But you missed quite a scene: this big idol got mad at all the other idols, picked up the club, and smashed them all. Isaiah comes along and gives a more specific name to the sin of misdirecting human worship: this mistaking material objects for anything worthy of worship, this idolatry, is materialism. Material possessions cannot be mistaken for the most important things in our world.
But, with the lights lining the Magnificent Mile, with countless holiday shopping lists in our heads, and with endless commercials about new gadgets and gizmos popping up on all our screens, we already know the answer.
Over 2, years ago, our ancestors rose up against those forces that would have us worship the material, and in so doing dedicated our people anew to the worship of forces of light and hope. How ironic now that we celebrate their victory with a proliferation of the material? Irony aside, Hanukkah is about standing strong in our system of values regardless of the dominating theology of the day.
If my colleagues in Christian clergy complain about the commodification of Christmas, it seems we are hardly the only religious community in America forced to confront materialism. However, with eight potential evenings for bringing greater light and joy into our world, I do believe we have ample time to balance out our material bounty with the religious gifts our tradition provides in this season.
And so, as we kindle our candles this year on the 25th of Kislev—and for the eight nights following—may we make sure our focus remains on the gifts of family, tradition, freedom and hope that Hanukkah truly embodies.
Back to All Sermons Share. Limmer November 29, Sermons by Rabbis Rabbi Seth M. On a deeper level, if a person believes that god is physical and finite, or that other independent powers exist i. Further, if he is not infinite, there would not be — could not be — any notion of serving and subordinating ourselves to a perfect God and connecting to the infinite.
He may be bigger and stronger than us — and he may even have the power to grant us our wishes, but he is not the ultimate. Serving him is not the ultimate expression of connecting to the Divine. It is basically a way of serving ourselves — doing favors for god who is perhaps hungry and wants fresh meat or even human meat and getting what we want for ourselves in return. Similarly, we would not view the commandments of such a god as the perfect and ultimate expressions of truth of an infinite Creator.
They may be wise and virtuous ways to act, but they are not absolutes. And if so, there would be no reason to observe the commandments other than for personal self-improvement, or simply so that god gives us what we want in return.
But we become the centers of our own little universes — not God. This in a nutshell is why the Torah views idolatry in all its forms as so antithetical to Judaism. I had always heard that Abraham recognized God when he was three years old.
Was that really the case? How much could a three-year-old possibly I have several frustrating issues going on in life today, as well as a relative who is really not well. Is there a Can you explain to me something about the difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewry? What exactly do those terms mean and what are the I've been striving to get more into spirituality.
But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I It has always bothered me why all of the first-borns in Egypt had to suffering in that final, devastating plague.
In its simplest formulation, idolatry is the worship of gods or natural phenomena in place of the one God who created the world, redeemed the Israelites from Egyptian slavery, and revealed the Torah on Mount Sinai. The prohibition includes the worship of celestial bodies or other natural phenomena, people, inanimate objects or foreign gods, as well as worshipping God in the manner in which idols were worshipped, which according to some biblical passages featured child sacrifice and prostitution.
According to a famous Midrash Genesis Rabbah 38 , Abraham once smashed all the idols belonging to his father, who had a shop selling them. When his father returned and inquired what had happened, Abraham pointed to the largest idol in the shop, the one he had left standing, and said that idol had destroyed all the others. The epitome of idolatry in the Bible is the Golden Calf , the idol constructed by the Israelites after Moses was delayed in returning from atop Mount Sinai.
While depicting God visually in any manner is prohibited, the Bible is actually full of anthropomorphic language. God is often portrayed in the Bible as having physical form — a finger, for example, or an outstretched arm. Rabbinic sources even imagine God as praying like one of them — laying on tefillin , wrapping in a tallit , and saying words of prayer see Berakhot 6 and Berakhot 7.
In biblical times, the term idolatry was applied to any religion other than the faith practiced by Abraham and his family.
In the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides offers a brief history of how idol worship came to envelop the world , beginning with veneration of the celestial bodies and proceeding to images of them until such time as the images became objects of worship in and of themselves.
During Temple times, idolatrous practices were an ever-present temptation to which many ancient kings of Israel succumbed, including King Solomon. An entire tractate of the Talmud — named, appropriately enough, Avodah Zarah — deals with the laws of idolatry, which mainly focus on limiting interactions between Jews and idolaters and proscribing any benefit from idolatrous practices.
Among the prohibitions are having any dealings with idolaters prior to their festivals or selling them any items that might be used in idol worship.
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