Today’s daf wraps up the discussion of objects of idol worship with a fascinating mishnah:
The gentiles asked the Jewish sages who were in Rome: If it is not God’s will that people should engage in idol worship, why does God not eliminate it?
The sages said to them: Were people worshipping only objects for which the world has no need, God would eliminate it. But they worship the sun and the moon and the stars and the constellations. Should God destroy their world because of fools?
The gentiles said to the sages: If so, let God destroy those objects of idol worship for which the world has no need and leave those objects for which the world has a need.
The sages said to them: If that were to happen, we would thereby be supporting the worshippers of those objects for which the world has need, as they would say: You should know that these are truly gods, as they were not eliminated from the world.
The gentile characters in this mishnah raise a basic theological tension: If God is singular and awesomely powerful, and if the entities worshiped by idolaters are powerless, why does God not simply eradicate them? If God so deeply abhors the worship of false gods, why allow such behavior to continue? The sages’ answer is simple: Many of the things idolaters worship are natural features of the landscape which cannot be eliminated without destroying the world.
In Moses Maimonides’ introduction to the section of the Mishneh Torah detailing laws around idolatry, he narrates a story of idolatry’s origins, claiming that people began worshipping heavenly bodies as servants of God and later came to worship them as independent entities. This origin story, as told by the Rambam, indicates that the worship of God’s heavenly bodies and awe-inspiring natural works is one of the most intuitive forms of idolatry. God won’t destroy the world to eradicate such worship, and won’t eradicate other idolatry in a manner that, perversely, strengthens the belief that remaining natural bodies are deities.
The Gemara presents a beraita with a similar exchange that concludes with this addition:
The world follows its course and the fools who sinned will be held to judgment in the future.
The beraita then references several other scenarios to which this same adage applies:
Another matter: One who stole a se’a of wheat and went and planted it in the ground — by right it should not grow. But the world goes along and follows its course and the fools who sinned will be held to judgment in the future.
Another matter: One who engaged in intercourse with the wife of another — by right she should not become pregnant. But the world goes along and follows its course and the fools who sinned will be held to judgment in the future.
Today’s mishnah and beraita acknowledge that in order for the world to function in a consistent and orderly fashion, nature cannot be constantly remade to prevent transgression, or even reaping the benefits of transgression. The answer to why God allows idolatry to continue (and stolen wheat to sprout) becomes a broader reflection on the impossibility of preventing all sin while maintaining a functioning world. People must be allowed to sin, even to benefit from it materially. The best counterbalance to that fact is the promise that they will later be held accountable for their transgressions.
These interactions between non-Jewish philosophers and Jewish sages are a curious way to wrap up the discussion of idol worship. The past chapter and a half have been largely devoid of the vitriol toward non-Jews that was so prevalent in the second chapter of Tractate Avodah Zarah. Curiously, when discussing actual idol worship, the Gemara becomes far more intellectual and less invective, portraying polite and philosophical discussions between the sages and their (idolatrous) gentile neighbors. In many ways, the Gemara’s recent discussion about the objects of idolatry has been far more an exploration of how we conceptualize objects and imbue them with meaning than an exploration of Jewish vs. non-Jewish religion and morality.
Read all of Avodah Zarah 54 on Sefaria.
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