“…Behold I shall strike your entire boundary with frogs. The river shall swarm with frogs and they shall ascend and come into your palace and your bedroom and your bed and into the house of your servants and of your people and into your ovens and into your kneading bowls. And into you and your people and all your servants will the frogs ascend.”(Shmot 7:27-29)

The Gemara in Pesachim 53b brings the following story:

Todos of Rome asked the following question: What did Chananya, Mishael and Azarya (from the Book of Daniel) see that caused them to deliver themselves to the fiery furnace for the sanctification of God’s name?

Todos answered: They took out for themselves a Kal VaChomer argument concerning themselves from the passage of the frogs (in Sefer Shmot) as follows: Whereas regarding the frogs, which are not commanded in the mitzvah of sanctifying God’s name it is written: “The river shall swarm with frogs, and they shall ascend and come into your palace…and into your ovens and into your kneading bowls” (Shmot 7:28). And when are your kneading bowls found next to an oven? At the time that the oven is hot! The Maharsha teaches that the frogs did a wondrous act of sanctification by jumping into the burning ovens since frogs are water creatures who left their natural environment and entered the exact antithesis, the fire of the ovens. We, who are commanded in the mitzvah of sanctifying God’s name should all the more so be willing to sacrifice our lives for that purpose.

Rabbi Yonatan Aivschitz taught when he was eight years old that we learn from this Gemara that all of the frogs were willing to sacrifice themselves and jump into the ovens and they did not fight over who would get to go in the house and who would get to go in the beds- they all went wherever was necessary in order to sanctify God’s name.

There have been many Jewish people who have sacrificed their lives in order to sanctify God’s name. Isn’t it time that we live our lives in a way that sanctifies God’s name?