The Divrei Chaim Defines a Chilul Hashem

One of the admirers of Rav Yisroel of Rizhin was the tzaddik Rav Chaim of Sanz. The Rizhiner had been imprisoned for twenty-two months, sixteen of them in the dungeons of Kiev and then six months in Kamenetz, although no charges were ever brought and he was never put on trial. He continued to lead his chassidim even in prison. On Shushan Purim, March 20, 1840, he was released. He later fled to Sadigora, where the Austrian government granted him citizenship and refuge, and he lived there for the rest of his life.

In his later years Rav Chaim was Rav of Sanz and head of its Bais Din. When he retired, his son Rav Aharon took over the position.

Once, when Rav Aharon was presiding over the Bais Din, he gave a ruling that displeased the litigant who lost. The man refused to accept it and demanded a reversal, insisting that he would not take no for an answer. Rav Aharon would not be swayed and declared the case closed.

Desperate, the litigant threatened that if the Rav would not reverse the ruling, he would report him to the authorities on a false charge that carried the risk of prison. Rav Aharon again refused, and the man carried out his threat. The authorities came promptly to Rav Aharon’s home, arrested him and put him in prison without any investigation.

His family and talmidim ran to his father, Rav Chaim, with the news, but to their astonishment he was calm and unconcerned. “If my son were sitting in jail because of some crime or lapse of his own, that would surely trouble me,” he told them. “But he was put there because he gave an honest and fair judgment that upheld the sanctity of the Torah. It should only be so.”

When the family saw they were getting nowhere, they went to Rav Chaim’s mechutan (the father of a child’s spouse), Rav Yehoshua of Belz, and asked him to speak to Rav Chaim and persuade him to use his influence to free his son. Rav Yehoshua agreed. He went to Rav Chaim and told him everything, from the case that came before the Bais Din to the sad outcome. He spoke of how hard it must be for a refined person like Rav Aharon to sit in a Hungarian jail, and of how much his family and the community needed him back. And, he added, there was a chilul Hashem, a desecration of Hashem’s name, in all of this.

At that, Rav Chaim blazed up and turned fully to Rav Yehoshua. “Do you really think that when a man is put in prison for upholding the holiness of the Torah by giving an honest and true judgment, that is a chilul Hashem? Would you call Yosef HaTzaddik’s time in Pharaoh’s prison a chilul Hashem? Were the twenty-two months that Rav Yisroel’tche spent in prison a chilul Hashem? No. Just the opposite. It was a kiddush Hashem. Yosef HaTzaddik and Rav Yisroel’tche both sanctified Hashem’s name to the highest heights. My dear mechutan, listen to me. Anyone who calls himself a Jew and is not attached body and soul to his Creator every hour of the day, that is a chilul Hashem.”