- Her idolatry of her favorite rock star is one step removed from stalking.
- Lutherans like Bach certainly would have condemned as a grievous sin of idolatry any notion that the essence of a piece of music is, or turns into, the essence of God. — michael marissen, New York Times, "Bach Was Far More Religious Than You Might Think," 30 Mar. 2018
- American women glamorize French women to the point of idolatry. — maura walters, Marie Claire, "4 French Women on How They Really Feel About Aging," 20 Mar. 2018
How is the idea of idolatry being expressed in these quotes?
How do you understand idolatry to work in the present day?
Definition of "idol" (www.m-w.com, Merriam Webster)
1: a representation or symbol of an object of worship; broadly : a false god
2a : a likeness of something
b obsolete : pretender, impostor
3: a form or appearance visible but without substance
- an enchanted phantom, a lifeless idol — P. B. Shelley
4: an object of extreme devotion
- a movie idol
; also : ideal 2
5: a false conception : fallacy
Definition of "idolatry" (www.m-w.com, Merriam Webster)
plural idolatries
- What is an idol?
- Do people worship the idol itself or what the idol represents?
- When we call someone 'an idol' like "American Idol", what are we saying about that person?
- What does it mean to "idolize" someone or something? How does that point of view impact us, the way we see the world?
(1) When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.” (2) Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” (3) And all the people took off the gold rings that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. (4) This he took from them and cast in a mold, and made it into a molten calf. And they exclaimed, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” (5) When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron announced: “Tomorrow shall be a festival of the LORD!” (6) Early next day, the people offered up burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; they sat down to eat and drink, and then rose to dance. (7) The LORD spoke to Moses, “Hurry down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have acted basely. (8) They have been quick to turn aside from the way that I enjoined upon them. They have made themselves a molten calf and bowed low to it and sacrificed to it, saying: ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’” (9) The LORD further said to Moses, “I see that this is a stiffnecked people. (10) Now, let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them, and make of you a great nation.” (11) But Moses implored the LORD his God, saying, “Let not Your anger, O Lord, blaze forth against Your people, whom You delivered from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand. (12) Let not the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that He delivered them, only to kill them off in the mountains and annihilate them from the face of the earth.’ Turn from Your blazing anger, and renounce the plan to punish Your people. (13) Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, how You swore to them by Your Self and said to them: I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and I will give to your offspring this whole land of which I spoke, to possess forever.” (14) And the LORD renounced the punishment He had planned to bring upon His people. (15) Thereupon Moses turned and went down from the mountain bearing the two tablets of the Pact, tablets inscribed on both their surfaces: they were inscribed on the one side and on the other. (16) The tablets were God’s work, and the writing was God’s writing, incised upon the tablets. (17) When Joshua heard the sound of the people in its boisterousness, he said to Moses, “There is a cry of war in the camp.” (18) But he answered, “It is not the sound of the tune of triumph, Or the sound of the tune of defeat; It is the sound of song that I hear!” (19) As soon as Moses came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, he became enraged; and he hurled the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain. (20) He took the calf that they had made and burned it; he ground it to powder and strewed it upon the water and so made the Israelites drink it. (21) Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such great sin upon them?” (22) Aaron said, “Let not my lord be enraged. You know that this people is bent on evil. (23) They said to me, ‘Make us a god to lead us; for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.’ (24) So I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off!’ They gave it to me and I hurled it into the fire and out came this calf!” (25) Moses saw that the people were out of control—since Aaron had let them get out of control—so that they were a menace to any who might oppose them. (26) Moses stood up in the gate of the camp and said, “Whoever is for the LORD, come here!” And all the Levites rallied to him. (27) He said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Each of you put sword on thigh, go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay brother, neighbor, and kin.” (28) The Levites did as Moses had bidden; and some three thousand of the people fell that day. (29) And Moses said, “Dedicate yourselves to the LORD this day—for each of you has been against son and brother—that He may bestow a blessing upon you today.” (30) The next day Moses said to the people, “You have been guilty of a great sin. Yet I will now go up to the LORD; perhaps I may win forgiveness for your sin.” (31) Moses went back to the LORD and said, “Alas, this people is guilty of a great sin in making for themselves a god of gold. (32) Now, if You will forgive their sin [well and good]; but if not, erase me from the record which You have written!” (33) But the LORD said to Moses, “He who has sinned against Me, him only will I erase from My record. (34) Go now, lead the people where I told you. See, My angel shall go before you. But when I make an accounting, I will bring them to account for their sins.” (35) Then the LORD sent a plague upon the people, for what they did with the calf that Aaron made.
Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Idolatry
The greatest thing that Moshe did was not that the Torah was given through his hand, but that he broke the tablets that had "the writing of God" carved into them, so that the people, who did not know of the existence of these tablets, had performed counterfait worship, and the holy words that were being given to them would of course be profaned. To break counterfait-worship things, to not make holy things whose meaning is not to direct one to the worship of God, things whose function are just human values, needs and interests - to break these things, that is faith.
The essence of faith in God is not to believe in anything that is not Godly, not to make holy those things that come from human needs and human interests and human trends and human ideals and human visions, even if from the human perspective they are the highest thing that there is. When those things are made into "things that have holiness" one needs to break them.
Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Comments on the Parashat Hashavua, Jerusalem, 1987, p. 141
The following quotes are taken from Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State, Eliezer Goldman (ed.), Eliezer Goldman, Yoram Navon, Zvi Jacobson, Gershon Levi, and Raphael Levy (trans.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.
In reflecting and speaking about man’s standing before God, the man of faith lishma tries to refer minimally to God, who has no image at all, and makes an effort to direct his religious consciousness to himself as recognizing his duty to God. That is the practice of the men of Halakha. The pagan, however, and he who serves God not-lishma, direct their attention to an imaginary notion of their God and to the understanding of his attributes and actions. This is the mystical approach that is represented in Judaism by the Kabbalah. (Judaism, 76)
“Counterfeit religion identifies national interests with the service of God and imputes to the state—which is only an instrument serving human needs—supreme value from a religious standpoint” (Judaism, 226–227).
“The idea that a specific country or location has an intrinsic ”holiness“ is an indubitably idolatrous idea.” (Judaism, 226–227).
‘Interviewer: Is there a religious significance to the war and the holy sites conquered by the Israeli army? Or is there an element of idolatry in the public attitude towards these places?
YL: This is certainly avoda zara. Demeaning, primitive, folklore. Certainly, all the holy places are counterfeit. Of course, what a question! If it were really possible to come to the conclusion that this ‘tomb of patriarchs’ in Hebron is the grave of the forefathers, then of course anyone with a shrred of religious respect would leave it aside/undisturbed [batzad] and not make it a pagan shrine/an impure place [makom tame] to which a man comes to light candles and to ask for income and health. The rites at the Western Wall are revolting. This lighting of candles, the notes… it is a farce that they go up there and blow shofars. The greatest dramatist of all, Shakespeare, understood the trick. In the most horrifying and dramatic moments of his works – in Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, the buffon appears. Apparently in the most dramatic moment in the history of the Jewish people, the buffon must also enter, blowing the shofar and making these tasteless and demeaning gestures.”
[Interview given to Ha’aretz, and published in June 30, 1967, under the headline: Avoda Zara ‘o Hamukiyon Hatokea Bashofar (Counterfait worship or the buffon sounding the shofar) in: Monk, Daniel B. – Diskotel 1967: Israel and the Western Wall in the aftermath of the Six Day War. In: RES 48 Autumn 2005, Permanent/Impermanent. Francesco Pellizzi, ed. Review of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Pp. 166-178.