{"id":61663,"date":"2019-03-04T17:56:13","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T22:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=61663"},"modified":"2019-03-07T12:28:12","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T17:28:12","slug":"leaving-behind-our-spiritual-dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/leaving-behind-our-spiritual-dna\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaving Behind Our Spiritual DNA"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m hesitant to springboard an article using something I read in Reader\u2019s Digest<\/em> but I always like to start at the beginning.\u00a0My hesitancy to cite Reader\u2019s Digest<\/em> comes from my own prejudices about the magazine, based on the assumption that its readership is primarily women of a certain age, which I am not. (My wife has a subscription, so you can draw your own conclusions about her.) But it\u2019s in the house and it has its uses, so here we are.<\/p>\n

In the March 2019 issue, there\u2019s an article entitled, \u201cI Think I\u2019m Innocent\u201d by Katie Worth. In it, a man named Lukis Anderson was accused of a murder because his DNA was found at the scene. (He wasn\u2019t 100% sure that he hadn\u2019t done it because his substance-abuse problems cause him to experience blackouts.) It turned out to be a case of DNA transference. Two paramedics had picked up a drunken Anderson and then, three hours later, responded to the call at the crime scene, carrying Anderson\u2019s DNA with them. The cause of the DNA transference was a fingertip oximeter that had been used on both patients. The presence of Anderson\u2019s DNA under the victim\u2019s fingernail certainly suggested a struggle but keen-eyed investigators determined that this was not in fact the case. (And yes, the actual guilty parties were ultimately apprehended.)<\/p>\n

This sounds like a wild, one-in-a-million kind of occurrence but studies suggest that it may be quite common. A 1997 study by Australian scientist Roland van Oorschot determined that people\u2019s DNA can frequently be found on things they never touched. In 20-minute sessions involving three subjects at a time, participants\u2019 DNA turned up on one another\u2019s drinking glasses \u2013 as well as on their persons \u2013 even though they had never touched. Perhaps more disturbing, DNA from people who were not even present was transferred. Anyone with whom you interact during the day can potentially drop your DNA anywhere!<\/p>\n

The premise of this article this resonated with me in a spiritual context. The idea that we have an influence beyond our immediate circles is not novel. The Talmud in Kiddushin (30a) tells us that \u201cwhoever teaches his son Torah is considered as if he taught his son, his grandson, his great-grandson, through all the generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

What we pay forward through the generations by way of our examples can be good (such as when we teach our children Torah), bad (such as when we reinforce bad habits within them) or overtly silly, as I\u2019ll illustrate with a joke (It\u2019s an old joke, and not particularly funny, so you can always just groan now and skip ahead):<\/p>\n

A newlywed bride was fixing dinner. She took a roast, cut off the ends, threw them away, and put the roast into the pan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did you throw away the ends of the roast?\u201d her husband asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s the halacha<\/em>!\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never heard of such a thing in my life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how my mother taught me to do it. I\u2019ll call her and she\u2019ll tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n

So they called the bride\u2019s mother, who said, \u201cThat\u2019s the way my<\/em> mother taught me<\/em>, so I\u2019m sure it\u2019s our minhag<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n

So the couple called Bubbie, who said, \u201cMy roasting pan was only ten inches long \u2013 that\u2019s the only way I could get it to fit!\u201d<\/p>\n

This joke illustrates a universal truth: children internalize what they’re raised with. In real life, newlywed couples have had major problems over silly things like whether peanut butter belongs in the cabinet or the fridge, or how to hang the bathroom tissue. You can bet it\u2019s an issue in religious matters as well, whether or not our differences actually affect halacha<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But our influence isn\u2019t confined to paying it forward through our own descendants. We also have a ripple effect on the world in general. Obviously, this is the case with a teacher of Torah but it is also true of just us regular folk. This is the power of kiddush Hashem<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and chillul Hashem<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(respectively, a sanctification of God\u2019s Name and a desecration of His Name, God forbid). Each of these is a bona fide<\/em> mitzvah in the Torah and each of them can potentially reverberate forever.<\/p>\n

The Rambam defines chillul Hashem<\/em> as when someone who should know better acts in a fashion that others would consider inappropriate for him. In a Talmudic discussion of what constitutes a chillul Hashem<\/em>, Rav said it would be a chillul Hashem<\/em> if he didn\u2019t pay his butcher on time (Yoma 86a). That might not be so terrible coming from you or me but Rav had higher expectations placed upon him. The greater one is, the bigger shoes he has to fill.<\/p>\n

The reason for this mitzvah is to show our gratitude to God, Who created us and gives us everything. How horrible would one be to act in a fashion that makes Him look bad and causes people to say, \u201cThat\u2019s how Jews act?\u201d or \u201cThat\u2019s how religious people behave?\u201d The attitude one creates through chillul Hashem<\/em> persists beyond the initial incident. If an Orthodox Jew makes a nuisance of himself in public – congratulations, you may have just helped to drive someone \u201coff the derech\u201d or contributed to worldwide anti-Semitism. It\u2019s serious stuff. So serious, in fact, that the Talmud in Yoma (86a again) says that neither teshuvah<\/em> (repentance), Yom Kippur nor suffering can fully effect atonement for chillul Hashem<\/em>. One cannot completely atone for a chillul Hashem<\/em> until one passes away.<\/p>\n

Happily, we have the contextual opposite in the form of kiddush Hashem<\/em>. This is when we act in a way that makes people say, \u201cYou know what? Those Jews are okay!\u201d This reflects well on God, on Torah and on klal Yisroel<\/em>. Acting honestly in business, being kind to others, acting charitably and hospitably \u2013 these are all great ways to make a kiddush Hashem<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A woman I know wrote a book when she was in her twenties and a little cynical. A few years later, with a little more life experience, she regretted some of the things she had said. She asked me how to rectify this since recalling all existing copies of her book wasn’t really an option. I put her in touch with a rav<\/em> who told her that since she had put negativity out there in the world, the way to mitigate it was to start putting out positivity. Maybe she can\u2019t fully retract everything she said but she could certainly update her thoughts as widely as possible.<\/p>\n

Every person is made of both a body and a soul, each of which is going to leave traces of DNA wherever we go. This DNA can potentially be picked up by another person and carried beyond our reach. We can\u2019t help it. But while we can\u2019t control the physical DNA that a third party might leave at a crime scene, we can<\/em> control the nature of the spiritual DNA that we put out there. What we teach our children, how we treat others, whether we make a kiddush Hashem<\/em> or a chillul Hashem<\/em> \u2013 that\u2019s all up to us. We may not be able to retrieve all the bad spiritual DNA that we’ve already put out there but it’s never too to start spreading the good kind.<\/p>\n

\n

Rabbi Jack Abramowitz is Torah Content Editor at the Orthodox Union. He is the author of six books, including\u00a0The Tzniyus Book<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The Taryag Companion<\/a>. His latest work,\u00a0The God Book<\/a>, is available from\u00a0OU Press<\/a>\u00a0as well as on\u00a0Amazon<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m hesitant to springboard an article using something I read in Reader\u2019s Digest but I always like to start at the beginning.\u00a0My hesitancy to cite Reader\u2019s Digest comes from my own prejudices about the magazine, based on the assumption that its readership is primarily women of a certain age, which I am not. (My wife<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":61664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\nLeaving Behind Our Spiritual DNA - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/leaving-behind-our-spiritual-dna\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Leaving Behind Our Spiritual DNA - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m hesitant to springboard an article using something I read in Reader\u2019s Digest but I always like to start at the beginning.\u00a0My hesitancy to cite Reader\u2019s Digest comes from my own prejudices about the magazine, based on the assumption that its readership is primarily women of a certain age, which I am not. 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