Exodus 20:3-5 - Prohibition Against Idolatry

Exodus 20:3-5

1) You shall not have 2) the gods of others 3) in My presence.

You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness which is in the heavens above, which is on the earth below, or which is in the water beneath the earth.

You shall neither prostrate yourself before them nor worship them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a zealous God, Who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, upon the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me..

לֹ֣א יִֽהְיֶ֣ה־לְךָ֩ אֱלֹהִ֨ים אֲחֵרִ֜ים עַל־פָּנַ֗י

לֹ֣א תַֽעֲשֶׂה־לְּךָ֣ פֶ֣סֶל | וְכָל־תְּמוּנָ֡ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר בַּשָּׁמַ֣יִם | מִמַּ֡עַל וַֽאֲשֶׁר֩ בָּאָ֨רֶץ מִתַּ֜חַת וַֽאֲשֶׁ֣ר בַּמַּ֣יִם | מִתַּ֣חַת לָאָ֗רֶץ

הלֹֽא־תִשְׁתַּֽחֲוֶ֣ה לָהֶם֘ וְלֹ֣א תָֽעָבְדֵם֒ כִּ֣י אָֽנֹכִ֞י יְ-הֹוָ֤ה אֱ-לֹהֶ֨יךָ֙ אֵ֣ל קַנָּ֔א פֹּ֠קֵ֠ד עֲוֹ֨ן אָבֹ֧ת עַל־בָּנִ֛ים עַל־שִׁלֵּשִׁ֥ים וְעַל־רִבֵּעִ֖ים לְשֽׂנְאָ֑י

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Rashi

You shall not have: Why was this said? Since it says, “You shall not make for yourself, etc.” I know only that one may not make [graven idols, etc.] How do I know that one may not keep what was already made? Therefore, Scripture states: “You shall not have.” -[Mechilta]

...the gods of others: Heb. אֱלֹהִים אִחֵרִים, which are not gods, but that others have made them for gods over themselves. It is impossible to interpret this passage to mean: gods other than I, since it is a disgrace for Heaven to call them gods along with Him. Alternatively: strange gods, for they are strange to their worshippers. They cry out to them, but they do not answer them, and it appears as if it [the god] were a stranger, who never knew him [the worshipper]. — [from Mechilta]

...in My presence: Heb. עַל-פָּנָּי [This means] as long as I exist [signifying forever. God states this so] that you should not say that only that generation was commanded [prohibited] concerning idolatry. — [from Mechilta]

Ramban

You shall not have the gods of others in My presence: Rashi wrote, "Why was this said? Since it says, “You shall not make for yourself, etc." I know only that one may not make [graven idols, etc.] How do I know that one may not keep what was already made? Therefore, Scripture states: "You shall not have."

This Beraisa is indeed taught in the Mechilta. If so, this prohibition only means that a person is not allowed to have idols in his presence, for which he is not liable for the death penalty (because he did not actually make the idols). Therefore why did the Torah precede with the passive prohibition against having idols instead of the prohibition against bowing and worshiping them, which requires spiritual excision and the death penalty (i.e, the latter is more severe than the former. It would have made sense for the Torah to state the more severe sin before the lesser severe sin.)?

According to my understanding, this is not the intended halacha of this Beraisa, because it (20:3) is speaking about an individual's injunction, as is taught in Sifra (the beginning of Kedoshim), "...nor shall you make molten deities for yourselves," (Leviticus 19:4) implying that they can be made for him by others, and therefore the verse says, "nor... for yourselves" (to also prohibit you from having them made for you by others).

However, the verse says only "nor... for yourselves," which implies that you can make them for others, therefore the Torah uses the words "you (shall not make (plural)," to include both for yourselves or for others.

This is the basis of the principle that one who makes an idol for himself transgresses two prohibitions: 1) "you shall not make," and 2) "for yourselves." Rabbi Yosei's view is that making an idol transgresses three prohibitions: 1) "you shall not make" (for others) 2) "for yourselves," and 3) "you shall not have" (in your possession idols made by others). Therefore when Rabbi Yosei is among others, he is the one who says that "you shall not have" refers to the prohibition of owning idols, which is not the case according to the first opinion.

And this is also true according to the plain understanding from the wording (of the verse) "and the Lord will be my God..." (Genesis 28:21), and "...to be your God" (Leviticus 11:45). I.e, these are the positive injunctions opposite to the negative injunction discussed so far. That is to say that we shall not have aside from God any other gods from among any of the supernal angels or from among the hosts of the Heaven, which are called elohim (powers, forces). As it is said, "He who slaughters [a sacrifice] to the gods shall be destroyed, except to the Lord alone." (Exodus 22:19) The purpose of this is to prevent him from believing in any of them, to not accept any of them as his god, or to say "you are my god." This comports with the view of Onkelos, "Elah acherah bar mini."

Progressive Revelation

February 15, 2021 - 2 Adar 5781

What Is Progressive Revelation?

According to Blue Letter Bible, "The things that God revealed to humanity were not all given at once. His revelation was given in stages." This essay addresses four issues with the concept of progressive revelation. The first is that there are no indications of progressive revelation occurring within the Torah. The second is that progressive relation prevents people from knowing the truth in the present. The third is that the Trinity, a product of progressive revelation, is too similar to polytheism for comfort. The fourth is that once such a claim is made, it is repeatedly claimed by subsequent religions.

Issue 1 - One Does Not Observe Progressive Revelation In The Tanakh

It's easy to believe that progressive relation occurs as one crosses over from the Jewish Scriptures to the Christian Scriptures; this is exactly the argument you would expect somebody to make to authenticate their own scriptures. But progressive revelation indicates that it occurred either gradually or at certain intervals, with the Christian Scriptures being the final stage. That would mean that one would be able to identify progressive revelation occurring within the Tanakh, of which there are no genuinely satisfying examples.

The Blue Letter Bible says that the Tanakh is incomplete because it contains prophecies that remain unfulfilled: "In addition, the Old Testament records predictions that were still to be fulfilled. For example, the Old Testament ends with the promise of the coming of Elijah who will prepare the way for the promised deliverer - the Messiah." The unfulfilled status of the Tanakh's prophecies does not mean that it is flawed, it just means that those events have not occurred yet, and that their occurrence will not be canonized in the Tanakh. This is like saying that a teenager isn't perfect because they haven't reached maturity yet.

Out of a genuine respect for the Jewish Scriptures, the Blue Letter Bible assures us that being incomplete is not synonymous with being less true: "Progressive revelation does not mean to say that the Old Testament is somehow less true than the New Testament. The progress was not from untruth to truth - it was from less information to more full information." While this is a gracious nod to the Tanakh, equating "more" with "more correct" is nevertheless not always true. Sometimes less is more: "Do not add to the word which I command you..." (Deuteronomy 4:2)

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Issue 2 - It Prevents People From Knowing God In The Present

If God seeks people to know Him, why would He keep His true nature from His people and from the entire human race until a relatively late point in history? One explanation provided by Catholic.com relates the advice given to the author by a college professor: "A college professor of mine once said to be leery of someone who tells you everything about himself in the first five minutes you know him. Jesus did not do this, and neither has the Father."

While this may be true of strangers that you meet on the street or in the doctor's office, it isn't true of people with which you have a serious and intimate relationship. Nominally speaking, it's critical to discover the most important aspects of a person before, say, getting married to them. Insofar as the relationship between God and the Jews is like a marriage, it would be critical to have an accurate conception of God's Nature before going to the chuppah, which was Mount Sinai. It would be highly unfortunate to discover ten years into the marriage that your spouse was schizophrenic. Isaiah 55:8 says, "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,' says the Lord." The way human beings do things is not necessarily the way that God does them.

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Issue 3 - The Trinity Is Too Similar to Polytheism

Perhaps God withheld the Trinity from the Jews due to the concern that they would confuse it with polytheism. This is another explanation advanced by Catholic.com: "In the Old Testament God needed to establish monotheism for the Jews to make them stand apart from all the polytheistic religions that abounded. Monotheism was almost unheard of, and if Yahweh had tried announcing that he is three Persons the people of the day might have misunderstood it as Tritheism, which is a heresy."

It does not evince much confidence in the Trinity to suggest that the Jews (or anybody else) would have mistaken it for polytheism. Surely the Jews had enough experience with said transgression, both from observing it all around them in a variety of forms, and from experiencing it first hand, to know the difference between polytheism and genuine monotheism. It is patronizing and insults peoples' intelligence to suggest that "God needed to establish monotheism for the Jews to make them stand apart from all the polytheistic religions" only to invite them into a relationship that was almost just as scandalous. If polytheism is prostitution, the Trinity is an escort service.

This site also argues that today "we have enough trouble trying to get people to believe in the one true God, let alone many. Thus the New Testament was a better time for God to have revealed his true nature, now that the danger of a polytheistic misunderstanding had been eliminated." What this ignores is that while polytheism is arguably not in fashion today, it was abundant in the era in which the New Testament was written and in the places that the Roman Empire occupied. The Trinity found itself in good company during that era and region and didn't overtly conflict with polytheism as Judaism did.

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Issue 4 - When Does Progressive Revelation Stop?

How do we know that progressive revelation has stopped on the Christian Scriptures? While Jews contend with Christians over the impossibility and error of progressive revelation into Christianity, Christians contend with more than one group, namely Muslims and Mormons. While the Muslim claim precedes Mormonism, Mormonism claims to be the correct understanding of Christianity. Each of these groups advances the notion that progressive revelation continued after the Christian Scriptures into their own scriptures; the Book of Mormon or the Q'uran. There is an old joke that Jews like to tell; Why did God create Mormons? So Christians would know how Jews feel.

According to the Mormon site The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, "'The Book of Mormon is another witness of Jesus Christ and confirms the truths found in the Holy Bible. Far from undermining the Bible, the Book of Mormon supports its testimony of Jesus Christ. One passage says that the Book of Mormon “shall establish the truth” of the Bible “and shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world; and that all men must come unto him, or they cannot be saved' (1 Nephi 13:40)."

According to Islamweb.net, "Allah, The Almighty, revealed the Quran to be His last, all-embracing Scripture containing the final manifestation of the Divine Law. This necessitates that it has to be safeguarded from the mischievous hands of men and from all corruption. This protection has been a reality from the time the Quran was revealed until today and will remain so forever." It also says that the "'Islamic Law is lasting, remaining suitable for every place and time, and embracing the goodness of the previous manifestations of the Law. Allah Says (what means): “And We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], the Book in truth, confirming that which preceded it of the Scripture and as a criterion over it.' [Quran 5:48]"

The above explanations sound structurally similar to Christianity's description of the relationship between the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. According to Christianity.com: "The religion of the Old Testament is the embryo of Christianity. The Old Testament is the gospel in the bud. The New Testament is the gospel in full flower. The saints in the Old Testament saw many things through a glass darkly. But they all looked by faith to the same Savior and were led by the same Spirit as ourselves." It also says, "The relation between our Lord's teaching and that of the Old Testament is cleared up by our Lord in one striking sentence. He says, 'Don't think that I came to destroy the law, or the prophets. I didn't come to destroy, but to fulfill' (Matthew 5:17)."

What does the Torah say about this matter? Deuteronomy 4:2 says, "Do not add to the word which I command you, nor diminish from it, to observe the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." While Christians, Muslims, and Mormons all understand this verse as a prohibition of adding to their own own scriptures, Jews see it in its original context of not adding anything to the Torah.

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Conclusion

A religion claiming to have received an updated vision will by definition reject all of its predecessor's objections. It rejects their objections on the grounds they were not the recipients of the new revelation. If they had received the new revelation then they would have no objections to it. This is a circular argument designed to prevent people from analyzing the contents of a prophecy critically.

There is therefore no good way to prevent new religions from forever claiming that they have received a new revelation, but there is a good way to prevent people from believing them. God explicitly inoculated the Jews against this form of deceit in two verses: Deuteronomy 13:1 through 6 and Deuteronomy 18:20: "Now if you say to yourself, 'How will we know the word that the Lord did not speak?' If the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not occur and does not come about, that is the thing the Lord did not speak. The prophet has spoken it wantonly; you shall not be afraid of him."

In the latter verse, God legitimizes the Jews' suspicion that a prophet may be lying. This is demonstrated by the fact that He provides them with the criteria for distinguishing between true and false prophets. Claiming to have received prophecy to substantiate prophecy is considered to be an illegitimate means of verification. The only legitimate means of verification is empirical. In contrast to the Jews' complaining and rebelling against God in the desert, He does not see this question as a sign of stubbornness or rebellion, but as a sign of their willingness to follow Him.

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Is Worshiping Jesus Idolatry?

January 29 2021 - 16 Shevat 5781

The Prohibition of Idolatry in the Ten Commandments

The information that God gave us about Him was designed to teach us how to relate to Him correctly. Take a careful look at Shemos (Exodus) 20:4-5: "You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness which is in the heavens above, which is on the earth below, or which is in the water beneath the earth. You shall neither prostrate yourself before them nor worship them."

Let me ask a question: does this mean that if I wanted to worship an element of nature, that would I be permitted to? The verse only prohibits me from making a graven image, but I did not make trees, for example, so perhaps this verse permits me to worship trees. Do we stick to a tight and literal reading of God's instructions, or do we try to use them to see things from His perspective, in-as-much as that is possible?

The same can be applied to human beings, who "are on the earth below." The clear reason for this prohibition is that God cannot be fathomed, and associating God with his creation is seen by God Himself as the very worst thing that a human being can do. I don't resolve the conflict by saying that God decided to take on the form of a man, because it violates the end goal of this prohibition.

Putting Words in God's Mouth

It is possible that people had put words in God's mouth by writing texts in which God became a man.

Perhaps this is what Devarim (Deuteronomy) 13 and 18 are alluding to:

Devarim 13:1-4:

Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it. If there will arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of a dream, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder of which he spoke to you happens, [and he] says, "Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us worship them," you shall not heed the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of a dream; for the Lord, your God, is testing you, to know whether you really love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul.

Devarim 18:20-22:

But the prophet who intentionally speaks a word in My name, which I did not command him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. Now if you say to yourself, "How will we know the word that the Lord did not speak?" If the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not occur and does not come about, that is the thing the Lord did not speak. The prophet has spoken it wantonly; you shall not be afraid of him.

Christians Reject Idolatry

The interesting thing about this is all is that Christians understand what idolatry is. According to the What Christians Want To Know website, an "idol is anything that gets between us and God, and it is whatever we worship more than God or instead of God." Christians offer this correct definition of idolatry without realizing that this is exactly what they are doing with Jesus! They resolve the contradiction by saying that Jesus is God, but when they look at him they see a human being with a human face and a human figure. This prevents them from understanding the full glory of God because they begin to identify and empathize with God as a human being with human experiences (see Point 2 in Why Do Jews Reject the Trinity?). They have committed idolatry in their hearts and minds by limiting God to the experiences of a human being. They turn to Christian Scripture to support their view, such as Philippians 2:5-8:

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Whatever perceived benefits the Trinity offers people by bringing God (literally) closer to them, it sacrifices in understanding His true nature, which in turn has the adverse effect of distancing them from Him. To use a metaphor, it seems to bring Him an inch closer while pushing Him a mile away.

Conclusion

What is most interesting, and quite scary, is that Christians place a greater emphasis on their relationship with "the Son" than with "the Father." The central focal point of their relationship with God is experienced through Jesus and not through "the Father." This indicates that they have resigned "the Father" a lofty, remote, and inaccessible state and rely on the Son to get them there. While the standard formulation of the Trinity explains that the Persons in the Godhead are equal to each other, it clearly seems that "the Father" is assigned a superior position to "the Son" in that He is distant, and can only be reached through a medium. If the Son had not become flesh, would he too have been too distant to reach? (see Point 1 in Why Do Jews Reject the Trinity?)

The point is that there are many different ways to do something wrong, and there are only a few ways to do something right, and praying to a figure of a human being is wrong.

Are We Hardwired For Polytheism?

July 10, 2020 - 18 Tammuz 5780

Why does polytheism seem to have been so prevalent throughout human history?

The answer to this may be that almost everything to which human beings attribute greatness is complex. The word “complex” refers to things “consisting of many different and connected parts.”

This applies to things found in nature such as trees and rivers, human endeavors such as architecture or engineering, and non-tangibles such as eco-systems, governments, and philosophies. The tendency, therefore, is to equate importance and sophistication with complexity. The structural cooperation required for a complex object or system to function translates to elegance and appreciation. With some exceptions, the greater the complexity, the greater something is, and the simpler, the more primitive.

Human beings’ anthropocentric tendencies applied to Divinity may have led us to produce complex theological systems that we believe are superior to simpler ones. In terms of God, a network of gods is more appealing, and may be more effective from a practical perspective. Complexity finds expression even within monotheistic theology in the form of, for example, the Trinity.

Polytheism- Theological Fragmentation

July 3, 2020 - 11 Tammuz 5780

Polytheism is a more extreme version of theological refraction, and is more accurate to refer to it as theological fragmentation. The metaphor of the mirror was useful in describing the process of theological refraction, so here will use a similar metaphor of a prism to explain polytheism.

Light itself can be used as a metaphor for explaining how both polytheism and idolatry began. The light that emanates from the sun is described as white light, and its wavelength is the only one that the human eye can detect. When this light passes through an object that refracts light, such as a prism, it is fragmented into its wavelengths. The human eye naturally recognizes seven wavelengths (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet), but the total amount of wavelengths is much greater.

This process of the fragmentation of light is useful in understanding how polytheism works. In the Mishna Torah, the Rambam describes polytheism as having its roots in the universal recognition of the existence of the One True God. He in fact describes it as a process whereby individual, charismatic leaders first formulated a system of honoring God by venerating the elements of nature, such as the sun and the moon. This gradually devolved into systems that attributed divinity to the forces of nature and began worshiping them in-and-of themselves.

Theologically speaking, the fragmentation of light is similar to the process whereby the human mind fragments its concept of God into a host of deities and divine forms. One aspect of the majority of the idols and deities native to the disparate religions of the world is their often colorful and exotic nature. It is fitting, then, that the white light that in the metaphor represents God is broken down into a seemingly endless array of colorful gods and goddesses.

While on the subject of dispersed light, it is most fitting and almost uncanny that God chose the rainbow as the very sign by which He pledged to Noah (and humanity) never to destroy the earth again by Flood. Even more interesting is that the human eye detects seven colors in the rainbow, which seems to correlate with the Seven Laws of Noah that make up the universal laws designed for the entire human race. A rainbow is the product of the same light dispersion that we have discussed up until now, as if to say "You, humanity, dispersed Me into a host of deities as light is dispersed into a rainbow, and so I will use the rainbow as both a testament to this and a reminder to you that I will never destroy the earth again as I did in the Flood." The observance of these seven commandments ensures humanity's staying on the "straight and narrow." A rainbow road.

Eerily enough, in the past decade-or-so the rainbow has become a different sort of symbol, regressively reminiscent of one of the behaviors that led to the Flood. Foresight, anyone?

Another interesting aspect of this is that while fragmented light can apparently be re-merged into its original white form using two prisms, simply mixing the same colors that emerge as a result of fragmentation cannot. As any artist will tell you, the more colors you mix, the closer you get to black, not white. This means that the process cannot be reversed by combination, because attempting to do does not actually reunite the wavelengths. In line with our metaphor, we can thus say that combining all of the religions that emerged from this original fragmentation does not produce our original understanding of God, but instead leaves us with black. The color white is produced when an object refracts all light that hits it, and black is produced when it absorbs all of the colors. Therefore, white is produced by refracting light back to its source, while black is produced by absorbing and consuming everything into itself.