Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Idolatry has power?

Emes LiYakov (Devarim 04:19) And lest you lift up your eyes to the skies, and when you see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, all the host of the skies, should you be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord your God has allotted to all nations under the whole sky Looking at the Torah commentaries you will see two approaches to explain this verse. One says it means that the sun and the moon were given to all people to provide them with illumination and the Torah is prohibiting worshipping them. In contrast the Ibn Ezra and Ramban explain it to mean that each nation has its own unique star and mazzel. Likewise there is a unique mazzel for every city which is the conduit for the good. This is also the view expressed by the Ramban in explaining Bereishis (01:18). It appears that this reflects a basic disagreement about the nature of idolatry. The view of Rambam  which is expressed in a number of places is that Idolatry has no real power to influence or do anything so those who worship idols or pray to them not only are sinning but they are wasting their time. In contrast the view of Ramban is that G-d created in Nature that each people has a unique celestial conduit to provide benefit to that people  as long as it is not relevant to Jews. since Jews are not influenced by mazzel. However there is still a Torah prohibition to pray to this source of bounty since ultimately G-d is the source of all bounty and therefore prayer and devotion can only be directed to G-d not to His servant. However if this source is worshipped and prayed to it can actually provide benefit. Thus the verse is saying that G-d gave each nation a unique source of bounty and guidance.

Emes LiYakov (Devarim 17:03) turning to the worship of other gods and bowing down to them, to the sun or the moon or any of the heavenly host, something I never commanded—  Rashi explains “I never commanded to worship them” And that is also how the Rashbam Ibn Ezra explain a previous verse concerning the verse.  And perhaps you will lift your eyes to the Heavens and you will see the sun and the Moon and the stars and all the Heavenly Host which G-d distributed to all the nations. The plain meaning of “which G-d distributed to all the nations.” is like what Rashi explains there that the Heavenly bodies were distributed to all the nations to provide light for them. However as I explained there that many Rishonim disagree with this and says it means that each nation has a special heavenly power. I explained that this dependent on the dispute of the Rishonim whether idolatry has any actual power

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