Parashat HaShavua: Yitro

(4) You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. (5) You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the LORD your God am an jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who hate Me

(14) for you must not bow down to any other god, because the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

(12) O God, my King from of old, who brings deliverance throughout the land; (13) it was You who drove back the sea with Your might, who smashed the heads of the monsters in the waters; (14) it was You who crushed the heads of Leviathan, who left him as food for the denizens of the desert; (15) it was You who released springs and torrents, who made mighty rivers run dry; (16) the day is Yours, the night also; it was You who set in place the orb of the sun; (17) You fixed all the boundaries of the earth; summer and winter—You made them.

לא תעשה לך פסל וכל תמונה, “do not make for yourself a sculptured image or any likeness (of what is in heaven above or on earth below)” In Deuteronomy 4,15 the Torah supplies the reason for this prohibition when we read: “for you have not seen any likeness (at the revelation)”. You should not be able to say that I am a G-d Who hides Himself, and since no one can see You I am forced to make for myself an image in order to constantly remind myself of You and to prostrate myself before Your image instead, in Your honour.

לא תעשה לך פסל וכל תמונה, “do not make for yourself a molten image or any likeness, etc.” After G’d had warned against believing (sin in thought) in any force competing with G’d as the only Divine Force, the Torah now adds the prohibition of constructing (sinning in deed) such a substitute for Him. A person might have thought in all innocence that painting or making three-dimensional replicas of phenomena which G’d had created would be acceptable to G’d as a reminder, for instance, of miracles G’d had performed for His people. These phenomena had been used by G’d as instruments to help the Jewish people, after all. A major reason why it seems reasonable for people to make such images as reminders of the miracles G’d had performed are certain ceremonial laws such as the offering and eating of the Passover lamb, the bitter herbs, the unleavened bread, all intended to ensure that the memory of that event would not be forgotten. The commandment to make and dwell in huts on Tabernacles specifically instructs us to thereby remember the fact that the Israelites dwelled in huts during their wandering in the desert. Seeing that a Jew might want to make for himself a visible memento to remind him of his faith, the Torah had to legislate that he must not do so as once he would do so he would, in due course, substitute the symbol for the real thing and begin to worship the symbol. Such idolatry would commence with relatively innocent obeisance, such as bowing down to the symbol; ultimately it would result in properly serving such symbols.

(1) To not bow down to idolatry: To not bow down to idolatry - and idolatry is anything that is worshiped besides God, blessed be He - as it is stated (Exodus 20:5), "You shall not bow down to them or serve them." And the explanation of the verse is not "do not bow down to them with the intention of worship," [so] that we would learn that bowing down, by itself - without the intention of worship - would not be forbidden. As behold, in another place, it is stated in the Torah (Exodus 34:14), "For you must not bow down to another god," which forbade bowing down by itself, from any angle. Rather, [the reason] it made "or serve them" adjacent, [is] to say that bowing down is one of the ways of worship. And we learn from here, with the assistance of other verses, that there are four worships about which the Torah is insistent with any idolatry in the world - and even if it is not the way of its worship, we are liable for it. And one of [these four] is bowing down.

§ It was stated: In the case of one who worships idols due to love or due to fear, what is the halakha? Abaye says: He is liable. Rava says: He is exempt. Abaye says he is liable because he worshipped it. Rava says he is exempt: If one accepted the idol upon himself as a god, yes, he is liable; but if he did not accept it, he is not liable.

Abaye said: From where do I say that one who worships idols due to love or fear is liable? As it is taught: “You shall not bow to them nor worship them” (Exodus 20:5): “To them,” to idols, you may not bow, but you may bow to a person like yourself. One might have thought that it is permitted to bow even to a person who is worshipped like a god, like Haman; therefore, the verse states: “Nor worship them.” Abaye concludes: And wasn’t Haman worshipped due to fear?

And Rava explains: One might have thought that it is permitted to bow even to a person like Haman, but not like Haman in all aspects. It is referring to one like Haman in that Haman himself was an object of idol worship, as he claimed he was a god, and one who worships a person out of belief in his divinity is liable. But one who is not like Haman in all aspects, as while Haman was worshipped due to fear, and here the reference is to one who worships a person not due to fear, but because he believes in that person’s divinity.

(2) All the king’s courtiers in the palace gate knelt and bowed low to Haman, for such was the king’s order concerning him; but Mordecai would not kneel or bow low. (3) Then the king’s courtiers who were in the palace gate said to Mordecai, “Why do you disobey the king’s order?” (4) When they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman, in order to see whether Mordecai’s resolve would prevail; for he had explained to them that he was a Jew.

Kneeled and prostrated themselves. Because he made himself as a god;²Esther Rabbah 7:5. Alternatively, his robes were decorated with idols. (Ibn Ezra) therefore, “but Mordechai would neither kneel nor prostrate himself.”

If Mordechai’s avowal would be sustained. Who said that he would never prostrate himself because he is a Jew, and was admonished against idolatry.³Esther Rabbah 7:8. When his servants told him that Mordechai refused to kneel, Haman remarked that Mordechai’s ancestors, Yaakov, Rachel and their children had prostrated themselves before Eisav, Haman’s ancestor. Upon hearing Haman’s remark, Mordechai replied that he was a descendant of Binyamin, who was born after Yaakov’s meeting with Eisav, and who had thus never prostrated himself before Eisav. Alternatively, היעמדו דברי מרדכי means “whether Mordechai’s words will avail,” i.e., if his actions were successful they would become a precedent for others to follow.