פרשת וארא
One of the Plagues that the Egyptians were smitten with in this week’s Parsha is the plague of The Frogs. The Verse brings down that these frogs were not ordinary frogs. They were so eager to do the will of God and torture the Egyptians that they were willing to jump into the ovens just to ruin the dish that the Egyptians were cooking at the time. Or when the Egyptians would open their mouths to speak, they would jump in and allow themselves to be swallowed only to cause more discomfort to the Egyptians. The Gemorah in Pesachim דף נ”ג says that Chananya, Mishael, and Azaryah drew a Kal V’chomer argument from this bizarre behavior of these frogs. If the frogs who weren’t commanded in keeping the Mitzvah of “Sanctifying God’s name” are willing to jump into the oven to do the will of their maker, certainly we who are commanded in keeping this holy Mitzvah must be willing to jump into a furnace for our God, (and then they jumped in).
Tosafos on this Gemorrah goes through great lengths to explain exactly what Chananya, Mishael, and Azaryah needed to learn from the frogs. We know that while a person, in general, need not give up his life for the Mitzvos, in a situation where a Jew is being asked to transgress any one of the Three Cardinal Sins or he is being asked to perform a wrongdoing in public, he is required to perish for the sake of heaven. Chananya, Mishael, and Azarya were in a situation where they were being asked to give up their lives for a sin which was both Avodah Zarah, and a public offense at the same time. If that was the case, why did they need to draw a Kal V’chomer argument from the frogs, it should have been obvious to them that they were required to give up their lives for the sake of Heaven?
Tosafos offers two possibilities to remove this difficulty. Firstly, he purposes that the situation that they found themselves in wasn’t an actual instance of Avodah Zarah, rather the king of the time was only asking them to bow down to a statue of him for his personal honor and not to worship him. Alternatively, Tosafos suggest that since they had the opportunity to flee from the palace earlier, they would not have had to give up their lives. They learned from the Frogs that although they could have successfully run away, it would be a bigger sanctification of God’s name were they to voluntarily stay and give up their lives.
One could ask on Tosafos that the Rambam rules that if a Jew is not allowed to give up his life for any given Mitzvah, it is categorically forbidden for him to perish on account of that mitzvah. If this is true, how could Chananya, Mishael and Azaryah have transgressed this heinous crime? According to the Rambam, if they had opportunity to run away, they were unequivocally obligated to do so, and not doing so would make them liable for their own deaths and equivalent to murder!
Perhaps Tosafos could be justified by employing the Kesef Mishnah who explains that although one is not required to give up one’s life for any other Mitzvah then the “Three Cardinal Ones”, and in fact it is forbidden, if that person is a Rabbi or an important person who has the responsibility of being a role model to the community, and there is a danger that the community will mock this particular transgression if the Rabbi doesn’t give up his life for it, the Rabbi is permitted to perish for that commandment. Similarly Tosafos could explain that Chananya, Mishael, and Azarya were the young leaders of the generation at the time and they reasoned that based on the rationale of the Kesef Mishnah, they were in fact permitted to give up their lives to sanctify God’s name in public.
I would like to explain why the Kesef Mishnah feels that one is allowed to gives up his life in these circumstances when we know that the Torah says “וחי בהם” – And you will live by them (the commandments), which teaches us that a person is never allowed to give up his life (barring the Three Cardinal Sins). To explain this Kesef Mishnah, we must examine why indeed does the Torah command a person to give up his life for the Three Sins and not for the rest? One of the quintessential aspects of being a Jew is the requirement to sanctify God’s name in every way at all times. Generally speaking, when a person is asked to give up his life for a “normal” sin, it would be a greater sanctification of God’s name for him to go ahead and transgress that sin, and then continue serving God for the rest of his natural life. However regarding the Three Cardinal Sins, they are considered by God to be so severe, that transgressing them would be too great of a desecration of God’s name to handle. So it is better for him to die and sanctify God’s name that way, then to transgress those commandments and defile God. When it comes to the Kesef Mishna’s situation of a Mitzvah which the world isn’t taking seriously enough, and a Rabbi has the opportunity to strengthen the credibility of that Mitzvah by giving up his life for it, such an act would be equivalent to the Three Cardinal Sins in terms of the level of Kidush Hashem that it would produce.
Based on this Kesef Mishna we can perhaps understand how exactly Chananya, Mishael and Azaryah were able to draw a Kal V’chomer from the frogs who seemingly have no obligation in any Mitzvos. We know that every creature on this earth, even the heavenly bodies, praise God constantly by their very existence as the passuk Tehilim says, “הללו את ה’ כל הארץ … וחיה וכל בהמה וכו'” – All creatures sing hymns to God. How do the creatures extol God? Their very existence and intricateness testifies to the glory and vastness of their maker. Similarly the frogs understood that their very existence was a constant praise to God, yet they chose to “give up” this praise in favor of sanctifying His name through their death. Chananya, Mishael and Azaryah saw this portrayal of Kidush Hashem and chose to do the same by allowing themselves to be thrown into the furnace.
The Rabenu Yonah says that it is incumbent upon every Jew to go above and beyond what we mentioned all the creatures do and sanctify His Creator in a unique way. He goes on to say that each and every Jew must contemplate the theoretical scenario of giving up his life for the sake of Heaven and decide to go ahead with it.
Parenthetically, the Sefer Hachasidim says he will be rewarded just for that conscious decision even though it never came into fruition. The Rabenu Yonah also says that every Mitzvah that a person performs must be done with great enthusiasm and attention to all the details of that Mitzvah, and this is a sanctification of God’s name. He adds that every minute action of a Jew, the way he walks or the way he blinks his eyes, should be done in a way which gives honor to his creator. According to the Rabenu Yonah, this is how far a person must go to fulfill his obligation of Kidush Hashem.
I would like to conclude with the Gemorrah in Berachos דף י”ז which relates that every year many Jews would congregate in the city Masa Mechasya in order to study Torah for two months. The Gemorrah goes on to say that the gentiles of Masa Machsya were “strong of heart” (a negative term) in that they didn’t convert after witnessing the awesome sight of all those Jews gathering to learn Torah. We see from this Gemorrah that a Jew is able to reach such a high level of sanctification of God’s name that all the people around him will be compelled to convert to Judaism! We probably cannot reach that level, but we should be expected to get to the point that all the people around us are able to “see” God through our actions.
May we merit sanctifying the name of Heaven with all of our actions!