What is idolatry in judaism

How would we choose which to worship? If I were inclined to worship another god, it might be Gelos, the Greek god of the spirit of laughter. Komos was the Greek god of revelry and merrymaking, so we can assume that those two partied together.

The Canaanites had Yam, god of the sea and the river, Sykyk, god of justice, as well as Shamahyim, god of the heavens. The Latvian goddess of the sun, Saule, was also a goddess of fertility and, you have to like this, of the unlucky.

The Philistine fish god Dagon, who was worshipped as a fertility god, is mentioned in the Tanach as having temples in Ashdod and Gaza. As we are well aware, the Egyptians worshiped many gods, including Babi, the god of baboons, and Sobek, the god of crocodiles. On the other hand, there was the Egyptian sun goddess Bastet, represented by a woman with the head of a cat, and cats were considered sacred.

OK, maybe they had a point there. There have been thousands of gods worshipped by various religions and civilizations. Pharaohs were considered one of the more important of all the Egyptian gods. While a pharaoh was ruling, he took on the incarnation of the god Horus and the son of Re. Once the pharaoh died, he was identified with the god Osiris, the god of the underworld.

Eventually the Israelites got the message. However, they had relapses. The Talmudic tractate Avodah Zarah is devoted to laws against idolatry and the attendant practices. Even the intention to worship idols is a sin. Many of the commandments in the Torah repudiate the practices of pagans who lived among the Israelites, including the Canaanites, Mesopotamians and Egyptians.

Well into the prophetic period, there was a continuing struggle against idol worship. The prophet Hosea strongly criticized the cult of Baal. The most thorough cultic purge in the history of Israel took place during the reign of King Hezekiah, which is thought to have been from to about BCE. Among the reasons that idolatry is forbidden is because it violates the Covenant and because it is, as one scholar explains, useless.

Various peoples and some Israelites believed that fertility, rain and health, among other things, could be controlled by recourse to other gods or by worship of their images, something of which the prophet Hosea spoke.

But since, according to the Torah, God is in control of these phenomena, idolatry is useless. We struggle with the same weaknesses and impulses our forebears did. Maybe even ask Aaron to construct a god you could see? To some extent, the battle against idolatry faded into the background of Judaic thought during the period of the Second Temple. However, Maimonides , who lived in relatively modern times, between C.

He was concerned that some Jews were influenced by anthropomorphic conceptions of God then popular in European Christianity. Maimonides responded with his 13 principles of Jewish faith, which include: The Creator is the Creator and Guide for all created beings. He alone made, makes, and will make all that is created. The Creator is a Unity, and there is no union in any way like Him. He alone is our God, who was, who is, and who is to be. The Creator is not a body, is not affected by physical matter, and nothing whatsoever can compare to God or be compared with God.

He quotes Abraham Joshua Heschel, who said that idols are forbidden because there already exists an image of God in this world: it is found in every human being. To create an idol of wood or stone and to call it God is less an insult to God than it is an insult to ourselves, to human dignity.

The message of the Torah is to make oneself a worthy image of God, and not to seek images of God in that which we create. In response to the indication of divine acceptance, they observed a fast for three days and three nights, and He delivered the evil inclination to them. A form of a fiery lion cub came forth from the chamber of the Holy of Holies.

When they caught hold of it one of its hairs fell, and it let out a shriek of pain that was heard for four hundred parasangs. They said: What should we do to kill it? Perhaps, Heaven forfend, they will have mercy upon him from Heaven, since it cries out so much. The prophet said to them: Throw it into a container made of lead and seal the opening with lead, since lead absorbs sound. They followed this advice and were freed of the evil inclination for idol worship.

With the decline of actual idol worship, the question arose for the first time whether other early medieval religions — specifically the other monotheistic ones — were idolatrous.

The consensus was that Islam was not, but Christianity — with its rich iconography, doctrine of the trinity, and elevation of Jesus as a divine being — was a thornier question. Eastern religions, with their pantheons of various gods and liberal use of divine images, are more straightforward instances of idolatry.

To the extent that idolatry is much discussed anymore at all, it is largely modern forms of worship that draw condemnation under the idolatry rubric: worship of the state, money, power and the like.

Likewise money and power — these are not evil in of themselves, but their elevation above all else is said to be a manifestation of idolatrous behavior. Pronounced: khah-SID-ik, Origin: Hebrew, a stream within ultra-Orthodox Judaism that grew out of an 18th-century mystical revival movement. Maimonides' supporters held that the proper response was to spread Maimonides' teachings, to bring people away from idolatry and towards pure monotheism.

Maimonides' opponents understood him the identical fashion, but believed him to be incorrect, and thus held that his philosophical teachings were not to be taught.

In many places his works were banned. Many Jewish thinkers generally agree that the spirit of idolatry has diminished, and that "real" idolatry is not commonly found. Several have expressed the view that any beliefs or practices which significantly interferes with a Jew's relationship with God may, in some way, be termed "idolatry". Examples might include:. A small number of theologically liberal Jews argue that most modern-day religions which appear idolatrous should not be considered idolatry as defined by Jewish law.

They argue that modern day Buddhists , Hindus and others:. As such, some Jews argue that not only does God have a relationship with all gentile monotheists, but that God also maintains a relationship with Hindus, Buddhists and polytheists.

Some notable figures with these views include Elliot N. Dorff , Michael Strassfeld and David Novak. However, mainstream Judaism is in stark contrast to their views. Some of those practices involve honoring or remembering divinities that were among those rejected by the prophets of the Tanakh for example, Ba'al and Asherah.

These practices are seen as non-Jewish by all the Jewish denominations. Religion Wiki Explore. Religion portals. Sunni Islam Shia Islam. Contributing Getting Started Advanced.