Above All — Don’t Make a Chilul Hashem
A few weeks ago, I wrote in these pages a piece summarizing some major lessons from the life of Rabbi Moshe Sherer, zt”l. I now realize that I left out a very important lesson: Rabbi Sherer was extraordinarily careful never to let anyone close to him whom he feared might ever reflect badly on Torah Jewry. Many times, he rejected out of hand suggestions that Agudath Israel of America honor particular people out of a concern that the award might come back to haunt the organization one day.
Though I described this trait in Rabbi Sherer, I don’t think I fully appreciated it. I did not realize how great the temptation is nor how rare is the ability to resist. We are not talking about turning down money to do something that is clearly wrong or where the potential downside is evident to all, but about something much more subtle: Refusing an immediate and obvious benefit because of a slight suspicion that it may one day generate a negative fall-out.
Our communal institutions are continually strapped for funds. Those responsible for the budgets of those institutions live under constant pressure, and the temptation for them not to examine each potential donor under a magnifying glass is great. It is not hard to come up with a heter for failing to do so, and it is easy to place the onus elsewhere if something runs amiss.
Many of those who sought to join Rabbi Sherer’s inner circle and were rebuffed, for instance, were men of means, accustomed to being honored for their ability to contribute to this cause or institution. Each of them presumably came with a chezkas kashrus as an upstanding frum Jew. And each of them had numerous of other institutional or organizational affiliations. It would have been the simplest thing in the world for Rabbi Sherer to simply rely on their resumes and gain another major supporter for Agudath Israel of America.
But he refused to hide behind the presumption that others must have thoroughly investigated a particular person before accepting his money or honoring him. He did his own investigations and did not place exclusive reliance on any single person’s judgment.
Why was he such a zealous gatekeeper, when the natural tendency of any leader of a major institution or organization, especially one constantly in need of new funds, is to receive all who wish to draw close with a welcoming embrace? Why did he devote so much time to conducting personal investigations to determine who might one day tarnish his reputation or embarrass Agudath Israel of America?
Certainly it was not because Agudath Israel had no need of money. Rabbi Sherer always carried around in his head a list of new projects he wanted to undertake when the appropriate personnel and funding were in place.
The answer, ultimately, is simple: Kiddush Hashem was his lifetime mission, and he would not do anything that might ever endanger that mission. He lived in absolute dread of anything that smacked of possible chilul Hashem.
The most essential element of the Rabbi Sherer’s sterling reputation and that of Agudath Israel under his leadership was, in the final analysis, not the sharpness of his judgment of character, but the strength of his devotion to Kiddush Hashem. If we wish to protect the honor of Torah and Torah Jewry, as he did, we have no choice but to devote ourselves to Kiddush Hashem and sensitize ourselves to anything that might possibly lead to chilul Hashem.
In protecting against chilul Hashem, he was aided by faith in the words of Torah and Chazal. If Chazal taught, “Do not believe in yourself as long as you are alive,” those words applied to everyone. In his new work, Six Constant Mitzvos, Rabbi Yitzchok Berkowitz defines yiras Hashem, inter alia, as a constant awareness of how easy it is to destroy your life, and the understanding that if you so choose, Hashem will not stop you.
Rabbi Sherer had that palpable yiras Hashem. Precisely because he knew how vulnerable we all are to moral failure and understood the traps that we all face, was he so scrupulously careful in vetting those whose names were associated with Agudath Israel of America.
(That is not to say he was never fooled. No matter how sharp one’s judgment of people, it is never perfect. And even the finest of Jews can make mistakes and slip.)
The greater our yiras Hashem, the greater the number of precautions that we take that no chilul Hashem should ever emanate from our actions, either directly or indirectly. It is said of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter that he refused to be alone in a room with money belonging to others, lest he be tempted to steal. How much more so was he careful with respect to the proscriptions of yichud. If Chazal said, “ein apitropis l’arios,” those words were no mere metaphors or figures of speech, but to be taken literally as expressions of the danger to each of us.
If the great Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, the founder of the mussar movement of character development, did not trust himself, how much more so do we have to recognize our own vulnerability.
That is no less true with respect to our susceptibility to being blinded by money. If the Torah teaches that “bribery blinds the eyes of the wise and make false the words of the righteous,” Rabbi Sherer treated that as an immutable rule of human nature. And from that immutable rule it followed that those who do not view themselves as either “chachamim” or as “tzaddikim” must be even more careful to guard themselves and remain constantly vigilant for signs of being “bribed” in any possible manner.
Because Rabbi Sherer took the warnings of Chazal so seriously, he was always prepared to make the extra effort and take the extra time to ensure that the people upon whom he placed his imprimatur were Jews of sterling character, for whom the development of their middos was an ongoing project. For only then could he have any confidence that they would not one day bring disgrace to the Torah and Torah Judaism.
Gutsy and courageous article by R’ Rosenbloom. The question now remains is there a correlation between the lack of secular education (and therefore a prosperous middle class), and the ability for our institutions to not have to rely on sketchy sources of funding?
I am amazed by the laxity in “dina d’malchusa dina” that seems di reguer in some mosdos. I think the sincere teshuva of the Spinka Rebbe should set a standard for others who have been “moreh heter”. Rabbi Sherer and his lifetime partner in Klal work Rabbi Herman Neuberger never allowed a whiff of fraud, nothing remotely illegal in the operation of their respective institutions. Many times, people have tried to finagle, to find an easy way e.g. to offer a large donation in exchange for a degree that was not earned.Some rich man wants his son in law to go for a Master’s Degree so he tries to influence the yeshiva to accept 4years of transfer credit from elsewhere and write a transcript as if he actually learned in the yeshiva. I remember Rabbi Neuberger literally throwing out one of the wealthiest Jews from New York who tried that on him. He said to the rabbi “It will be good for you, good for the yeshiva and good for me.” Rabbi Neuberger told him “We are not for sale.” The man repeated this to his friends at a wedding that night and they told him “we told you it wouldn’t work in Baltimore”.
Maybe we are not careful enough to avoid Chillul HaShem because we do not think about HaShem enough.
For example, this statement made in 1999 by Rabbi Dr. Dovid Gottleib:
“One Baal Teshuvah who came to Torah observance after experiencing another religion observed that while he heard a great deal in Torah circles about: values, philosophy, law, family, spirituality, growth, history, beauty, etc, G_d was rarely mentioned.”
This quote is from the Foreword by Rabbi Dr. Dovid Gottleib on page 14 of Inner Peace by Rabbi Yisroel Roll, 1999, Targum Press, Michigan, ISBN 1568711891.
In another case that happened in the past ten years, a giyoret claimed to have learned much from Orthodox Judaism, but went back to Christianity because she felt that there was not enough emphasis on G_d.
It is time for us to stop concentrating on Chilul Hashem. Nobody plans on getting caught and plans to make a Chilul Hashem.
Geneiva (stealing), Gilui Arayos(immorality), and Ona’as Devarim (abuse) are forbidden under all circumstances.
” … the sincere teshuva of the Spinka Rebbe …”
– if you say we can make the judgment that somoeone’s teshuvah is sincere, then by definition can determine that someone’s teshuvah is not sincere. If you examine the facts, you may want to stay away from this assertion.
Congratulations on the book. I finished it yestereday and enjoyed it – its like a mussar sefer, especially for someone who works in the secular world.
Is it a Chilul Hashem when you do something wrong, or only when you get caught? Is the teshuva one does after getting caught sincere, or simply pragmatic? Because a person with yiras Hashem knows that he’s “caught” immediately: “Reflect on three things and you will never come to sin: Know what is above you –a seeing eye, a hearing ear, and all your deeds are recorded in a book” (Avot 2:1)
Rabbi Sherer had access to the Gedolim and they trusted and respected his judgment. I wonder how many of the recent misstatements could have been avoided had Rabbi Sherer been there to advise them of the facts and the repercussions of their pronouncements.
“how many of the recent misstatements could have been avoided had Rabbi Sherer been there to advise them of the facts and the repercussions of their pronouncements”
– Agree that RMS’s involvement very likely would have made a difference, Thing is, why should intelligent rabbonim need expert-advice on stuff that poshuter yiden evidently know (or there wouldn’t be a tumult in the first place).