Parashat HaShavua - Emor
וְלֹ֤א תְחַלְּלוּ֙ אֶת־שֵׁ֣ם קדְשִׁ֔י וְנִ֨קְדַּשְׁתִּ֔י בְּת֖וֹךְ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל אֲנִ֥י יְהֹוָ֖ה מְקַדִּשְׁכֶֽם
As we study the 10 commandments in 4th grade, our students had a lot of questions about the 3rd commandment — don’t swear falsely using God’s name. At first they wondered why this was so important, but then they reasoned: even though you swore or promised, perhaps you wouldn’t fulfill your promise, thus bringing God’s name into a lie. (In one class the example was given that if I swear on God’s name to give someone a high five at the end of class, I might forget or I might possibly lose my arm between now and the end of class).
This week’s parasha also takes up the question of our use and misuse of God’s name, commanding us not to commit hillul ha shem, a desecration of the Holy name, or, as the Torah puts it, not to engage in hilul ha shem. But just as the 4th graders wondered about the deeper meaning of the 3rd commandment, the Talmud wonders about what exactly constitutes hillul ha shem. The responses offered in Tractate Yoma may seem surprising on first glance. They include speaking harshly to others, failing to greet people when you see them, or paying the butcher on credit rather than offering payment when the meat is received.
All of these examples are interpersonal — God is not directly implicated in any of them. According to the examples offered in Yoma, God’s name is most vulnerable not to desecration through heretical worship, but to human interaction that fails to treat others as being created in God’s image. And the instances highlighted are not examples of murder, kidnapping or rape. They are daily interactions.
Why do such small actions matter so much? Amos Oz writes in his book, How to Cure a Fanatic:
I believe that if one person is watching a huge calamity, let’s say a conflagration, a fire, there are always three principal options.
Run away, as far away and as fast as you can and let those who cannot run burn.
Write a very angry letter to the editor of your paper demanding that the responsible people be removed from office with disgrace. Or, for that matter, launch a demonstration.
Bring a bucket of water and throw it on the fire, and if you don’t have a bucket, bring a glass, and if you don’t have a glass, use a teaspoon, everyone has a teaspoon. And yes, I know a teaspoon is little and the fire is huge but there are millions of us and each one of us has a teaspoon. Now I would like to establish the Order of the Teaspoon. People who share my attitude, not the run away attitude, or the letter attitude, but the teaspoon attitude – I would like them to walk around wearing a little teaspoon on the lapel of their jackets, so that we know that we are in the same movement, in the same brotherhood, in the same order, The Order of the Teaspoon.
As Jews, as Zionists, as Americans, and as inhabitants of a warming planet, we face so many burning issues today. Oz urges us, rather, than feeling overwhelmed, to get out our teaspoons and start bailing out what we can. Maybe our teaspoon of goodness will be offered to the butcher, the person we don’t know very well but say hello to. According to the Talmud, these actions actually have the power to make God’s name more beloved in the world: “the meaning of ‘and you shall love the Lord your God’ (Deuteronomy 6:5), is that it is our responsibility to make God’s name beloved. How should one do so? By studying Torah and by being pleasant with people in his business transactions.” These and other small but holy actions are surely teaspoons that each of us has the power to grasp and use.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Anne Ebersman
