Clifford S. Fishman
This week’s Torah portion is Emor: Leviticus 21:1 – 24:23
In this week’s parashah, Leviticus 22:32 mandates:
“You shall not profane My holy name, that I may be sanctified in the midst of the Israelite people — I the Lord who sanctify you.”
Our rabbis teach that a Jew who lives by the mitzvot and treats others with compassion and kindness inspires others to do likewise and therefore sanctifies God’s name; and a Jew who belittles the mitzvot and is unkind to others profanes God’s name and encourages others to do likewise — and, sometimes, creates contempt, and worse, for Jews in general.
How do we sanctify, and avoid profaning, God’s name? Last week’s parashah commanded: “You shall be holy, for I, your God, am holy.” (Lev. 19:2.) Commenting on this verse, Or Hayyim said, “If you are presented with an opportunity to commit a sin and you refrain … this fulfills the command to be holy. … Every single individual can achieve that spiritual level by merely fighting off the desire to violate a commandment when the opportunity presents itself.”
But not every individual is capable of resisting every urge to commit any and all sins. And in light of that, our sages offered some surprisingly practical advice:
“Rabbi Ilai said: If a person sees that his evil inclination [in this case, sexual lust] is overpowering him, let him go to a place where no one knows him and put on black clothes and wrap himself in black and do what his heart desires, but let him not desecrate the Name of Heaven publicly.” Moed Katan 17a (emphasis added).
Of course, Rabbi Ilai was not giving the offender a license to patronize a prostitute; no doubt he hoped that the inconvenience and expense of following his advice might dissuade the would-be offender altogether.
But misconduct in private is often harder to resist nowadays. Consider all the bad behavior that used to risk public embarrassment, that can now be committed in your own home with the click of a mouse. (Although someone who is tempted should remember that private online activity is never completely private; such conduct is often discovered, or becomes public, within seconds after it is sent or received — or even 10 or 15 years later.)
Resisting improper public behavior is also more difficult these days because society has, as former U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it, “defined deviancy down.” Conduct which used to be considered immoral and illegal is now legal, and has become morally acceptable among a substantial portion of the population as well.
That trend makes it harder for a person to say “no” to conduct that their conscience says is wrong, particularly if that conduct is portrayed favorably, over and over, in the popular media. The same is true in financial matters: conduct which takes unfair advantage of the ignorant and vulnerable — even if legal — which was once considered immoral and unfair, is now often applauded as “good business.”
So how can we resist engaging in wrongful conduct? The Torah tells us, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am Holy.” But for me, that is too distant and abstract. When I face such a temptation, I ask myself, “If I did this, would my parents have been proud of me? What would my wife and our daughters think? What would my friends at my synagogue think?”
These may not be as “noble” as deciding not to do something because God commanded us not to do it. But whatever works, works!
Clifford S. Fishman is a long-time member (and former co-president) of Tikvat Israel Congregation in Rockville, Maryland, and is professor emeritus of law at Catholic University of America.
