Desecration of God's Name

We here in Chelm are really very simple souls, so it is difficult for us to understand why some idiot in Florida would burn a Koran and why some Muslims living on the other side of the world in Afghanistan would decide that the appropriate response to this is to lynch UN aid workers.

There is a Hebrew phrase that neatly covers both acts--hillul hashem, the desecration of God's name. Though it seems to us that unprovoked murder of human beings created in God's image is a worse desecration even than burning a book with God's name in it.