Large part of Torah deals with warnings against the idol worship and many punishments for following it. Description of the idol worship practices given in Torah makes these warnings seemingly irrelevant to our modern lives. Or is it? This is a very subtle and complicated topic as in the root of this issues lays a very foundation of Jewish spirituality in constant war with mental corruption effecting us from the “larger world”. Understanding the true meaning of idol worship beyond those examples given in Torah, will open eyes to the reason for our many troubles today … troubles coming from modern forms of idol worship plaguing our nation today.
To understand this topic means to understand mental and psychological processes going on in human mind and differences in applications of these processes in humans 4,000 years ago and today.
As this is a quite involving topic, it will be split in separate parts revealing all of the required subtopics as follows:
- Definition of Faith. Competing Faiths to take control of the human mind.
- Comparison of the competing Faiths in Biblical times and today.
- How ideas and influences from other humans and cultures take control of the individual human mind.
- Rejection of all the worldly ideas and influences in favor of the Knowledge of God, Trust in God and Surrender.
This world of humankind is a stage where many competing ideas fight for the mind of the individual humans and, in larger extend, for taking form of the dominant ideas among the nations. Understanding of these processes will alow us to see that the same mental drive which caused Israel in Biblical times to worship idols made of the stone or metal similarly to the fashion of other nations, in our times, causes their descendants, modern day Jews, bow to the will of the United Nations and world leaders.
But if your heart turns aside and you do not listen, you will be led astray to bow down to foreign gods ( word “Elohim” also translated as “masters” , edit.) and worship them. I am warning you today that you will be utterly destroyed. (Deuteronomy 30:17)
At the end of reading this series, the reader will come to not only understanding the phenomenon of the Idol Worship and it’s influence today, but also understanding the workings of our own human mind – our main tool for day to day living.
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