Q&A: Kabbalistic reasons and the issue of idolatry
Kabbalistic reasons and the issue of idolatry.
Question
Hello to Rabbi Michi, may he live long and well.
Usually, regarding the reasons for the laws of the commandments on the plain level, according to Kabbalah there are hidden reasons—not only in matters that are segulot even on the plain level, such as the laws of tefillin and tzitzit, but also laws of damages or the dimensions of a sukkah. So in your opinion, could someone who accepts Kabbalah change the Jewish law? After all, the reason is not logical but hidden, and in the upper worlds there is no change?
2. What is the meaning of the Holy One's wrath over idolatry? True, the purpose of the world is to create a relationship with God, and idol worshippers miss that—but so do ordinary people who do not think about the purpose of life. God's anger seems exaggerated, as if He is concerned for His honor (in fact that seems to be the exact reason), as though worshipping idols is like a woman betraying her husband.
Answer
1. It depends what you think about Kabbalah. If it comes from Heaven, then there is room to say so, but if not, then it is less likely. Although even people's spiritual intuitions have some standing.
As is well known, the Magen Avraham in the laws of tefillin writes that Kabbalah cannot change the Jewish law, and in a dispute between the kabbalists and the halakhic decisors one should follow the halakhic decisors. But the kabbalists, of course, do not accept that.
2. I don't know (I have also wondered about this). There is room to connect this to the dispute between Maimonides and those in his camp and other medieval authorities (Rishonim): whether there is really something to idolatry itself, except that one is forbidden to resort to it, or whether it is simply a prohibition against stupidity. There is a long responsum in the responsa VeYashev HaYam by Rabbi Yaakov Hillel that surveys the views on this. According to Maimonides, the severity of the prohibition is the error and stupidity, which is not true of ordinary people. According to the other medieval authorities (Rishonim), the severity of the prohibition is resorting to other powers (metaphysical harms).
Another possibility is what I explained in my article about the view of Meiri, who changed the Jewish law regarding moral gentiles (those bound by the norms of the nations). I explained there that Meiri held that they were idol worshippers, but enlightened. And in his view, all the halakhic discrimination between Jews and gentiles (I am not speaking about prohibitions of intermarriage and objects of worship, but sanctions in interpersonal matters) was based on the immorality of the ancient idol worshippers. In his day, when they were at a proper moral and human level, all this was nullified.
From here one may perhaps learn that the severity of idolatry is not in the prohibition itself but in the package deal that accompanies it (immorality and beastliness). And that does not always happen, nor is it necessarily so.
But all of this is just the reason for the verse.
It seems to me that from reading the Hebrew Bible and the Sages, one can understand that idolatry is bad in itself, and the package deal is at most only incidental and not the main reason.
And to tell the truth, I don't really understand what is bothering you. The evil in idolatry, and the betrayal involved in such acts, are intuitively clear, and there is no need to find some accompanying reason for them.
(It is no accident that Abraham, according to the Sages, understood this on his own even before he merited revelation).