Part III
HaRav Eliashiv's ruling about human hair from India being
subject to the prohibition of an offering made to avodoh
zora awakened an interest in the subject that has not yet
died down. In the first part, Rabbi Grossman quoted the
Rambam who explains how the idea of avodoh zora
started out as a mistaken attempt to serve Hashem through His
intermediaries. HaRav Dessler explains that this is a lesson
that we must still learn today. We see people who honor the
means of performing a mitzva, for example, buying a costly
silver menorah, while it doesn't occur to them to think about
the Chanukah miracle and use it to strengthen their faith.
They neglect the inner spiritual lesson and delude themselves
by valuing the outward means of fulfilling the
mitzvah.
The second part developed this idea and showed how the
mistake appears in various forms. One example was given of
chareidi periodicals that publish pages of pictures of
gedolei Torah but do not listen to and make light of
what they say. The inner message is like that soul that
provides the vital force, even if only the body is visible.
In discussing the cheit ho'eigel the Meshech Chochmoh
also explains that one of the central messages of those
events was that nothing is intrinsically holy except for
Hashem -- not even the Luchos that could be broken if
appropriate.
The Lesson of Smashing the Luchos
"There is nothing in the world," concludes the Meshech
Chochmah, "that has its own holiness, calling for an
attitude of worship and subservience. Only Hashem, whose
existence is a compelling fact, is deserving of praise and
worship. All other levels of holiness derive from His command
e.g. to build Him a Mishkon and to offer sacrifices to
Him alone. The Keruvim were not worshiped
choliloh, and had no [independent] thought or
significance. They were like the mast that a ship's captain
looks to when he wants to know the direction of the wind. The
Creator yisborach made signs and markers to let
Yisroel know when they fulfill his will, [which is] when the
Keruvim face each other etc. Therefore, the Aron
Hakodesh only contained the Luchos, and the
sefer Torah and the Keruvim were outside it on
the cover, not inside . . ."
"The holiness of the Mikdosh hinges upon Hashem's
Presence dwelling among His children. If Yisroel transgress
the covenant, then all the holiness is removed from the
Mikdosh and it remains mundane and bandits can come
and overrun it at no risk . . . Moreover, even the
Luchos, which Hashem Himself wrote, had no intrinsic
holiness. They were only invested with holiness on Yisroel's
account. When Yisroel behaved faithlessly at the moment of
their bond with Hashem, the Luchos were like broken
potsherds and they lost their holiness, which they only had
because of Yisroel.
"When Moshe approached the camp he saw the eigel and
the dances and understood the extent of their mistake. They
had no doubt at all [about his disappearance] and no thought
of waiting and looking out for him. They were deeply involved
in the abominable worship of the eigel, which they
considered divine. Realizing their mistake, he grew angry and
cast the Luchos from his hands, conveying the message
that nothing whatsoever has its own holiness or divinity,
outside the Creator. Had he presented them with the
Luchos, they would have merely substituted them for
the eigel and continued with their mistake. When he
broke them, they understood that they hadn't attained the
goal of faith in Hashem yisborach and His pure
Torah.
"Moshe Rabbenu's smashing of the Luchos was a wondrous
act, intended to uproot every false idea from their minds.
This is why Hashem congratulated him and it is also why both
the [second] Luchos and the broken pieces of the
[first] Luchos were kept in the Aron. The first
Luchos, that Hashem made Himself (as Rashi explains)
were broken, while the Luchos that Moshe cut were
whole, demonstrating that no creature has its own intrinsic
holiness. Holiness only derives from Yisroel's keeping the
Torah, according to the wish of Hashem yisborach.
"Part of their mistake was saying that Moshe had taken them
out of Egypt when this was not so. He was merely the emissary
to speak to Pharaoh; Hakodosh Boruch Hu had taken them
out with His direct Providence.
"Hashem told Moshe, `Go, descend, for your people have become
corrupt' (Shemos 32:7). Their corruption lay in their
saying that Moshe had taken them out of Egypt, showing that
they thought that he too, was divine and had used some godly
power other than Hashem's direct Providence in taking them
out. This is a very precious idea."
Turn to Hashem Alone
Referring to the mistake of the early idolaters, who argued
that Hashem had placed certain heavenly bodies in control of
the lower worlds and that worshiping them would induce them
to bestow good, the Meshech Chochmah clarifies that
the entire universe is controlled by Hashem alone. "To Him,"
he writes, "there is no difference between the smallest sea-
worm and the loftiest spiritual beings . . . A small fish is
no less of a being than a big fish; something composed of the
four elemental substances is no less of a being than the sun,
made up of [many] radiating elements. Neither is an ordinary
mortal, like us, essentially less than the beings of the
upper worlds . . . created from unalloyed spirit. We are all
equal and are supervised in every detail and created from the
Being of absolute truth, the Creator yisborach Shemo.
There is no [address for] prayer and no intrinsic holiness
besides the Creator yisborach and His will and
Providence, every moment, without interruption. The existence
of all beings is null in relation to the Creator
yisborach, who fills all the worlds and controls them
all."
In one of his shmuessen (that was published in
Lechoshvei Shemo, Adar II, 5738) HaRav Shach
zt'l explained this idea's great relevance to our
generation, giving several examples of areas where there is
confusion about it. He warned that even a G-d-fearing
Yid who considers himself to be fulfilling all his
obligations, can stumble, as a result of mistakes in outlook,
into the practices that infringe on the Torah's prohibition
against making "other gods."
"Although it is man's nature to want to shrug off the yoke of
authority," said HaRav Shach, "we surprisingly enough see an
opposite phenomenon -- an example of the wondrous way in
which the Creator has implanted opposing impulses in man.
Sometimes, a person will voluntarily shoulder a yoke without
being instructed to, as the posuk writes, `Don't make
other gods.' His acceptance of this other yoke is a result of
his having thrown off Heaven's yoke and it can even involve
him in doing mitzvos and good deeds. In other words, he is
prepared to fulfill mitzvos that the Torah commands us but
not because he accepts Hashem's authority. He is ready to
pronounce someone else a gaon and tzaddik and
accept his authority and observe the mitzvos, but only
because his mentor tells him to -- not because the Torah
commands him it.
"This is not the Torah's way. Do we fulfill the Rambam's
rulings because the Rambam said them? Do we follow the
Mishnah Berurah because it comes from the Chofetz
Chaim? That is not the correct approach. We are obligated to
keep the mitzvos solely because the Torah instructs us to;
this is what binds us. If a person observes mitzvos because
of the yoke of another person's authority, there is danger in
them, however worthy they might be. Since he is not doing
them purely because of Heaven's rule, they will not have the
desired effect. He is tainted by throwing off Heaven's yoke,
which borders on making other gods!"
Conclusion: Substance, Not Sign
The basic message of all the above is that a believing Jew
directs his heart and mind solely to Hashem and to His Torah
-- "Hakodosh Boruch Hu and the Torah are One." He sees
no intrinsic value or holiness in things that are used for
mitzvos or that assist in serving Hashem. Even about the
Beis Hamikdosh, Chazal say, "It is not the
Mikdosh that you respect but the One who instructed
you about the Mikdosh" (Yevomos 6). Even Moshe Rabbenu
was simply an emissary to convey Hashem's Torah to us.
People tend to prefer accepting the outer, readily tangible
but superficial, aspect of things, devoting all their
attention to it without exerting themselves to appreciate the
inner content. When they experience difficulty in fully
believing in a single G-d who has no corporeal form and
cannot be apprehended by any physical means, they instead
prefer to worship one or another type of G-d's creations.
Rav Dessler, basing himself on the Rambam, shows that at the
root of this widespread phenomenon of focusing upon the means
instead of the end lies the yetzer hora of
idolatry.
As he concludes, "A person feels the urge to employ a
physical form to facilitate the consideration of an abstract
idea, but ultimately he is just left with the form, because
it is something tangible, and he loses the proper perspective
of faith. Inner content tends to be displaced by the
instrument that was to have led one to it."
