Rav Avigdor Nebenzahl (Yerushalayim Be-Mo’adeha, Purim, pp. 230-233) engages in a thought experiment with broad application. What would have happened if people did not know that Nadav and Avihu had sinned? They would have seen the punishment but not understood that it came as a result of specific sins. Many would attribute this to unknown sins or some other divine plan. However, some would say that it shows there is no justice in the world because even the righteous suffer. If that had been the case, the deaths of Nadav and Avihu would have caused a Chillul Hashem.

Rav Nebenzahl points to the coura- geous acts of Holocaust victims, the many people who struggled to ob- serve Judaism and maintain their faith under the harshest of circumstances. There was so much sacrifice and effort exerted to help others, study Torah, observe Shabbos, etc. in the face of unthinkable danger. Every act of faith attempted under persecution, every martyr’s death, generates a Kiddush Hashem. And yet, some see religious people suffering and reach the opposite conclusion, that G-d somehow must have been absent. Even the greatest acts of Kiddush Hashem can also generate a Chillul Hashem, depending on the observer. Put differently, when it comes to Kiddush Hashem, to some degree the observer influences the character of an act.

The Gemara (Megillah 12a) describes how R. Shimon Bar Yochai’s students asked him why, during the time of Purim, the Jews of Persia deserved Haman’s evil decree. He told his stu- dents to offer suggestions. They answered that the Jews of Shushan ate at Achashverosh’s party or that they bowed to an idol. Neither answer is particularly clear. Most likely, the majority of people in the Persian empire had no idea that the Jews had commit- ted any religious sin.

Rav Nebenzahl asks what would have happened if the Jews had not fasted and repented when Esther requested? Presumably, Haman would have won. The Jews in the Persian Empire would have been nearly wiped out, suffering a painful and humiliating defeat. On the one hand, it would have been a Kiddush Hashem be- cause divine providence would have been apparent. Just like Nadav and Avihu’s punishment served as a Kiddush Hashem, so too the punishment of the Persian Jews would have sanctified G-d’s name also. But only to those who understood what was happening. To many others, who would see G-d’s chosen people suffering persecution and reach blasphemous conclusions, there would have been a massive Chillul Hashem. The same act can be both a Kiddu- sh Hashem and a Chillul Hashem, depending on the observer. This idea has haunted me over the past year. On the one hand, in many communities Jews have risked a great deal in their zeal to pray as a community, learn Torah publicly, rejoice with brides and grooms, and perform other public mitzvos. While there is room to challenge this impression, and indeed I have largely refrained from joining any of this, from the perspective of those who have been moser nefesh for Torah and mitzvos during Coronavirus, they have performed a great Kiddush Hashem. And yet, there can be — and is — a different perspective which ren- ders these very same actions a Chillul Hashem. The newspaper headlines tell us that even if these acts were a Kiddush Hashem, they were also a Chillul Hashem. Our religious acts have scared, alienated and angered a large portion of the population. Not only does the difference between a Kiddush Hashem and a Chillul Hashem lie in the perspective of the observers, the same act can generate both.