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Jun 13, 2010

comparing kiddus hashems

Kikar Shabbos ran an opinion column by a Rav Yaakov Blau. He writes about the two instances last week that involved, each, a million shekel. One was the story of Moshe Abu Aziz, the winner of a million shekel in a television trivia game show, and the second was the news item that Sarit Hadad gave up a million shekel gig because it would have required her to play on Shabbos.

Blau criticizes the religious world that we were quick to call Abu Aziz million shekel win a kiddush hashem, and ignored the million shekel kiddush hashem of Sarit Hadad. Blau goes on to say that Abu Aziz was anything but a kiddush hashem, as there is nothing impressive about the fact that a haredi man showed he can know all that trivial information about irrelevant historical dates and details, and details from movies. His only consolation is that Abu Aziz insisted that he is not haredi. Yet Hadad's kiddush hashem was far greater yet ignored.

While I have no idea who made a greater kiddush hashem, and I do not know how to compare and decide which is greater and which is lesser, it is clear that Blau does not read Life in Israel.

I, too, caught the news item about Hadad forgoing the million shekel gig and was duly impressed by her kiddush hashem. So it wasn't totally ignored, just ignored by the people who think that if something happens to a non-haredi person it is not newsworthy.

Regarding Abu Aziz, I disagree with Blau and say Abu Aziz's performance on national television was a kiddush hashem. Not necessarily because he knew the irrelevant and unimportant answers to a bunch of uninteresting questions, but because of how he composed himself and behaved in front of hundreds of thousands of people around the country. Thousands and thousands of people watched a religious guy answer with respect, with prayers and blessings on his lips, with the name of Hashem in his every breath, and they watched him win a prize nobody in Israel to date, and only one other person in the world, has succeeded in winning. His composure, his demeanor, and his personality made the kiddush hashem.

Not only that, but I would even be willing to posit that his immense knowledge, even of unimportant facts, also adds to the kiddush hashem. Abu Aziz made a kiddush hashem by going out in front of the world and showing that a person can be knowledgeable in the ways of the world and still be frum and have emuna. People can watch Abu Aziz perform and learn from it that to be religious does not necessarily require you to lock yourself into your own closed community and ignore the world. One can participate in the functions of the world and still be a man of emuna and exemplar behavior.

6 comments:

  1. The writer uses the title Rabbi, so I would think he's writing about kiddush Hashem from a religious and inspirational standpoint. Yet his article comes quite close (does?) to judging other people, which isn't exactly in the spirit of kiddush Hashem but rather a more social commentary.

    And I guess I'm committing the same irony.

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  2. Thousands and thousands of people watched a religious guy ... win a prize nobody in Israel to date, and only one other person in the world, has succeeded in winning.

    Have to disagree with you. More than one person has beaten the mob on different versions of the show.

    Also, I'm not sure that a religious person who acts like a mentsch automatically makes a kiddush hashem. Sure, it reflects well on people who adhere to the Torah, and is in general a positive thing, but there's nothing about winning a game show and acting nicely about it which can be considered to be m'kadesh shem shamayim. Calling it a real kiddush hashem seems a bit of hyperbole.

    Sarit Hadad, on the other hand, very publically sacrificed a nice chunk of change in order to avoid a public desecration of Shabbos.

    To illustrate the point, imagine if someone held a gun to Abu Aziz's head and told him to act arrogant when he won, and he didn't. It would be a stretch to say that he died al kiddush hashem. On the other hand, if someone offered the same deal to Hadad's over her refusal to play on shabbos, I think that most rational people (translation for those who are new to blogs: "in my opinion") would agree that she died al kiddush hashem.

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  3. yoni - I dont know if he was the only one, or if "other versions" is the same thign or not. The host of the show, when he won, said he is the first winner of this show in Israel, and the second in the world.

    My point was that the kiddush hashem is not that he won, but how he won and how he conducted himself in public. I watched the clip. He praised hashem over and over again, he said short tefillos to himself before giving answers, he thanked hashem for correct answers. And yes, in todays day and age where most religious people in the public eye are busy making chillul hashem for either being involved in scandals or the way they act and speak about other people and fight, yes, just his behavior alone is a kiddush hashem.

    Thousands of secular people went and saw a religious person, very religious in behavior and in appearance, conduct himself like a mentsch, show that he lives with emuna, and yes, even that he won as well.

    I would not compare one kiddush hashem to the other, as I have no way of knowing which is greater and which has more of an affect on others and which more people saw, but both, I think, are great kiddush hashems.

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  4. Rafi,

    I wasn't confused about what you said (re-read my first comment). I'm just in doubt if the way he acted, while commendable and certainly contributing toward a positive image of frum people, actually constitutes a kiddush hashem.

    Also, I'm pretty sure that the bar for making a kiddush hashem doesn't change too much, or at least not in the way you imply, based on the way other outwardly frum people act. I agree that displays such as Abu Aziz's become more important, but not they get elevated to the status of a kiddush hashem.

    I think that part of the disconnect has to do with the way that terms are thrown around these days. When someone acts differently from the norm, there is a tendency to use exagerated language to put that person down, instead of just saying, "this is not for me" or "we don't do that" (for example, sending kids to a school which teaches science can be seen as a pritzat derech and an act of kfirah in some circles, or a parking lot/semiconductor plant being open on shabbos within walking distance can be seen as high insult towards someone's way of life). The flip side of this is that any good act gets magnified out of proportion as well. Therefore, a frum mentch on TV is automatically a tzaddik. It's certainly easier to see the world in this black-and-white way (everyone's either a rasha or a tzaddik, but this comes at the cost of a real understanding of reality.

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  5. One clarification (I hit "publish" instead of "preview"):

    My last point was not meant as an insult to Rafi. The haredi "street" had called Abu Aziz's actions a kiddush hashem, and Rafi was defending that assessment. I think that the original assessment is a by-product of what I described, but Rafi gave clear-headed reasons (which I disagree with) of why the assessment happens to be correct, irrespective of why it was made in the first place.

    All clear?

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  6. This post is excellent, Rafi and so are the intelligent comments.

    Sarit Hadad is one of a kind. Creative, talented and exceptional entertainer, check out her song 'Shema Yisroel' that she composed for the captived soldiers. She has shown the Musical and Entertainment world that SHABBOS IS NOT FOR SALE. A tremendous kiddush hashem and mesirus nefesh of a high order.

    When it comes to Aviv, he took all the midos of our holy mesorah and put them into action by acting like a mensch. How about the "L'SHEM MENSCH" award to be given out to the select few?

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