A.
Our parasha tells of the culmination of Creation, the establishment of the Torah-nation, Israel, at the foot of Sinai. התנה הקב"ה עם מעשה בראשית וא"ל, Hazal tell us, אם ישראל מקבלים התורה אתם מתקיימין ואם לאו אני מחזיר אתכם לתהו ובהו (“The Holy One, Blessed is He, made a condition with Creation at the beginning: If Israel accept the Torah, you continue to exist; and if not, I am returning you to chaos!”; שבתפ"ח. יע"ע זוה"ק ח"ג קצ"ג. וחצ"ר:). The account of Mattan Torah begins with what may be termed an executive summary of the 613 mitzvoth, the ‘Aseereth ha-Dibbëroth or ‘Ten Utterances” (often mischaracterized as “Ten Commandments”).
In the ‘Asereth ha-Dibbëroth all Israel (indeed, Hazal tell us, all the world; זבחים קט"ז.) heard: אנכי ד' אלקיך כו' לא יהי' לך אלהים אחרים על פני: לא תעשה לך פסל וכל תמונה וגו' (“I am Ha-Shem your G-d... You will not have other god[s] before Me. You will not make for yourself a statue [pesel] or any image [tëmuna]....”; XX, 2-4).
Despite the facile appearance, this passage is remarkably difficult to translate accurately into English. Begin with the verb in the second sentence, yihyeh: The form is a third person masculine imperfective singular, and as such, would certainly imply a singular subject; both Onqëlos and the Targum Rabbi Yonathan ben ‘Uzzi’él do so read it, as “you shall not have another god”; yet, the fact remains that the subject, elohim ahérim, is a plural noun with a plural modifier, and Rashi, for one, clearly reads it that way: שאינן אלהות אלא אחרים עשאום אלהים עליהם כו' (“for they are not Divinity, but others have made them gods over themselves....”). Clearly this cries out for further explanation.
Next, we come to the odd phrase ‘al panai. I have here followed the commentators in translating it as though it were the far more common term lë-fanai, “to My face,” i.e., “before Me,” but the fact is that it does not read that way, but rather “on My face.” Even Rashi appears to sense that there is something unusual in the phrase, for he continues: ולא יתכן לפרש אלהים אחרים זולתי שגנאי הוא כלפי מעלה לקרותם אלהים אצלו (“and it is not correct to explain ‘other gods beside Me’ for it is derogatory toward the Most High to call them ‘gods’ together with him”). Were the meaning of the phrase crystal clear, Rashi would not feel the need to tell how not to read it.
Finally we come to the words pesel and tëmuna, which a dictionary will tell you mean “statue” and “picture.” There are certainly other Hebrew words denoting images (for instance, human beings represent the dëmuth Elohim, conventionally translated “likeness” or “image” (cf. Genesis I, 26). How do the terms pesel and tëmuna differ from these, and why do they appear here in our passage rather than the other two?
In the ‘Asereth ha-Dibbëroth all Israel (indeed, Hazal tell us, all the world; זבחים קט"ז.) heard: אנכי ד' אלקיך כו' לא יהי' לך אלהים אחרים על פני: לא תעשה לך פסל וכל תמונה וגו' (“I am Ha-Shem your G-d... You will not have other god[s] before Me. You will not make for yourself a statue [pesel] or any image [tëmuna]....”; XX, 2-4).
Despite the facile appearance, this passage is remarkably difficult to translate accurately into English. Begin with the verb in the second sentence, yihyeh: The form is a third person masculine imperfective singular, and as such, would certainly imply a singular subject; both Onqëlos and the Targum Rabbi Yonathan ben ‘Uzzi’él do so read it, as “you shall not have another god”; yet, the fact remains that the subject, elohim ahérim, is a plural noun with a plural modifier, and Rashi, for one, clearly reads it that way: שאינן אלהות אלא אחרים עשאום אלהים עליהם כו' (“for they are not Divinity, but others have made them gods over themselves....”). Clearly this cries out for further explanation.
Next, we come to the odd phrase ‘al panai. I have here followed the commentators in translating it as though it were the far more common term lë-fanai, “to My face,” i.e., “before Me,” but the fact is that it does not read that way, but rather “on My face.” Even Rashi appears to sense that there is something unusual in the phrase, for he continues: ולא יתכן לפרש אלהים אחרים זולתי שגנאי הוא כלפי מעלה לקרותם אלהים אצלו (“and it is not correct to explain ‘other gods beside Me’ for it is derogatory toward the Most High to call them ‘gods’ together with him”). Were the meaning of the phrase crystal clear, Rashi would not feel the need to tell how not to read it.
Finally we come to the words pesel and tëmuna, which a dictionary will tell you mean “statue” and “picture.” There are certainly other Hebrew words denoting images (for instance, human beings represent the dëmuth Elohim, conventionally translated “likeness” or “image” (cf. Genesis I, 26). How do the terms pesel and tëmuna differ from these, and why do they appear here in our passage rather than the other two?
B.
The wording of our passage teaches us a great deal about the nature of the institution of ‘avoda zara, literally “strange or foreign service,” conventionally rendered “idolatry.”
Rambam famously tells us how ‘avoda zara began: בימי אנוש טעו בני האדם טעות גדול כו' וזו היתה טעותם אמרו הואיל והאל-הים ברא כוכבים אלו וגלגלים להנהיג את העולם ונתנם במרום וחלק להם כבוד והם שמשים המשמשים לפניו ראויים הם לשבחם ולפארם ולחלוק להם כבוד וזהו רצון הא-ל לגדל ולכבד מי שגדלו וכבדו כו' כיון שעלה דבר זה על לבם התחילו לבנות לכוכבים היכלות ולהקריב להם קרבנות ולשבחם ולפארם בדברים ולהשתחוות למולם כדי להשיג את רצון הבורא בדעתם הרעה וזה הי' עיקר עבודת כוכבים וגו' (“In the days of Enosh human beings made a grave error... And this was their error: They said, Since G-d created these stars and spheres to run the world and placed them on high and gave them honor, and they are servants who serve before Him, it is proper to praise and glorify them and give them honor; and it is G-d’s will to magnify and honour whom He has magnified and honored.... Since this thing arose in their heart, they began to build palaces for the stars and to offer them sacrifices and to praise and glorify them with words, and to bow down before them in order to ascertain the Creator’s will, in their evil opinion; this was the root of star-worship....”; הל' עבודת כוכבים פ"א ה"א).
If we understand that by kochavim, “stars,” is referring to kochvei lecheth, “planets,” the truth of this assertion becomes readily apparent: The modern names of the planets in English are those of the principle Roman gods, and archaeology has demonstrated that this is true of every other ancient people as well.
The term elohim, as anyone possessed of a חוש חי לשפה העברית, a “living sense of the Hebrew language,” will attest, is used here to refer both to the unique G-d of Israel and also to “other gods,” in both cases a plural noun. When it refers to the one, unique G-d, it occurs always with a singular verb, e.g., Bë-réshith bara’ Elohim, “In the beginning G-d created...”, not bar’u, the plural form. Yet, in our passage, elohim ahérim occurs both with a plural modifier and a singular verb, yihyeh, as noted supra. Rambam tells us that the basis of the error made by the human race was the concept that the planets were intended to run the world, a concept which bought them to assign responsibility for what were perceived as the disparate forces of nature to the various planets, which were understood to mediate between the Creator and His creation. Hence, an original unity, in which all of these disparate forces originate and emanate from one Divine Source, came to be fragmented into separate entities who were conceived to serve ‘al panav, and eventually masked and hid the ineffable G-d from His creatures in the fullness of time.
Such a phenomenon is evident from Mesopotamian sources, in which the gods, that is, the planets, were honoured and placated (each city in Mesopotamia being dedicated to a different god, whose temple was the focus of city life); yet even the gods were viewed as subject to melammû, an inchoate force or fate which (in my humble opinion) is all that was left of the Creator in Mesopotamian consciousness. The elohim ahérim which they had made for themselves stood before G-d’s “face,” as it were, hiding it from the world.
But that is not all that happened.
Also striking is that the dative pronoun which completes the expression translated “you shall not have” is second person singular, as are the verb and dative pronoun in the next sentence, “you shall not make for yourself.” Why?
The phenomenon of a “national god” was common in the ancient world (for instance, the national god of Mo’av was Këmosh; cf. Numbers XXI, 29), which does not mean that the Mo’avim did not acknowledge other gods, but simply that their god was Këmosh. This, I believe, is derived from the same phenomenon which divided up the Mesopotamian gods amongst the various cities (each of which, for most of the region’s history, was an independent state). Had the prohibition been expressed in the plural, it could have been construed as forbidding the nomination of a collective, national god other than Ha-Shem. The singular pronouns, I believe, are intended to prohibit something different.
The great scholar of ancient Mesopotamia, Prof. A. Leo Oppenheim, notes the curious fact that the Mesopotamians very, very often had names containing theophoric elements (i.e., the names of gods), but that these gods were almost never the “official” gods of the cities in which they dwelt. Prof. Oppenheim believed that the Mesopotamians conceived their psyches as consisting of four parts, each of which was governed by a different class of deity, and a different individual god in each individual’s case (again, for the reader with a חוש חי לשפה העברית it is most instructive that the name of one of these classes is šēdu; cf., Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization, pp. 198-206). Thus, in their view, there were “national” gods, and personal gods.
This, I believe, is what the singular pronouns warn us against: The human being, noted supra, is a dëmuth Elohim, a “likeness of G-d,” a unitary being with many different personality traits and talents. Each individual member of the Holy Nation is therefore warned that Ha-Shem is not merely our “national” god, such that we are free to imagine and adopt personal “deities” of the Mesopotamian sort, either. Israel has only one G-d.
Rambam famously tells us how ‘avoda zara began: בימי אנוש טעו בני האדם טעות גדול כו' וזו היתה טעותם אמרו הואיל והאל-הים ברא כוכבים אלו וגלגלים להנהיג את העולם ונתנם במרום וחלק להם כבוד והם שמשים המשמשים לפניו ראויים הם לשבחם ולפארם ולחלוק להם כבוד וזהו רצון הא-ל לגדל ולכבד מי שגדלו וכבדו כו' כיון שעלה דבר זה על לבם התחילו לבנות לכוכבים היכלות ולהקריב להם קרבנות ולשבחם ולפארם בדברים ולהשתחוות למולם כדי להשיג את רצון הבורא בדעתם הרעה וזה הי' עיקר עבודת כוכבים וגו' (“In the days of Enosh human beings made a grave error... And this was their error: They said, Since G-d created these stars and spheres to run the world and placed them on high and gave them honor, and they are servants who serve before Him, it is proper to praise and glorify them and give them honor; and it is G-d’s will to magnify and honour whom He has magnified and honored.... Since this thing arose in their heart, they began to build palaces for the stars and to offer them sacrifices and to praise and glorify them with words, and to bow down before them in order to ascertain the Creator’s will, in their evil opinion; this was the root of star-worship....”; הל' עבודת כוכבים פ"א ה"א).
If we understand that by kochavim, “stars,” is referring to kochvei lecheth, “planets,” the truth of this assertion becomes readily apparent: The modern names of the planets in English are those of the principle Roman gods, and archaeology has demonstrated that this is true of every other ancient people as well.
The term elohim, as anyone possessed of a חוש חי לשפה העברית, a “living sense of the Hebrew language,” will attest, is used here to refer both to the unique G-d of Israel and also to “other gods,” in both cases a plural noun. When it refers to the one, unique G-d, it occurs always with a singular verb, e.g., Bë-réshith bara’ Elohim, “In the beginning G-d created...”, not bar’u, the plural form. Yet, in our passage, elohim ahérim occurs both with a plural modifier and a singular verb, yihyeh, as noted supra. Rambam tells us that the basis of the error made by the human race was the concept that the planets were intended to run the world, a concept which bought them to assign responsibility for what were perceived as the disparate forces of nature to the various planets, which were understood to mediate between the Creator and His creation. Hence, an original unity, in which all of these disparate forces originate and emanate from one Divine Source, came to be fragmented into separate entities who were conceived to serve ‘al panav, and eventually masked and hid the ineffable G-d from His creatures in the fullness of time.
Such a phenomenon is evident from Mesopotamian sources, in which the gods, that is, the planets, were honoured and placated (each city in Mesopotamia being dedicated to a different god, whose temple was the focus of city life); yet even the gods were viewed as subject to melammû, an inchoate force or fate which (in my humble opinion) is all that was left of the Creator in Mesopotamian consciousness. The elohim ahérim which they had made for themselves stood before G-d’s “face,” as it were, hiding it from the world.
But that is not all that happened.
Also striking is that the dative pronoun which completes the expression translated “you shall not have” is second person singular, as are the verb and dative pronoun in the next sentence, “you shall not make for yourself.” Why?
The phenomenon of a “national god” was common in the ancient world (for instance, the national god of Mo’av was Këmosh; cf. Numbers XXI, 29), which does not mean that the Mo’avim did not acknowledge other gods, but simply that their god was Këmosh. This, I believe, is derived from the same phenomenon which divided up the Mesopotamian gods amongst the various cities (each of which, for most of the region’s history, was an independent state). Had the prohibition been expressed in the plural, it could have been construed as forbidding the nomination of a collective, national god other than Ha-Shem. The singular pronouns, I believe, are intended to prohibit something different.
The great scholar of ancient Mesopotamia, Prof. A. Leo Oppenheim, notes the curious fact that the Mesopotamians very, very often had names containing theophoric elements (i.e., the names of gods), but that these gods were almost never the “official” gods of the cities in which they dwelt. Prof. Oppenheim believed that the Mesopotamians conceived their psyches as consisting of four parts, each of which was governed by a different class of deity, and a different individual god in each individual’s case (again, for the reader with a חוש חי לשפה העברית it is most instructive that the name of one of these classes is šēdu; cf., Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization, pp. 198-206). Thus, in their view, there were “national” gods, and personal gods.
This, I believe, is what the singular pronouns warn us against: The human being, noted supra, is a dëmuth Elohim, a “likeness of G-d,” a unitary being with many different personality traits and talents. Each individual member of the Holy Nation is therefore warned that Ha-Shem is not merely our “national” god, such that we are free to imagine and adopt personal “deities” of the Mesopotamian sort, either. Israel has only one G-d.
C.
Which leads us to the second verse.
Why does the Torah here use pesel rather than dëmuth? Rashi provides a clue: Pesel, he tells us, is על שם שנפסל (“because it is nifsal”). Nifsal simultaneously means “carved, hewn” and also “invalid, illegitimate.” The fragmentation of the Divine consequently results in a view of the human likeness of the Divine which is illegitimate at its root; this is what we learn from the word pesel.
And tëmuna? Here the Ba‘al ha-Turim shows the way: The numerical value or gimatriya of tëmuna (501) is equivalent to פרצוף אדם, “the visage of man” (ע"ע עבודה זרה מ"ב:). A human being, no matter how great, how noble, is nonetheless only a dëmuth Elohim, an image, a pale reflection of G-d. No human being is worthy of worship, only the transcendant, unique Creator of all, Who cannot be pictured in any meaningful way.
Why does the Torah here use pesel rather than dëmuth? Rashi provides a clue: Pesel, he tells us, is על שם שנפסל (“because it is nifsal”). Nifsal simultaneously means “carved, hewn” and also “invalid, illegitimate.” The fragmentation of the Divine consequently results in a view of the human likeness of the Divine which is illegitimate at its root; this is what we learn from the word pesel.
And tëmuna? Here the Ba‘al ha-Turim shows the way: The numerical value or gimatriya of tëmuna (501) is equivalent to פרצוף אדם, “the visage of man” (ע"ע עבודה זרה מ"ב:). A human being, no matter how great, how noble, is nonetheless only a dëmuth Elohim, an image, a pale reflection of G-d. No human being is worthy of worship, only the transcendant, unique Creator of all, Who cannot be pictured in any meaningful way.
D.
Our parasha is named for Moshe’s father-in-Law, Yithro. How is it that Yithro merited having this parasha, which contains the purpose of all creation, named after him? The Or ha-Hayyim asks our question, and answers: טעם הדבר הוא להראות ד' את בני ישראל כו' כי יש באומות גדולים בהבנה ובהשכלה כו' והכונה בזה כי לא באה הבחירה בישראל לצד שיש בהם השכלה והכרה יותא מכל האומות כו' הא למדת כי לא מרוב חכמת ישראל והשכלתם בחר ד' בהם אלא לחסד עליון ולאהבת האבות וגו' (“The reason of the matter is for Ha-Shem to show the bënei Yisra’él... that there are men great in understanding and enlightenment amongst the nations... and the intent in this is that chosenness did not come into Israel because there is amongst them more enlightenment and recognition than all the other nations... So you learn that it is not from Israel’s great wisdom and their enlightenment that Ha-Shem chose them, but rather for supernal kindness, and love of the Patriarchs....”; הערה לפ' י"ח כ"א).
Rashi tells us that Yithro came to meet Israel on hearing of the splitting of Yam Suf and the war with ‘Amaléq, i.e., before Mattan Torah. This remarkable man is given the title of kohén Midyan in our first verse, and the Or ha-Hayyim asks why that should be? Since he converted fully and accepted on himself all of the mitzvoth (whence, the Mëchilta tells us, he was called Yithro, meaning roughly “his addition,” i.e., addition of the rest of the mitzvoth to the seven in which he, like the other nations, was already obligated), surely mentioning that he was a priest to the ‘avoda zara of Midyan was no compliment!
He answers that Yithro was demonstrably a man of standing and stature, a leader amongst his people, and yet was willing to accept an Egyptian fugitive who had yet to achieve anything as a son-in-law. Such uncommon judgment, flying in the face of convention which demands regal titles and a solid yihus as the price of marriage into a prominent family, was an early indication of the wisdom, understanding and enlightenment which led Yithro to the foot of Sinai, where he was moved together with all of the other souls present on that awesome occasion.
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