Re'eh Class 2021

You must destroy all the sites at which the nations you are to dispossess worshiped their gods, whether on lofty mountains and on hills or under any luxuriant tree.

Tear down their altars, smash their pillars, put their sacred posts to the fire, and cut down the images of their gods, obliterating their name from that site.

Do not worship the LORD your God in like manner,

but look only to the site that the LORD your God will choose amidst all your tribes as His habitation, to establish His name there. There you are to go,

אבד תאבדון YE SHALL UTTERLY DESTROY — Destroy and again destroy! (i.e. utterly destroy). From here we learn that he who eradicates an object of idol-worship must thoroughly uproot it (i.e. remove every trace of it) (Sifrei Devarim 60:1).

את כל המקמות אשר עבדו שם וגו׳ [YE SHALL UTTERLY DESTROY] ALL THE PLACES (according to Rashi: FROM ALL THE PLACES) WHEREIN [THE NATIONS …] SERVED — And what shall ye destroy from them? Their gods which are upon the mountains (Avodah Zarah 45a).

The reason Moses repeats the word אבד may be understood in conjunction with the statement in Avodah Zarah 43 that in order to cancel or revoke the idolatrous character of an object two conditions have to be met. The object has to be ground into small pieces and scattered into the wind or into the sea. If only one of these conditions has been met, one did not fulfil one's obligation. This is alluded to when Moses said the word אבד twice.

AND YE SHALL DESTROY THEIR NAME. So that they not be mentioned.

ואבדתם את שמם, "and you will destroy their name, etc." The question is asked in Avodah Zarah 45 what these words can possibly add when we have already been told to utterly destroy every place where idolatry had been performed? The sages answer that even the roots of the trees which were symbols of idolatry have to be uprooted. Rabbi Akiva says that the names of such sites have to changed to something degrading. Thus far the Talmud. Perhaps the Torah wanted to issue a special warning applicable only to the land of Israel, similar to what Maimonides wrote that in the Holy Land we have to seek out such places and destroy them, whereas in other countries we are not obliged to do this. This is why Moses emphasises the words מן המקום ההוא, "from that place."

To destroy idolatry and its auxiliaries: That we were commanded to destroy all houses of idolatry with all types of destruction - with breaking, with burning, with demolition, with cutting - every type with what is fitting for it; meaning to say with what would be most destructive and quick in its destruction. And the intent is that we not leave a trace of idolatry. And about this is it stated (Deuteronomy 12:2), "You shall surely destroy all of the places, etc." And it is also stated (Deuteronomy 12:3), "But rather, etc. their altars shall you tear down." And it states further (Deuteronomy 12:3), "And you shall tear down their altar." And the proof that it is a positive commandment is that which it said in Sanhedrin 90a, "What is the positive commandment about idolatry" - meaning to say, to destroy it? "Rav Chasda [answered], '"And you shall tear down, etc."'" And the language of Sifrei Devarim 60 is "From where [do we know] that if one cuts down a tree-god and it grows back even ten times that a person is obligated to cut it down? [Hence], we learn to say, 'you shall surely destroy, etc.'" And it is also said there, "'And you will destroy their name from that place' - in the Land of Israel, you are commanded to pursue after them, but you are not commanded to pursue after them outside of the Land."

The Gemara explains: From where do we derive that he rendered it prohibited? Rabbi Elazar says: This halakha is like the halakha that applied at the outset of the Jewish people’s conquest of Eretz Yisrael, when the Torah commanded them to destroy any trees that were used as part of idolatrous rites [asherim], as the Merciful One states: “And you shall break down their altars…and you shall burn their asherim with fire” (Deuteronomy 12:3). Now, Eretz Yisrael is the inheritance of the Jewish people from their ancestors, and a person does not render forbidden an item that is not his. If so, how could the gentiles render the trees forbidden, as the land was not theirs?

6) Similarly: (Devarim 12:2-3) "Destroy shall you destroy all the places … and you shall throw down their altars, etc." Now if of the places and the tree (used for idolatry), which cannot see and cannot hear and cannot speak, because they led to a man's undoing, Scripture writes "Destroy!" "Burn!" "Raze!" and "Remove (them) from the world!" then a man who leads his fellow to veer from the path of life to the path of death — how much more so should the Holy One remove him from the world! What is written of the righteous? (Devarim 20:19) "If you besiege a city many days to war upon it, to capture it, do not destroy its tree by lifting an axe against it, for from it shall you eat, but it shall you not cut down": Now does this not follow a fortiori: If trees, which do not see, and which do not hear, and which do not speak — because they grow fruits, the Holy One pitied them, not to remove them from the world, then a man who "grows" Torah and does the will of his Father in heaven — how much more so will the Holy One pity him against removing him from the world!