Rabbi Yochanan ben Beroka (Avot 4:5) cautions against the performance of even private actions that constitute a chillul Hashem, a desecration of God’s name, warning of the hugely embarrassing consequences:
כָּל
הַמְחַלֵּל שֵׁם שָׁמַֽיִם בַּסֵּֽתֶר, נִפְרָעִין מִמֶּֽנּוּ בְּגָלוּי, אֶחָד
שׁוֹגֵג וְאֶחָד מֵזִיד בְּחִלּוּל הַשֵּׁם
Whoever desecrates the Divine Name in secret will be punished in public. So
far as chillul Hashem is concerned, it makes no difference whether it’s unintentional
or deliberate.
Let’s leave aside the
fascinating questions as to what actually constitute a chillul Hashem
and, as the Me’iri asks, whether it is the case that every infraction of the
Torah, whether public or private, is a desecration of God’s name. If we start by assuming, as many do and the
Gemara demonstrates, that there is a sliding scale in which, the more overtly
religiously observant and learned a person is, the higher is the standard of
behaviour expected. We can then ponder the following pair of questions: why should God be so worried about private chilluei
Hashem that He effectively “outs” the perpetrator, thus publicizing the
desecration of His own name. And how are we, as ordinary rank-and-file Jews,
affected by any given chillul Hashem committed by another person in
private?
Our capacity to seek to
avoid embarrassment must constitute an important factor in the rationale for
this teaching. If we truly believe not only that God is watching and recording
our every private action (as we learn from Rebbi at Avot 2:1), and that we are
punished for our misdeeds just aa we are rewarded for our good ones, no further
deterrent should be needed. But in practice we live our lives in real time and
do not always have the opportunity to reflect before deciding rationally what
we should do or say. The ability of the yetzer hara, the inclination, to
get the better of our good intentions is acknowledged throughout Jewish
literature. So presumably more is needed if we are to improve our Torah
compliance—and that is where this Mishnah invokes our deep urge to escape
public humiliation or to be “found out”. Bearing this in mind, I would like to
think that it is precisely because God does not want to see us shamed in public
that He intimates that He is prepared to do so.
Modern science, or at
least parascience, has an answer to this: Professor Ruport Sheldrake’s theory
of morphic resonance. This theory proposes that memory is not merely
personal but is inherent in nature itself. All natural systems—molecules,
cells, and organisms, including the human being—inherit collective memory from
previous similar systems via "morphic fields". It suggests that
nature is habitual rather than governed by fixed laws, meaning that behaviours
or structures become easier to repeat over time, as more people repeat them. What
this means, in the case of a Jewish community with its own collective memory,
is that it becomes easier to repeat the behaviour of learning Torah when others
in that community are learning Torah, and harder when they are not—even where
there are no competing social pressures.
Sheldrake’s theories have attracted much attention and
criticism over the years; indeed, he is one of a small, select band of scholars
whose TED Talks have been banned. Yet here at least he offers a clue to the
understanding of our mishnah: each time someone commits a chillul Hashem
privately and out of the sight of man, he makes it easier for others to do
likewise.
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