Sanhedrin 63
Our Gemara on amud beis offers an insight into what truly motivated the Jews to engage in idolatry – an insight that remains relevant in our times as well. Even though explicit idolatry is much less prevalent today, heretical beliefs that deny or subvert the Torah certainly persist as a challenge. The Talmud’s psychological analysis of idolatry can similarly be applied to many forms of modern heresy.
The Gemara states:
Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: “The Jewish people knew that idol worship was of no substance; they did not actually believe in it. They worshiped idols only in order to permit themselves to engage in forbidden sexual relations in public.”
Many idolatrous rituals, such as those of Baal, involved engaging in various forms of sexual activity with temple harlots. These rituals, centered on human reproduction, were intended to magically draw channels of fertility, ensuring rain and agricultural prosperity.
Rav Mesharshiyya raises an objection to this statement from the following verse: “Like the memory of their sons are their altars, and their asherim are by the leafy trees, upon the high hills” (Jeremiah 17:2). Rabbi Elazar interprets this to mean that the Jewish people would recall their idol worship as one who longs for his child – indicating a deep emotional attachment to it.
The Gemara answers: This was only the case after the Jewish people became attached to idol worship, at which point they began to actually believe in it. Initially, they were drawn to it only due to their lust.
This reveals two psychological stages. First, the rituals were adopted to rationalize and normalize inappropriate and excessive sexual gratification. These rituals placed a veneer of morality over destructive and unfaithful behaviors; after all, participants could tell themselves they were performing a civic duty to ensure a good growing season.
Yet deep down, they didn’t truly believe in it. However, with time, the idolatry metastasized into a second stage: The rituals became deep-rooted traditions, and an attachment to them developed, ultimately leading to actual belief, despite their irrational origins.
Rav Elchanan Wasserman (Kovetz Ma’amarim, Ma’amar al Emunah) describes a similar psychological process. He asks: How can belief or disbelief be considered a mitzvah or an aveirah? The Torah can command us to take certain actions and refrain from others, but how can it mandate what a person should believe? Furthermore, if belief comes naturally, why should it be considered a mitzvah at all?
Rav Elchanan intensifies the question by citing the Rambam, who considered Aristotle one of the wisest men of all time, possessing wisdom just short of prophecy. Yet many of Aristotle’s philosophical beliefs were theologically incorrect. How can we expect a mere child of bar mitzvah age to arrive at the correct faith when even one of the greatest minds in history failed to do so?
Furthermore, the Gemara (Brachos 12b) interprets the command in Shema (Bamidbar 15:39), “Do not turn away following the lust of your heart,” as referring to heresy. Rav Elchanan asks: Why is heresy dependent on the heart? Isn’t it primarily an intellectual issue?
He answers by pointing out that even the wisest individuals can lose intellectual objectivity when they are bribed. The Torah and Talmud (Kesuvos 105b) warn that even the smallest favor can unwittingly bias a judge’s opinion. As the Torah states (Shemos 23:8): “Do not take bribes, for bribes blind the clear-sighted and pervert the words of the just.”
Rav Elchanan argues that personal desires act as an internal bribe, distorting one’s ability to see the truth and leading one to rationalize all kinds of behaviors. This is why heresy is a violation of the command “Do not turn after your heart” – because the heart’s lust distorts one’s beliefs.
We are fortunate to live in a free society where individuals can privately act according to their conscience. But why is that not sufficient? Why must extreme and promiscuous behaviors not only be tolerated but celebrated? Even if some individuals, for various reasons, cannot follow all the Torah’s moral laws, why must these behaviors be turned into an ideology, proselytized, and even projected onto children?
Much of modern “woke” sensibilities, particularly their urge to moralize and proselytize, seem to be driven not by intellectual conviction but by the need to justify other sins and infidelities. Celebrating unconventional and promiscuous relationships – elevating them to the status of a moral crusade – allows the garden-variety sinner to feel less guilty about cheating in marriage, avoiding commitment, or shirking the responsibility of raising children.
Our Gemara teaches that so-called ideological arguments are often rooted in a biased need to rationalize the forbidden and indulge in moral laziness. What begins as blindness caused by desire eventually evolves into a fully developed belief system.
Unlaced Truths: Rabbi Eliezer’s Last Dialogue
Sanhedrin 68
Our Gemara on amud aleph describes a poignant scene where the Sages visit their colleague, Rabbi Eliezer, who is on his deathbed. This is a psychologically complex encounter, as these very same colleagues had excommunicated him for his intense and disrespectful manner of disagreeing with them during the famous “Oven of Achnai” dispute (see Bava Metzia 59b).
For obvious reasons, there was tension and regret on both sides, which had never been fully addressed. Time was running short, as he was dying, and perhaps neither party – despite their shared respect – saw reason to concede or change their position. However, despite this, they held great respect and admiration for each other. So, in veiled language, they addressed their grievances, mostly through poetic allusion, using various halachic discussions and questions as their language of expression and thought.
There is a final discussion that we will study in depth:
They asked him further: “What is the halacha regarding a newly formed shoe that is on a shoe tree? Is it considered a complete vessel, which needs no further preparation, and is therefore susceptible to impurity?” Rabbi Eliezer said to them: “It is pure,” and with this word, his soul left him in purity. Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said: “The vow is permitted; the vow is permitted” – meaning that the ostracism placed upon Rabbi Eliezer was now removed.
These were not people of many words, and their words were chosen with precision, especially during the final moments of life. Although it is meaningful that Rabbi Eliezer should leave this world with a pronouncement of “pure,” surely there could have been other mystical meditations; why discuss a shoe-tree? I believe the answer is that this was, in fact, a mystical discussion. The mystics often refrain from discussing esoteric matters openly for fear that the less educated would misinterpret, misunderstand, or be unworthy of the teachings. They often communicated through allusions and hints, sharing only on a “need-to-know” basis (see Chagigah 14b). To better understand the above dialogue, I will provide some introduction:
Clothing serves as a metaphor for how a human is cloaked. Just as clothes cover the body, the body itself is a kind of cloak for the soul. Moshe is told to “remove his shoes [enclosures], for he is standing on holy ground” (Shemos 3:5). But is that all? Perhaps Moshe was also being instructed to shed his physicality – his clothes, his enclosures – so that he could experience G-d in the fullest way. Megillas Rus documents (4:7) the removal and transfer of an article of clothing, “na’alo,” which some translate as shoe, but literally means enclosure. This transfer is a way to convey ownership. But what else was being transferred here? This was a quasi-yibum ceremony in which Boaz, a relative of Avimelech, could redeem his soul by marrying Rus and continuing his family line. Perhaps he even served as a form of reincarnation for Elimelech or his sons.
The use of an enclosure or shoe to marry Rus, and even its presence in the chalitzah ceremony (Devarim 25:9), is not lost on the Zohar. The Zohar, at the beginning of Parashas Chukas, compares kinyan sudar (a method to acquire ownership), levirate marriage, Boaz’s actions to assume the rights of the closest relative in order to marry Rus and redeem the fields of Avimelech’s estate, and the transmigration of the soul (reincarnation).
One more point: The state of excommunication often involves assuming a certain state of mourning, which can include not wearing shoes (Shulchan Aruch YD 334:2). So the question about the shoes on the mold was also a question about the status of Rabbi Eliezer’s excommunication. Additionally, the particular shoe in question was in a liminal state, that is, almost complete, but not yet released from the mold. That is similar to Rabbi Eliezer’s body and soul, which had almost finished their mission. I believe that when Rabbi Eliezer determined that the shoe in the mold was not yet fully complete and therefore not susceptible to impurity, he was, in a veiled way, admitting that his “body” was not yet complete. He still needed to repent. This, in itself, was his admission and repentance, which his colleagues accepted. That is why the “shoe” was declared pure, and with it, he died. In other words, in a respectful and sophisticated manner he communicated his repentance and acceptance to his colleagues, and they understood exactly what he was referring to, without needing to make it more embarrassing or obvious. His body was purified, his mission was complete, and his soul was now free to ascend.
