We're all familiar with a Mishnah in Sanhedrin the fourth perek. לפיכך נברא אדם יחידי ללמדך שכל המאבד נפש אחת מישראל מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו איבד עולם מלא. וכל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו קיים עולם מלא.
Every person is uniquely valuable. His life has unique singular importance. Every person is an olam male. And yet, there is a dialectic, the Gemara in Berachot tells us on the pasuk in Kohelet, סוף דבר הכל נשמע את אלהים ירא ואת מצותיו שמור כי זה כל האדם,
that כל העולם כולו לא נברא אלא בשביל זה. So on the one hand, it's true that each and every one of us represents an olam male, uniquely valuable, and me'idach gisa, sometimes certain people stand out, and כל העולם כולו לא נברא אלא בשביל זה. There is a certain dialectic here. Chazal imply in one place in the Midrash that the entire nation of Moav was conceived so that Rus Hamoaviya would emerge. So everyone's an olam male, and yet all of Moav is for the sake of Rus Hamoaviya. The whole world is bishvil zeh, for this one person who is a true yerei elokim. There's a dialectic here. The same dialectic is true on the level of the microcosm as well. ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה ואם בגבורות שמונים שנה. Every day of our life, every hour, every minute, every second is equally important. Each one has a challenge, each one imposes upon us an achrayus of avodas Hashem to the best of our ability. אברהם זקן בא בימים, Chazal say he came with all his days. He didn't waste a single day. The equivalent of every person being an olam male, every day represents a nitzchiyus. And yet, the dialectic holds true here as well. Mordechai tells Esther, כי אם החרש תחרישי בעת הזאת רווח והצלה יעמוד ליהודים ממקום אחר ואת ובית אביך תאבדו. ומי יודע אם לעת כזאת הגעת למלכות. ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה.
Every day has its challenges, every day we have our achrayus, we have our shibudim in avodas Hashem. And yet, within a person's life, sometimes there are a few moments, and sometimes there's one critical moment, עת כזאת שהגעת למלכות. A time which will be singled out from all of a person's days as to whether or not he responded on that occasion, whether or not he responded under those circumstances. That's what Mordechai told Esther, you have your routine. You have your routine of avodas Hashem for ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה. But that's not enough. Because right now there's a critical defining moment. There's an es hazos where all norms have to be overturned. It's not enough to follow our conventional, your conventional schedule of avodas Hashem, Esther. ומי יודע אם לעת כזאת הגעת למלכות. Your whole life is for this one moment. So again, the same dialectic. Every minute of a person's life, every second of a person's life is valuable, but there's sometimes within a person's life there's an es kazos. And within that es kazos it can overshadow the rest of a person's life. Sometimes יש קונה עולמו בשעה אחת ויש מאבד עולמו בשעה אחת
is the person makes the sha'ah achas critical, but sometimes it's objectively so. Sometimes there's a sha'ah achas where historical circumstances are such that either a person is koneh olamo or rachmana litzlan. Right now, with the current situation in world Jewry, it's an es kazos. It's an es. is an eis kazos which requires every one of us—I am absolutely convinced that every one of us is gonna be asked what we were doing in the eis kazos when the fires of chilul Hashem were raging uncontrollably. Not in my lifetime, not in anyone's lifetime sitting here and I don't know how many hundreds of years you have to go back where the matzav in Klal Yisrael and the sinah which secular Jews have and the sense of alienation which they have from Torah has been so great. I don't know when it's ever been so great. Certainly not, no one can remember such a time. It's not enough, everyone here your routine is a routine of kedusha v'tahara. You get up, you daven, you learn a whole day, you learn a whole night, you daven again. It's not enough, it's not enough. We can't simply maintain our routines. Everyone, every single one of us—this is not a place to defer to your rabbeim, אין חולקין כבוד לרב במקום חילול השם. Every one of us has an achrayus to speak out and to reach whomever we can to try to contain these raging fires of chilul Hashem. First of all, we have to with no—you cannot overstate, you cannot exaggerate the care and the caution which we must take in speaking about this event, chas v'shalom not to expand or intensify the chilul Hashem. Chazal say אחד שוגג ואחד מזיד בחילול השם. It always bothered me in כמעט כל התורה כולה we always distinguish between shogeg and meizid. Those rare instances where we equate shogeg and meizid, Shvuas Ha'eidus—we're learning this year—those rare instances usually reflect a kulla for the meizid. Clearly the thrust of אחד שוגג ואחד מזיד בחילול השם is not to downplay or downgrade the severity of the meizid b'chilul Hashem, but rather it's to highlight the severity of the shogeg b'chilul Hashem. Why is that? Why don't we distinguish? The same way objectively it's the same chilul Shabbos and yet we say if you were willful it's worse. So chilul Hashem objectively it's the same. If you were willful it's worse. Why is it that אחד שוגג ואחד מזיד בחילול השם? This past week and a half one level of meaning of the Mishna became clear. If a person is meizid in chilul Hashem, if a Jewish brute will go ahead and kill a fellow Jew, it will constitute a colossal chilul Hashem, that a Jew could become so corrupted and so depraved as to shed blood constitutes an enormous chilul Hashem. But there is a greater chilul Hashem. There's a chilul Hashem when a person isn't a monster, doesn't—isn't a brute. When a person has a yarmulke on his head and he's wearing tzitzis and he says hineni muchan u'mezuman and in the name of Torah on an international platform with the eyes of the world on him, he means, he means it, ער מיינט דאס מיט אן אמת, he really thinks that what he's doing is l'shem Shamayim. In such a case when that person goes ahead and he kills, so it's true you measure it subjectively, he was mistaken, he didn't—he wasn't intentionally setting out to be m'chalel shem Shamayim, no. He had a different agenda entirely. But when you measure it objectively, the chilul Hashem is so much worse. The case of a person who's destroyed his own tzelem Elokim, a Jewish mobster, it's quite clear that he has betrayed Torah, it's quite clear that he doesn't represent Torah. But when a person goes with a yarmulke, when a person goes with tzitzis and he kills, he murders l'shem Shamayim, he's עובר לא תרצח לשם שמים, so maybe subjectively it seems to be more lenient, but objectively it's so much worse, it's infinitely worse. He not only betrays So the murder is not just a betrayal of Torah, but it's worse than that. It's a distortion of Torah. There have been undoubtedly there will be reporters around the Yeshiva, around the Bais Medrash. Rachmana litzlan! אחד שוגג ואחד מזיד בחילול השם. If they should hear a word, if they should hear a hesitation, a pause when asked was it wrong? Do you deplore, do you condemn? So a person should say that the president of the university came out with a statement and he spoke for all of us. Don't say more than that. You begin to give your own deya and you hesitate for a second, you choose the wrong word and whether you intend to or not, there's an implication that maybe it could be condoned. You begin to be mepalpel, maybe it could be condoned. Rachmana litzlan! אחד שוגג ואחד מזיד בחילול השם. A reporter comes, you tell him the president of the university, the president of the Yeshiva issued a statement and he spoke for all of us. He condemned it in the harshest terms. He spoke for all of us. עד כאן סוף פסוק. So number one, we have an achrayus chas v'shalom that we shouldn't unwittingly increase and add to these fires of chillul Hashem. But it's not enough that we don't aggravate the situation, we certainly have an achrayus, we certainly have an achrayus to do whatever we can to try to minimize the chillul Hashem and to try to somehow stem these floodwaters of chillul Hashem. How do we do that? A few ways. Number one, every single one of us has to find a forum to reach out to whether it's one person or whether it's ten people or whether it's five people, whoever you can reach, you have to reach. If you have a next-door neighbor who's a Gentile or who's a secular Jew, so find occasion, engage him in conversation, tell him how distraught you are. Tell him how distressed you are and all your friends are and how the entire school you attend, how distressed and how distraught you are at the distortion of your Torah and your religion. Very few of us have a platform, have a forum to reach masses at once. So we won't reach masses, but if you reach one person, if one secular Jew will hear and will know that this is not what all Orthodox Jews think Torah is, if one secular Jew or one Gentile will understand that this is not Torah, that we are more upset, we are more distressed, we are more distraught about the chillul Hashem than anyone else is, so then that will be an accomplishment which is infinitely valuable if we reach one person. If you reach one secular Jew, if you reach one Gentile, if you dispel the confusion of one religious Jew, of one ben Torah, that's infinitely valuable. And if you can reach more than one Jew, all the more so. If you want to know what's involved, what the shockwaves are, so I'll give two anecdotes which should be magnified and multiplied a million times over. A young woman, a baalas teshuvah, as is often the case, there was tension between her and her parents. As is often the case when a child is chozer b'teshuvah, so the parents feel abandoned and they feel forsaken and there was the unfortunate tension that existed. In the aftermath of the Rabin assassination, so her parents started calling her. Not only was he murdered by an Orthodox Jew, but then Orthodox Jews, some were condoning and some were celebrating. So they called her and they said, this is what you abandoned us for? For a religion that preaches violence and murder when you have a political disagreement with someone? And that's all it was and that's all it was. It was a political disagreement. The policies of the Rabin government, of the Peres government are halachically justifiable. Make that there be no misunderstanding about that. They're not halachically indisputable, but they are absolutely halachically justifiable. How many times the Rav zichrono livracha said that in his opinion one can surrender territories, one can relinquish territories if it will bring peace. Rav Ovadia Yosef said it, ibadel l'chayim. Does everyone agree with them? No. But the policies were halachically justifiable. It was a political disagreement. They were halachically justifiable. So these people perceived he was killed over a political disagreement. And they said, "This is what you forsook your home for? This is what you abandoned us for? For a religion of murder, of violence?" So fortunately the Rav in this young lady's shul spoke out and he condemned the assassination and he did so in the strongest terms possible. And she came over to him and basically said, "You saved me. I've been so confused this week." כל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל כאילו קיים עולם מלא. Another story which I heard today and you can multiply this by a million and these are stories from America. In Eretz Yisrael it's infinitely worse. The sinnah and the distortion and the perception of Torah is a million times worse. Another story: someone representing the Yeshiva, our Yeshiva met someone, he didn't know too much about the Yeshiva, didn't know if it was, didn't know if it was Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, didn't know what it was. So he heard that it was Orthodox. So he said, "Oh, so you're the guys who helped assassinate Rabin." There has to be a צעקה גדולה אשר לא היתה כמוה that this is not Torah, that this didn't represent Torah, that it was the ultimate distortion of Torah. And that no one is more distressed or distraught by the fact of the assassination or by all the ghoulish reaction in certain circles to the assassination. There has to be a צעקה גדולה אשר לא היתה כמוה. It's מי יודע לעת כזאת why YU is looked to in all of, in all of the diaspora. So it's well known that YU is the bastion of religious Zionism. And this chillul Hashem was perpetrated in the name of Torah as a whole, but specifically in the name of religious Zionism. So those of us who are currently affiliated with YU have an added achrayus, a greater achrayus than anyone else to try to counter that chillul Hashem. How do we counter the chillul Hashem? You reach anyone you can reach. If you can reach your next-door neighbor, you reach your next-door neighbor. If you can reach a bank teller when you're making a deposit in the bank, if you schmooze for two minutes, so reach the bank teller. Reach anyone and everyone you can. And finally, with no end to what one can, what one can say about this, but finally and very importantly, part of our response to this chillul Hashem is to cleanse ourselves from those same flaws which in Eretz Yisrael under the conditions of a pressure cooker manifested themselves in the form in the ugliest form possible of shfichas damim. But we're deluding ourselves if we don't think that they that those same flaws are not present in America as well. The difference is that America is not a pressure cooker the way Eretz Yisrael is. So those flaws don't manifest themselves the same way. But the intolerance for halachically legitimate alternate opinions, it exists here also and we have to root it out of ourselves totally, one hundred percent. The contemptuous attitude towards spiritually deprived through no fault of their own secular Jews which also played a role here, and the contemptuous attitude towards a head of state which are absolutely antithetical to Torah. famous Chazon Ish Yoreh Deah. It used to be considered the most famous thing in the Chazon Ish about how the din of moridin ve'ein maalin is absolutely not operative and עלינו להחזירם בעבותות אהבה. If those avosos ahavah had been there, so then our hands wouldn't be stained with blood. So we have to cleanse ourselves of those flaws of intolerance for legitimate, legitimate disagreement to uproot sinas chinam, ha'emes vehashalom ehavu, למדנו שחיבור וריעות נוהגין זה בזה לקיים מה שנאמר ha'emes vehashalom ehavu. Being passionate for truth does not preclude being passionate for shalom. The two, there's no, there's no conflict between the two. We have to uproot that from ourselves. We have to uproot this kind of contemptuous attitude towards a secular Jew, towards a spiritually deprived secular Jew. We do that hopefully be'ezras Hashem. Be'ezras Hashem, we'll be moseir nefesh to try to contain the chillul Hashem here. To try to project a correct image of Torah, so maybe we can also begin to make waves, waves that will not alienate, but waves that will be mekarev. And the Ribbono shel Olam should bless us, should give us the strength to respond in this eis kazoas. This eis kazoas where we're here, where we're associated, affiliated with YU, so in the eyes of the world, so you represent religious Zionism, you represent the same camp from which this murder emanated, and we have a tremendous achrayus, it can't be overstated. We have a tremendous achrayus to do everything in our power to respond and to project a correct image of Torah.