--- In [email protected], boyboy_8 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It reveals that the Children of Israel were easily tempted to > follow just about anything going, including all the mishigas > (nonsense) of the Egyptian, Cananite, Phillistine religions. > They loved 'em all. Like a child in a candy store. "Look but do > not touch" was too weak. It was "Do not look, do not try, do not > imitate, remove all of it from within your boundaries". Very > strict.
In later generations, the Rabbis, as I understand it, took this even further in a process that came to be known as "building a wall around the Torah." --- Quick tangent: I once heard a feminist rabbi make the case that Eve should be considered the first Rabbi, since she was the first to "build a wall around" God's commandments: "And the woman saith unto the serpent, `Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we do eat, and of the fruit of the tree which [is] in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye do not eat of it, *nor touch it*, lest ye die'" (Genesis 3:2-3; emphasis added). God never said they were not to *touch* the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, only that they were not to eat it. --- Is your observance generally very strict, or do you pick and choose to some extent? (I don't mean to be disrespectful; there's a wide range of degrees of observance. And feel free not to answer my question, because it's pretty personal.) It's been suggested that surrounding an important principle with a thicket of regulations actually *weakens* understanding of the principle and compliance with its spirit. The principle here is the prohibition against idolatry, worshipping other gods than YHVH. To even prohibit speaking the names of other gods appears to me to implicitly accord them more power and influence than they warrant. Does this not diminish the perception of YHVH's power relative to that of other gods, and diminish the importance of YHVH's covenant with the Jewish people? Eve's wall-building didn't do her much good in the end. Was Moses also building a wall around God's commandment against idolatry? Again, I mean no disrespect. As a nonbeliever, I'm fascinated by these kinds of issues in the philosophical/metaphysical and literary contexts, rather than as matters of faith, so there are distinct limits to how I can relate to them.
