LEV905 A president guilty of sexual abuse; a prime minister indicted on charges of corruption and bribery; rabbis in several countries accused of financial impropriety, sexual harassment, and child abuse. That such things happen testifies to a profound malaise in contemporary Jewish life. More is at stake than simple morality. Morality is universal. Bribery, corruption, and the misuse of power are wrong, equally, whoever is guilty of them. When, though, the guilty are leaders, something more is involved--the principles introduced in Parashat Emor of kiddush Hashem and hillul Hashem: "Do not profane My holy name, that I may be sanctified in the midst of the Israelites, I the Lord who sanctify you" [this verse]. The concepts of kiddush and hillul Hashem have a history. Though they are timeless and eternal, their unfolding occurred through the course of time. In this parasha, according to Ibn Ezra, the verse has a narrow and localized sense. The chapter in which it occurs has been speaking about the special duties of the priesthood and the extreme care they must take in serving God within the Sanctuary. All Israel is holy, but the priest are a holy elite within the nation. It is their task to preserve the purity and glory of the Sanctuary as God's symbolic home in the mist of the nation. So the commands are a special charge to the priest to take exemplary care as guardians of the holy.