The Essence of Idolatry | העַצמוּת של עבודה זרה

העַצמוּת של עבודה זרה

On the First Day of Creation, the Torah doesn’t end that day by saying that it was the “First” day of creation but rather that it was Day “One”. Unlike the other days of creation, the first day was defined by a number because on that day, there weren’t other powers in place. Hashem didn’t create anything that could be worshipped like an idol.

When Adam Ha-Rishon had experienced the Fall season for the first time, he thought that the night would take over and that the world would be astonishingly dark and empty. When Winter came, and the daylight started increasing, Adam Ha-Rishon marked the Winter Solstice as a celebration. Later, some of his descendants would turn the Celebration of the Winter Solstice into an idolatrous holiday.

Enosh, the grandson of Adam Ha-Rishon, started worshipping various things as idols. He brought idolatry into the world, and even when humanity reset itself, after the flood, the rise of idolatry happened again. The values of idolatry allowed people to rationalize a subjective morality by using idolatry to as a derekh to various unideal behaviors.

In the contemporary world, the rise in “Paganism” co-relates with the rise in immorality and other Non-Noahide behaviors. Of course, there’s no way to claim that these “Pagan” practices are authentic in their origin. Rather, many are likely to have been modified to appeal to the eyes of Westerners. By creating a subjective morality, the Neo-Pagans have created an ammoral if not immoral culture in The West.