Kiddush ha-Shem קידוש השם

The verse from which it all follows is short: "And you shall not profane My holy name, and I shall be sanctified among the children of Israel" (Leviticus 22:32). From it come two duties at once: not to dishonour the Name, and to sanctify it.

The rule. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 74a) records what was decided in the loft of the house of Nitza at Lod: for all the prohibitions of the Torah, if a man is compelled under threat of death—transgress and do not die; except for three—idolatry, forbidden unions and the shedding of blood. In those three: die and do not transgress.

And the proviso that explains the whole Jewish history of the Middle Ages. At a time when a decree drives men from the faith, the rule changes: then even in a small matter—die and do not transgress, down to how a sandal strap is tied, if that is what one is ordered to change to show apostasy. Because then what is demanded is not an act but a renunciation, and yielding in a trifle is yielding in the whole.

Maimonides gathers this in the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, chapter five, and distinguishes what is done under compulsion in private from what is done in public—before ten Jews.

How it looks in history. The Ten Martyrs under Hadrian. The communities of Worms, Mainz and Speyer in the spring of 1096, where many chose death over baptism. The Chmielnicki massacres. Solomon Molcho, offered a pardon at the price of returning to Christianity. Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman at Kaunas. The row is long, and the words kiddush ha-Shem stand over all of it.

The opposite must be said too, lest the balance be lost. The default rule is 'transgress and do not die': life in Jewish law stands above almost everything, and one is required to die only where it is listed. From the same root grows pikuach nefesh—the setting aside of almost any prohibition to save a life. One and the same teaching says both 'live' and 'die'; the whole difficulty is knowing which, when.