[Avodah] LITTER ON SHABBOS

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Wed Jun 6 06:37:37 PDT 2012


On Wed, Jun 06, 2012 at 09:12:36AM -0400, cantorwolberg at cox.net wrote:
:> Does avoiding chillul hasheim trump muqtzah?

: IMHO there is no chillul haShem in the example given. 
: Also, what was not clear to me was the example first of
: walking down the street and noticing a wrapper on the 
: floor. Did you mean "ground" as opposed to "floor?"

Here's the case as it happened: There is a wrapper from a Jewish
ethnic brand snack (I think Bisli, but I'm not sure) on the sidewalk
in a neighborhood with a large O population, but also large Hispanic,
Philipino and Indian populations, and even a small smattering of
non-hyphenated Americans.

I was walking home from shul, bent down to pick it up, mostly thinking
a "we're all in this together" attitude toward picking up after our
children.

Then I stopped and thought: Is it muqtzah? Not only is it trash, but
it's now a sack that was nolad on Shabbos.

More detail: When I was a child fewer people were aware of this, but
snack packets start out as flat sheets. The product is dropped on it in
distinct piles, and then the plastic or foil is cut, folded and sealed --
all the sides at once. The first time the packed becomes a sack is when
you tear open one side. This raises problems with the "you can tear for
food for immediate consumption" rule I was raised with. CYLR. And thus,
the litter was likely nolad on Shabbos.

Then I did a double-take: What about the chillul hasheim angle of someone
perhaps seeing a littered sidewalk and thinking less of Jews and Judaism?

I ended up not picking it up. But a fraction of a block later I thought:
Hmmm, would be a good topic to raise on Avodah.

Tangent:
Notice I'm writing "chillul hasheim", not "chillul Hashem". The reason
being that the Creator, "Hashem" in the kinui sense, can't be desecrated
or secularized. One can only ch"v be mechalel His reputation, His name.
Therefore I believe the expression is lower-case-h "chillul hasheim",
and without transliterating it as we tend to pronounce the kinui -- using
"e" for a tzeirei.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person lives with himself for seventy years,
micha at aishdas.org        and after it is all over, he still does not
http://www.aishdas.org   know himself.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter



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