EXOD356 Another powerful motivator for observance of the commandments is gratitude for God's historical role as Israel's savior and provider. The exodus from Egypt and the conquest of a "land flowing with milk and honey," with its abundant resources for which Israel need to invest little effort (e.g., Deut 6:10-11), are used to arouse Israel's appreciation and sense of obligation. God introduces Himself in the Decalogue has He who "brought Israel out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage," to justify the following prohibition of allegiance to other gods [this verse]. Conversely, many biblical texts assume that it is ingratitude in particular that leads to disobedience (Deut 8:11-18, 32:15; and for this idea in prophetic literature, see Isa 1:2-3, Jer 2:5-8, Ezek 16, Hos 13:4-6, Amos 2:10-12). (By Elaine Adler Goodfriend, “Ethical Theory and Practice in the Hebrew Bible)

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EXOD363 Do not make any object for the sake of worshipping it, even if only others will worship it, not you. According to the Rambam (Maimonides), one is forbidden even to tell someone else to make such an object. [According to the Ramban (Nachmanides), however, one violates the prohibition only if one makes the idol with intent to worship it]. Key concept: To distance us from idol worship.

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EXOD364 The God who, to the accompaniment of thunders, once proclaimed at Mount Sinai: "You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image!" (this verse), is supposed to be beautiful? The God who said of Himself: "You cannot see My face, for man may not see Me and live," (Exodus 33:20), is supposed to be apprehended in aesthetic categories? Jewish monotheistic sensitivity must surely shrink back from such a thought. Or must it? There is love in the world, and we regard God as the Source of Love. There is the search after righteousness in the world, and we see God as the Fountain of Righteousness. We human beings, even (or is it particularly?) in this technocratic world, wants to be regarded as persons, and not as statistical numbers. However, if we claim personhood for ourselves, then it would follow that the Creator, to whom we owe our existence and our personhood, must have at least as much personhood as His creatures. And, then, there is beauty in our world. Does it, therefore, not make sense to assert that beauty, too, has its origin in God, so that whatever we perceive as beautiful, and call "beautiful," goes back to something which is also an attribute of God?

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EXOD365 See [[DEUT1038]] Deuteronomy 21:11 beautiful BLOCH 47

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EXOD366 (Continued from [[DEUT650]] Deuteronomy 13:18 merciful TZADIK 161). And if you wish to be merciful to your children and your relatives and to accord them great honor, then occupy yourselves with Torah study and good deeds in love and kindness. This will result in great honor and good to them, for they will be honored and not shamed through you. There is no greater shame than having parents and relatives who are wicked. If one's father is a thief or a robber or is guilty of a blatant transgression that is despised in the eyes of the world, all of his children are condemned after him for generations to follow, being branded as "the descendants of that wicked man." Also, children die because of the sins of the fathers, as it is written [this verse]: "Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children until the third and fourth generation of those who hate me." Reflect--is there anyone more cruel than he who brings death to his children because of his sin? And there is no one more merciful to his children than the righteous man, for his merits endure for 1,000 generations. For Avraham bound his son for the sacrifice and the Holy One Blessed Be He swore to remember that merit for his children throughout the generations; and when the Jews sinned with the golden calf, Moshe our teacher may peace be upon him, arose in prayer and said (Shemos 32:13): "Remember Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, Your servants." Likewise, King Shelomo said (II Divrei Hayamim 6:42): "Remember the kindness of David, your servant"--and they were answered. Similarly, we mention the merits of the Fathers every day. Therefore, know that there are none so cruel as those who transgress.

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EXOD367 … the doctrine of the punishment of children for the sins of the fathers [this verse], a practice common in ancient societies on the assumption that punishment of a child strikes at the father, was upgraded by the prophet Ezekiel, who stated: "Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son; the soul that sins, it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). In the words of the Talmud: "Ezekiel came and annulled it" (the punishment of children; Makkot 24a). There was no compelling need or reason for this talmudic statement. Ezekiel's doctrine could have been reconciled with the Pentateuchal pronouncement relating to the punishment of children by attributing to the prophet the talmudic opinion that limits the transfer of parental guilt only to children who persist in the sin of their ancestor (Yoma 68a). Furthermore, it is widely assumed that the Pentateuchal transfer of guilt is exclusive to the sin of idolatry. By the time of Ezekiel (6th cent. BCE) idolatry was no longer a threat to monotheism (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 7:13). The prophet would therefore have been justified in reverting to the normal biblical standard of compassion and justice. The Talmud ignored these explanations and instead chose to established the principle of an evolutionary process of moral precepts which gave the prophet the right to "annul" a Pentateuchal perception.

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EXOD368 God's relationship with the Jewish people is compared to that of a scorned lover, (Midrash Tanchuma 94:6) much like the Sotah and her jealous husband [Numbers 5:14]. One commentator [Rabeinu Bechaya on this verse] notes that the only time in the entire Bible that God is referred to as jealous is in the context of idol worship, to demonstrate that special husband-wife relationship between the Jewish people and God.

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EXOD369 The other peoples of the world, whom the biblical authors and the talmudic rabbis knew, were, by and large, not monotheists, but idolaters, whether Canaanite, Greek, or Roman. The Hebrew Bible is relentlessly opposed to idolatry, prominently enshrining the prohibitions against it in the Decalogue announced on Mount Sinai and repeating it as well in many other places in the Bible. (Exodus 20:3-6 and Deuteronomy 5:7-10. Examples of other places that mention this prohibition: Deuteronomy 4:15-19, 23-24, 28; 7:25; and 8:19). Moreover, according to the Torah, the reason God wants the Israelites to occupy the Land of Israel and displace the seven nations already there is precisely because of the natives’ idolatry and the immorality to which it led them. (Genesis 15:16 and Deuteronomy 9:4-5). The Bible speaks, for example, of the sacrifice of children to Molech and of sanctified acts of adultery and incest within the Canaanite cult. (See Leviticus 18; 2 Kings 21:3-7 and 23:4-12; Jeremiah 7:30-31). The Rabbis carried this further. They devoted an entire tractate of the Mishnah and Talmud -- Avodah Zarah -- to the subject of idolatry to define it clearly and to prevent Jews from getting too close to idolatry or idolaters lest they be tempted by such practices. In some passages, the Rabbis actually made fun of idolatry (e.g. B. Avodah Zarah 2ff), and they wrote liturgy that thanks God for enabling Jews to be part of those who spend their time in studying and practicing the Jewish tradition rather than being among those who waste their lives away following the emptiness and immorality of idolatry. (J. Berachot 7d). Another part of the Jewish rejection of idolatry is based on theological considerations. Worshipping the sun, moon, or stars amounts to making part of reality the whole of it, taking one of God's creatures as God Himself. That error is even more egregious if one makes an idol of a human artifact, for then one reduces God to what human beings can make. Thus idolatry involves both moral and theological errors that ultimately makes it impossible even to recognize God let alone to worship God properly. To accomplish their divinely ordained task, then, Israel had to remain separate and apart from the other nations that might lead them astray: “’You shall be holy’ [means that] even as I am holy, so you too should be holy; as I am separate [the prime meaning of the Hebrew word usually translated “holy”], so you too should be separate.” (Sifra, “Shemini 12:4 on Leviticus 11:45, p. 57b.) The Torah records that fraternization with the Moabites led the Israelites to both idolatry and immorality, (Numbers 25) and that early incident set the stage for the Jewish tradition's evaluation of non-Jews.

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EXOD370 See [[EXOD684]] Exodus 22:23 your OXFORD 39

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EXOD372 Regarding the injunctions associated with idolatry, the pasuk says [this verse]. This means to say that He will not forgive the transgression of idolatry the way He forgives other sins, as the pasuk states (Yirmeyahu 5:7), "How should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me; they swear by non-gods." In the same manner, this is stated regarding the injunctions against swearing falsely (Exodus 20:7), "For Hashem will not absolve one who swears by His Name in vain"; and the injunction pertaining to a false oath is written subsequent to that of idolatry, the reason being that a false oath carries in its wings the transgression of the desecration of Hashem's Name [i.e., just as idol worship does].

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