In the early 2000s, the country witnessed severe inferno attacks that claimed the lives of hundreds of its residents.
During these years I was part of the array of volunteers in the various medical services in Jerusalem.
Therefore, I often took care of my friends who were sometimes among the wounded and unfortunately even among the dead.
Last week I shared things in memory of Avraham Belhassan the 14th, who was killed by a terrorist who blew himself up on Line 19 in Jerusalem in 2004 (6th Tribe 5764), as it passed on Gaza Street, near the Prime Minister's House. In my remarks I mentioned his death on the 'sanctification of the name', for beyond the fact that he found his death only because of his ethnic origin, during the fateful journey he sat next to a new immigrant from the USA, a resident of Beitar Illit, who memorized his own Bible summaries. Avraham the 14th found his death with fields and summaries of several of his own words buried in his grave. In fact, a few weeks before the attack, a conversation took place between us in some way on the subject of life and death, .
Allegedly, the phrase "sanctification of the name" is used in every event in which a person dies for his Jewish origin, or for observance of mitzvos.
But in a deeper aspect it seems that it is not simple at all.
The Jewish religion considers the sanctity of life a supreme and sublime value first and foremost, rejecting all the commandments except when it comes to an existential and fundamental threat as a people.
The commandment to sanctify the name is learned from the verse in Leviticus: "And I was sanctified in the midst of the children of Israel;
Its essence, as Maimonides explains, is the mitzvah to surrender the soul from choice in the face of a demand to commit one of three basic offenses in Judaism - "kill and do not pass" - foreign work, incest and bloodshed. Also, during a spiritual war Defined as the "hour of destruction" any activity of devotion to the observance of the religious spiritual conception will be called "the sanctification of Gd".
This was the case with Rabbi Akiva who was scanned with iron combs to preserve his Judaism and values, while reciting the verses of Shema Yisrael. And so it was with ten royal martyrs and many more in the history of the Jewish people whose spiritual status was very high and were defined as such that "no creature can stand in their midst."
This simplistic conception of the concept of "sanctification of the name", which is relevant only to the dead by choice according to the above criteria, provoked much discussion about the definition of the deaths of millions of Jews in the Holocaust. Out of choice and out of devotion to save the
community .
Out of devotion and heroism, it seems that the completion of the perceptual revolution was immediately after the capture of Adolf Eichmann, the establishment of Bureau 06 to accumulate evidence against him and the beginning of the trial, which allows Holocaust survivors to tell their story proudly and spiritually.
A group of Jews evacuated from the Warsaw ghetto in Poland, 1943, Photo: AP
The late Rabbi Yehoshua Moshe Aharonson was one of the rabbis of Poland during the Holocaust. In his mind constantly also on the verge of crematoria:
"While I was still in the Valley of Death in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald death camps, all those millions of saints who were killed by the Nazis in strange deaths, was their death a 'sanctification of Gd' death? A creature can stand in their midst '? The question is, is a Jew who was killed for being a' Jew '- is the' Temple of Gd 'in his death. Most of all those killed, died with no choice. For a death such as this 'sanctification of Gd'? ".
To the bystander, the debate over the religious definition of Holocaust victims can raise questions, but it turns out that this has left the rest of the spirit in many perished who knew in their last moments that their deaths sanctified their people and heritage.
It seems that Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, one of the most important rabbis of Lithuania during the Holocaust, decided on this issue because before his execution at the Seventh Fort near Kaunas, he gave a speech to his students and said: "We must remember that we will truly be temples of God.
We will walk with our heads held high, and God forbid an improper thought will arise, which is a figment of the imagination, disqualifying the victim.
We now observe the great mitzvah of Kiddush Hashem "and even said in his name that he commanded to bless in the name and in the kingdom the blessing said just before death on Kiddush Hashem" to sanctify his name in the multitude "as the wording appears in the Book of Hashalah (two Tablets of the Covenant).
In the Warsaw ghetto, spiritual thinkers tried to strengthen the resilience of the ghetto residents by defining the sanctity of the name precisely from the sanctity of life. Maimonides referred to this description as a description of a situation in which a Jew behaves in front of the rule in a noble and unique behavior and in his words (Basic Laws of the Torah, Chapter 5): "..., until they find everything from Kelsin him and love him and apprehend his deeds, then he sanctified the name."
The definition is essentially important as it includes a binding set of values that constitutes a tower of moral and value light.
The questioning of the term "sanctification of the name" and expanding its use for noble behaviors and standing firm in the face of the challenges of the spiritual and physical period undoubtedly puts in its shadow all killed and slaughtered by being part of the Jewish people and their decision to fulfill their desires here in Israel. Our people and who gave their lives to save our people throughout history who have a high and noble status in Jewish sources.
Rabbi Shraga Natan Dahan is an officer in the Res. He has a master's degree in management and technology and is certified as a rabbi and judge. Serves as a consultant and lecturer in public, security, educational and scientific bodies on issues of halakhah, technology, medicine, science and space.
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