Parasha: Yitro · Aliyah: Seventh (Malchut)

דבר אתה עמנו, "Speak you with us, etc." The people meant that if acceptance of G'd's commandments was dependent on our listening to Him speak to us directly, this was no longer necessary. They said: "it is good enough for us to listen to His commandments as they come out of your mouth; we will consider this binding upon us. We do not wish to endanger our lives by being exposed to G'd's voice any longer." They said to Moses: "if you speak to us ונשמעה, we will be able to hear it (without dying). If G'd were to continue to speak to us we could not hear because we would die."

אל תיראו, "do not fear, etc." Moses reassured the people that even if the Lord were to continue speaking to them directly they would not die, as G'd had already accomplished His purpose in testing the Jewish people by inspiring awe of Him in them. He had already removed the residue of pollutants that they had still contained within themselves, pollutants dating back to Adam. There was also a second reason G'd had spoken to Israel directly. Once their pollutants had been removed, G'd's presence was able to occupy a permanent presence amongst them and the image of the Lord which original man had been created in had now been fully restored to all of the Israelites. The combination of these two elements was a great barrier to the Israelites sinning again in the future. Anyone who possesses shame, i.e. another word for "fear of the Lord," will not easily be tempted to commit a sin.

Another meaning contained in the words לבעבור נסות אתכם, is that in the event you would complain in the future why not every Jew has been selected to have prophetic stature, the reason is that you have now indicated you would find the burden to be G'd's prophet, i.e. receive His communications directly, as too awesome. G'd has just tried to elevate all of you to the status of prophet but you have failed this test.

לא חעשון אתי אלוהי כסף, "Do not make with Me silver deities, etc." Why did the Torah have to add the word אתי, "with Me?" Our sages in the Mechilta understood this word as referring to the cherubs on the Holy Ark, seeing the voice of the Lord was supposed to speak to Moses from between these cherubs. The meaning of ואלוהי זהב is that you should not elevate the importance of such silver deities to the level of something made of gold. The repetition of "do not make" entitles us to understand the verse thus: "Do not make silver deities; if you did so at least do not consider them as something valuable such as gold." Even if the item you have constructed does not have a face, or likeness of anything in heaven or on earth that one could bow down to, do not make it for yourselves. The Torah stresses לכם, i.e. it is not only forbidden to make something like that אתי "with Me," but even if it has meaning only for yourself.

The Torah refers to two different kinds of worship of another deity. One kind of worship is that by a person who really believes that such a deity is real and he yearns to worship it. Concerning such a person the Torah says: "do not make with Me אלוהי כסף, a deity you yearn to worship. Inasmuch as the soul of the Israelite is rooted in the celestial spheres and as such is part of G'd, if a person worships another deity also in his heart, he is so to speak attaching some of that deity to G'd Himself. The author bases all this on both Deut. 32,9 and on the mystical aspect of a statement in Eycha Rabbah 1,31 according to which the original serpent is holed up in a tower and the question is how to dislodge it without destroying the tower in the process. The answer suggested is that one calls on the services of a snake charmer so as to lure the snake out of its lair. When a person serves idols with all his heart he allows Satan to lodge within the very root of his being (like in the Tower in the story in the Midrash). This root of a person, i.e. his soul, is a sacred place, however. Solomon refers to such a tragic situation when he speaks of the slave turned master in Proverbs 30,22. When the Torah speaks of לא תעשון אתי אלוהי כסף, it refers to deities one serves because of a genuine conviction, longing.

The second category of idol worshiper is the person who is well aware in his heart that such deities are worthless and ineffective but they perform such service in order to reap some immediate and indirect benefit therefrom for themselves. For instance, such a person may ask a third person to pay him a sum of money in order to go through the motions of consulting such deity on the third person's behalf. The person who performs such sham service says to himself that inasmuch as G'd wants to be served by the heart, and he himself believes in the One and only G'd with all his heart, he has not really done anything wrong seeing in his heart he despises any kind of idolatry. Concerning such form of pro forma idolatry the Torah writes ואלוהי זהב לא תעשו לכם, do not perform idolatrous rites even if your intention is merely to earn some gold pieces.

The Torah reveals that the sin of such a person is that he demeans himself in order to make money by having recourse to idolatry. This is why the Torah writes לכם when speaking of such a person, as opposed to the אתי which the Torah used to characterise a person who believes in the deity he worships. In the case of the person who pretends to believe in the idol, the effect on his personality is not as traumatic as the one described in the Midrash we have quoted where the serpent is portrayed as having found refuge in his very root.