that did that, or whether it was in some way antisemitic.  I was wearing my Kipa and I thought, that perhaps my habit of car dodging constituted a Chilul HaShem.  Needless to say, I have been feeling pretty guilty about that. Adding to my feelings of guilt is the fact that old habits die hard and I will likely keep dodging cars because of my tendency to be impatient.  

Yes, I am human. I make mistakes that I often regret. I need to be more careful and hopefully will never generate another comment like that.

That I regret it does not make it OK. Making a Chilul HaShem is one of the worst things a Jew can do. Perhaps that is one of the things that separates a Gadol from the rest of us. Two examples:

I have mentioned this story about Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach before. While seated on a bus on his way home, a secular young woman dressed rather immodestly got on the bus and sat down right next to him. Instead of saying or doing anything that might embarrass her, he got up and stood by the exit as though the next stop was  where he was getting off – even though it was a couple of stops away - got off and walked home from there.

A similar story was related by Rabbi Grylak in his weekly editorial in Mishpacha: 

(T)he  (Chortkover) Rebbe once was walking in a city park with another chassidic rebbe who had come to visit him. After walking for a while, they sat down on one of the benches. Suddenly, a woman sat down next to them. The visiting rebbe’s first reaction was to rise immediately, as he didn’t want to be sharing a bench with a gentile woman. But the Chortkover Rebbe stopped him from getting up so that the non-Jewish woman shouldn’t feel insulted or rejected by this obviously Jewish man.  

There is a subtle point being made here by the last 3 words, ‘obviously Jewish man’.  

It is true that any identifiable Jew that misbehaves in public perpetuates antisemitism and causes a Chilul Hashem. But it should not be overlooked that the more religious one appears the greater the Chilul HaShem. By wearing a Kipa (as I did) one is telling the world that they are trying to live by the dictates of the Torah – the word of God.

Making a Chilul HaShem is so serious that I recall my 6th grade Rebbe telling our class about a young religious fellow that was discovered to have stolen something. After being reprimanded for stealing, he was told that if he ever had the compulsion to do that again, he should at least take off his Kipa. 

It doesn’t matter whether the ‘audience’ is non Jewish or secular. The fallout is extremely negative in either instance. When a religious looking Jew makes a Chilul Hashem in front of secular Jews, the reaction will be predictable. They will surmise that if this is the kind of behavior religious Judaism produces, they will run far away from it.  

This is why I get so upset when I see the a Chilul HaShem perpetrated by the most religious looking Jews among us. It is true that we are not always painted with broad brushstrokes by either non Jews or secular Jews.  

Thankfully most people (at least Americans  like that flight attendant) limit their negative feelings to the individuals that are actually behaving badly. But it is also true that there are plenty of people that do generalize from the individual to the group. Which behooves us all (including yours truly) to behave all the time as though the world is watching us. Even when we think they aren’t paying attention. Because all too often, they are.