"Greater is the Sanctification of God's Name than its Desecration"

The Yerushalmi Talmud makes a statement that seems banal at best, redundant at worst: "Greater is the sanctification of God's name than its desecration." 

That's like saying it's better to be Mother Teresa than Heimrich Himmler, or Albert Shweitzer, than Attila the Hun. 

It is most certainly good to seek to do good, and nefarious and insidious to seek evil. What then is embedded in the novelty of the statement made by the Talmud? 

Rabbi Zvi Yehuda taught that the Hebrew for  "than" - the letter mem - can take on many forms. It could mean than in the classical comparative sense, but it can also mean, in the aftermath of, or the wake of, thus the teaching: Greater is the sanctification of God's name created in the wake of its desecration, i.e. after it has already been desecrated  –  than were there were to be a situation in which there was the said consecration where His name had not been priorly desecrated. 

More than anything, I think about that teaching now, a time when such wanton murder, carnage and needless bloodshed has taken place, and I hope and pray the vengeance and revelation of God's name, and the restoration of our people's pride will be all the more apparent in the wake of this painful and horrific tragedy that seem to know no end, and which to many resulted from intelligence failure and inadequate IDF preparation. We hope and pray that God will avenge his servant's spilled blood (Tehillim 79) and restore the greatness of our people in its own eyes and the world, and may we feel His love for us even in times so painfully difficult that they are almost impossible to describe. I was one of probably no fewer than half a million Israelis yesterday who was at a funeral, mine, a lone soldier from England who from the age of 11 dreamed of fighting for the IDF and protecting our homeland, Netanel Young Z"L, may Hashem avenge his blood, and may he see our homeland protected again. 

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