I should mention that there are people that do not consider going through an intermediate as a problem. There are groups that think this is OK. But I think the Torah is right that this is a problem. I dont know why people ignore the Torah in this detail, but to me it seems like a serious matter.With the vav they were joining G-d with the Golden Calf

Is "joining" שיתוף (Joining something to G-d) more serious than idolatry or less?
This is an argument between R Meir of the Mishna and R Shimon Ben Yochai

But the Rambam seems to make an amalgamation of the two opinions.
The argument is in Sanhedrin 63.
R Meir said, "If not for the letter vav in 'These are your gods,'
(which was said to the Golden Calf) Israel would have been liable to be destroyed."
[The vav makes it plural. Without it it would have been "This is your god" referring to teh Golden Calf. With the vav they were joining G-d with the Golden Calf]
R. Shimon said, "But anyone who joins the name of God with something else is uprooted from this world as it says 'to God alone.' Rather the vav is to tell us they desired many gods." [In Avoda Zara it is explained that that means they accepted the Golden Calf but were open to accepting other god also. But they did not join God with the Golden Calf. And if they had that would have been worse.  ]

The Maharsha says that joining is what the Rambam describes at the beginning of the Laws of Idolatry. And there the Rambam says the main idea of idolatry was they saw that God put the stars in Heaven so it is his will that we should honor them just like he honors them, and by that they will be advocates for us. [The Rambam  goes into detail about this also in his commentary on the Mishna. This is known in the  as the problem of the אמצעי intermediate. That is people know God is the creator but they feel they can't approach Him directly so they go through a middle step like a person or anything else to serve as a middle step.]
Then the Rambam says  the actual idolatry that we know came after that. It seems the rambam is saying the later step was worse. That is the אמצעי (emtzai) (using an  intermediate) is less serious.

But then when you look at the Rambam about actual שיתוף joining --in the only place he actual brings up our Gemara-he says one who swears by God and something else will be uprooted--that is the opinion of R Shimon. Not like R Meir!

So what we have here is what seems like a contradiction in the Rambam.
I should mention that there are people that do not consider going through an intermediate as a problem. There are groups that think this is OK. But I think the Torah is right that this is a problem.
I don't know why people ignore the Torah in this detail, but to me it seems like a serious matter.
I don't mean to be critical of any tzadik. But even a tzadik  should not be an intermediate.

When I read  the introduction of Maimonides to the Mishna, I was surprised to see that he had already at the beginning of his life laid out his plan about what he was going to write. He already had the basic outline of the Yad HaChazaka (Mishneh Torah) and the Guide for the Perplexed already laid out in his mind.
This reinforced what I was anyway thinking about the Rambam that his switch to Aristotle was intentional and meant to clarify the issue of idolatry. He meant it from the beginning, and it was not some fluke at the end of his life.

He wanted the difference between idolatry and Monotheism to be sharp and distinct and not dependent on degrees. Of course you could ask who does not want that? Everyone wants that! But my point is no one could get it. With Nachmanides or any Neoplatonic system, it is completely arbitrary where you draw the line between godliness and not godliness. Obviously the Rambam meant right from the beginning to stamp that out.
As long as you believe in Emanation, then anything you want can be godliness. And you can conveniently say the line stops where you want it to stop so that your system is conveniently kosher and everyone else's is not.  Perfect. [I don't claim that was the only reason the Rambam switched to Aristotle. The Neo Platonic systems had anyway been tried and failed. I don't recall what the problems were off hand. Maybe the third person problem was one thing.(Which is only a problem if you consider substance to be not a composite.)]

At any rate, we do have Nachmanides with his Neoplatonic approach, which does tend to balance the playing field.

And this leads to the question about שיתןף "joining" in Tosphot Sanhedrin 63b.

 I am not sure what that Tosphot means. He says one can have a business with Christians because of 1) when  they swear by their holy things, they don't intend godliness, 2) when they mention Jesus, they intend the Maker of heaven, 3) they are not commanded about "joining."
So far I have not been able to make heads or tails about what Tosphot means here.

I am guessing that maybe in the Middle Ages people would swear by the wafer. The second thing seems to be dealing with the Trinity of Athenius.  The third thing seems to be some kind of idea about Emanation because otherwise why would they not be commanded not to do joining?

And it is hard to know why Christianity would be "joining" שיתוף. Joining we know from page 63a means to join something else to God. What Christians do is say x=y. That is not the same as x+y.

Appendix:
1] I should mention just to clarify that saying someone is the son of God is not a problem because the Torah does this all the time.  בנים אתם להשם אלהיכם, שלח את בני ויעבדני, בני בכורי ישראל "You are the children of the Lord your God," "Send out my son so that he will worship me." "Israel is the first born of God." "My son, my first, born Israel." So if all the Jewish people are children of God, then specifying one particular member of the entire set as a son of God is not an exception to the rule.
So if your father says, "These three boys are my children" and then says "This boy [who is in the set of all three boys] is my son," there is no contradiction because he was already part of the entire set.
2] Tosphot is not referring to Roman Catholic doctrine after Aquinas. Rather to pre-Aquinas doctrine which was Neo-Platonic.
3] We can see why pantheism would be a problem. Not only is it not what the Torah is saying, but also it has this aspect that the Rambam did not like about  Emanation. [To the Rambam there is no emanation.]
4] To the Rambam God is the First Cause. He is not a composite.
5] It is not just that I do not understand the individual points of Tosphot. It is also I don't know how he is combining his points.
6] We find for example that the Ari considers the souls of people like the patriarchs to be from the world of Emanation. And that we know from the Zohar and the Ari is Godliness. To the Ari the bottom of Emanation is where godliness ends and creation begins. That is explicit in the Zohar. And in the Shaar HaGilgulim of the Ari and Reb Chaim Vital we find this theme extended greatly. We find even Bava Sali said about his son, Meir Abuchatzeira that his soul was from Emanation. So it is not unusual to claim someone is Divine. No one considered it even to be a theological problem. Mainly because people form their ideas based on group identity, and not because they actually think about the implications of their beliefs.
7] So the venues of future exploration are the Gemara in Suka and the other Tosphots that bring up this issue.   The Gemara in Suka asks on the Mishna the question of "joining."
8] My own opinion I should mention is like that of the Rambam. God is one, not two and not three, and not a composite. And I don't think anyone's soul is Godliness. But I am willing to accept that some people are divinely inspired like Moses and the prophets.

) Stay away from doctors.
) Stay away from psychologists.
) Stay away from people that present themselves as teaching Torah. (There are not many exceptions but the heads of Lithuanian yeshivas are exceptions to this rule in that they in fact are just teaching Torah.)

)They are all false healers, and are put on earth in order to make people sick. Doctors are here to make people physically sick. Psychologists to make people mentally sick. And people that teach Torah are to make people spiritually sick.

) Learn Torah in the straight Lithuanian Yeshiva Path. Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot.

) Go to a forest to talk with God (This is hard in NY, and easy in Safed. If you are in NY, and no forest is around, just being in your room alone and talking with God is also good.)


) Learn fast. Very fast. Say the words quickly in order and go on. I have used this method for years but also learned in ways that I think applied to me. For example I have a learning partner which is a prime axiom in the Litvak world.  Also when I was at Polytechnic, I said the words forwards and backwards because I was under pressure to pass exams. I could not rely on the idea I would eventually read the material again. I had to know it then and there.
For myself I also combine ideas from my parents,  the Rambam, the Gra and Rav Shach.  I am not saying my path is anything anyone else would agree with. It is just that it works for me.

I notice that sometimes I bring up this small paragraph in the Talmud about the argument between Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai and it seems to make some people uncomfortable. The basic idea is simple. R Meir said they said to the Golden Calf, "These are your gods Oh Israel which brought you out from Egypt." If they had said "This is" they would have been destroyed. R. Shimon said But anyone who joins the name of God with something else is uprooted from this world . So it must be they desired many gods.
This statement of R Shimon has two possible meanings. One is that joining is worse than idolatry. But then there would be a question from the verse he brings as a proof "Only to God."
Or he means idolatry and joining are equal but they did not accept the Gold Calf but just desired it. But then we have a question from the verse where they said "these are your gods."

The reason I think that people don't like to her this is because "joining" is a delicate point.

For one thing sometimes a person is following some great leader--and in fact that leader is great, or sometimes there are following someone who is not great. But in both cases they are adding something to God. So when I mention this particular small paragraph it makes them uncomfortable.

There is a limit to sexual freedom from the standpoint of the Torah. Reform Judaism is admirable in many ways but in this issue I think they are going against the Torah.
The right aspects of Reform are its support of Israel and recognition of the importance of laws of the Torah between man and his fellow man. And my family in fact went to Temple Israel of Hollywood and that is where I had my bar mitzvah. But Reform is not careful enough when it comes to laws between God and man. In any case, I would still attend only Temple Israel as that was the place my parents decided was right for us. But personally I would try to be more careful about the laws of the Torah.
In any case, when I decided to learn Torah I went to NY, and was very happy with the Lithuanian yeshiva world. But if I was in LA, I still would go only to Temple Israel,  [and avoid the insane religious world  there like the black plague.]
[I was a few years in Shar Yashuv Far Rockaway, NY which was an amazing place. And later at the Mirrer Yeshiva which was better than an LSD trip.] OK that is maybe not the best metaphor. Let's just say the Mir was a stupendous  place for the few years I was there. And I think that anyone who wants to have an idea of what the Torah is about also should attend a straight Litvak place for at least four years.[Which was the time I was at the Mir.]
I should mention for the general public that the normal time frame of a Lithuanian yeshiva is in fact exactly four years. You go through  four levels until the top class. But the actual cycle of a Litvak yeshiva is seven years--for the three Bava's  and Ketubot, Gitin, Kidushin and Yevamot.

[For me everything got mixed up because in my switch from Shar Yashuv to the Mir I ended up in Far Rockaway in the middle of Yevamot   and I had just finished Ketubot. Then when I got to the Mir they were doing Nedarim for Elul and then started Ketubot. So I joined the Shabat group. That was a small group that were doing Shabat.] 

It is hard to figure out what R. Shimon ben Yochai is saying in Sanhedrin 63.
There is one question because the verse he brings does not distinguish between "joining" (שיתוף) and regular idolatry בלתי להשם לבדו [To God alone].

So let me lay out the basic paragraph and then I will say over the problems.

 Rabbi Meir said, "If not for the letter "vav" in 'these are your gods, O Israel, which brought you out from Egypt,' the Jewish people would have been destroyed."

R Shimon said, "Anyone who joins the name of Heaven with something else is uprooted from this world. Rather it means they desired many gods."

What it seems at first glance  is this. It would not have mattered if they had done pure idolatry or joining--in any case they would have been destroyed. Rather they only desired other gods. This makes sense. But then what do we do with the fact they said, "These are your gods Israel." They did more than desire. They accepted.

So now we understand why Rashi said in fact just that: They accepted other gods. But then what is R. Shimon saying?

Now just to be clear, the verse בלתי להשם לבדו "To God alone" is from the verse "He who sacrifices to the gods will be destroyed,.. only to God alone." Exodus 32. That is: One must not sacrifice to the gods, only to God. This does not distinguish between to other gods and to other gods with God. As far as this verse is concerned it is all the same thing. One must sacrifice to God alone, and anything else is bad.

And I hoped to get insight by opening up the Talmud in Suka 45b. But so far I have gotten nowhere.

What I had thought at first is R. Shimon is saying joining something with God is worse than straight idolatry. And if that was the case, everything would be OK except the verse "To God alone." --which has one complete set of services towards God alone--and everything outside that set is not OK.

This is relevant modern day issues because Christianity is considered by Tosphot to be "joining" [Sanhedrin 63b].  That is Tosphot thinks Christianity is joining someone to God. But then he says gentiles are not commanded against this. But why not?
In any case, it looks to me that Tosphot is right because even Thomas Aquinas has trouble getting past the idea that the physical body of Jesus was God. I forget his answer but at the time I read it, it did not sound very convincing. I will leave that to  modern Scholastic Scholars like Feser.

There is a basic canon of Torah that is different than the Christian canon. The basic Torah cannon includes the written Torah which we have together with Christians but also the Oral Law which Christians don't accept.
But the Torah cannon is not fluid. You can't just write a book in Hebrew about Torah topics and say it is a part of the Oral Law.--even though people do this all the time. The reason they do this is the basic Torah cannon is hard to read. It is not light literature. And it is hard to understand. And it is against worship of people. If some person has  a particular figure he admires and he wants to worship him or her, they add some book or series of books that  make worship of that person to be considered kosher and desirable.


Appendix:
1) The Torah cannon is the regular "Tenach" (Old Testament), the two Talmuds, Mechilta, Sifra, Sifri, Tosephta, Torah Cohanim, Midrash Raba. It is  lot to read, but you could go through it in a year or two.  When you add the commentaries, it takes more time.
2) The Torah cannon also is different in the weight given to each section. The Oral Law is not given the same weight as the Written Law. We know it is just human beings trying to understand the Divine wisdom of Torah. But it has more weight that just anyone's opinion.
3) Halacha literature has a funny kind of status. Because it tends to stick with the Oral Law it partakes in some aspect of the respect we have for the Oral Law. It at least has the advantage that it is understandable. You don't need to spend two weeks on one page as you do when you study Talmud. But it has the disadvantage that it is not in fact the Oral Law. It is just someones opinion of what the oral law would say about some issue.
4) Kabalah also has a funny kind of status. It is not the Oral Law. But some people think it was handed down in some kind of secret tradition. Even so, it is not the Oral Law. It is, at best, a possible addition.
5) Shelomo Luria had a few choice words about the Rambam. Let's say he did not like the idea of anyone trying to rewrite the Oral Law--even someone of the stature of the Rambam. Nowadays the divorce between halacha and the Talmud is complete.  People that follow halacha don't know nor care what the Talmud says. And the modern Halacha books of the Charedi world are perversions of halacha as understood by the Talmud--even those of Rav Ovadia Joseph. Certainly Reb Ovadia did not intend this but the simplifications he introduced into a halacha are definite perversions.
E.g. you can crack nuts on Shabat and put the shells on the table. To say otherwise is a perversion of halacha. You can't make a pile. So what you have is people supposedly trying to make halacha simple but what they end up doing is distorting it into Picasso portraits.
And in fact even this is being stricter than you really have to be. Because that Mishna (Chapter Beit Shamai in Shabat where this issue comes from) is Beit Shamai--the Gemara reversed the order right there. The opinion of Beit Hillel right there is even shells of nuts that you can't eat are not mukza. [That is Rashi's opinion there on the page.] And that is  Stam Mishna (a mishna with no names) [Beit Hill and Beit Shamai is considered "stam"] coming after an argument and the Halacha is like Stam, Not to mention Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai who does not hold by mutza at all except for things that are not fit for any use and which one put away like figs on a roof to dry.[The halacha is in far like Rabbi Shimon, but the Talmud itself does state cases in which R. Shimon would agree there is muktza --so I am not using his opinion here to find a permission. I am just mentioning it as another factor to add to the role call.] And if you look at the reason for muktzah the Raavad brings, the reason for it don't apply when there is no public domain around. [600,000.]
So I am not saying Reb Ovadia is not right. Rather it is possible to simplify halacha without perverting it. Halacha today means taking the most strict opinion and making it stricter (in the name of making it "simple") and then presenting it as an unquestionable immutable law given at Mount Sinai.

So fine that Reb Ovadia wants to say that shells are muktza. Fine, he has plenty of support. All I am saying is when people write in his name not to peel the shells and put them on the table that is plainly false. And even the shells --it is not to everyone that they are mukza. What if not everyone wants to be strict?  But strict or not is not even the issue. It is the fact that the Talmud is considered irrelevant to this discussion. No one would even dream of opening up  a Gemara to discover a halacha. That is what I mean to say when I say the Halacha has been divorced from the Oral Law.

People believe in Torah and yet worship humans.

And this creates  cognitive dissonance. People believe in Torah and yet  worship humans. It is a true critique that I feel should not be ignored. [In fact, most of the so called religious world is subject to this phenomenon.]
Some Litvaks, like my friend Rav Silverman [pronounced Zilverman] in the Old City (Jerusalem), see this flaw and therefore decided that the Gra was right to dismiss the entire realm of anything coming from the Baal Shem Tov. [Even though the actual Cherem was on the school of  Magid from Meztrich.] SinceRav Nahman of Breslov was not a disciple of that school so the Cherem did not apply to him. The Cherem was not on the Baal Shem Tov or all his disciples. See the book that brings the actual letters.




Appendix:
1)There are other Litvaks [Lithuanian Jews] who see this flaw

There is a verse in the Torah which Rav Shick used as a proof of pantheism, "There is nothing without God" אין עוד מלבדו. But if you open the Rambam יסודי התורה א:ה you can see he explains that verse to mean there is nothing without God, not there is nothing but God.


There is a word that is used to describe the faith of the Torah--that is traditional Jewish Faith -Monotheism. Rav Shick has tried to present panentheism as traditional Jewish faith and some people are taken in by this scam because of lack of learning Torah.

Now Rav Shick himself was probably never aware that what he was teaching was not the Jewish faith. He never read the basic works of traditional authentic Jewish thought. That meant he never read the Guide of the Rambam, nor the Emunot VeDeot of Saadia Gaon or the Ibn Ezra. or the first chapter of the Chovot Levavot. So if all his reading consisted of Kabbalah, it is easy to see how he might have missed this basic fact of Jewish faith--monotheism.

Not that I have anything in particular against pantheism as a philosophical possibility. Just I am not thrilled when it is presented as Jewish faith.


So Rav Shick made an honest mistake. But it is no credit to him if we continue believing this mistake.The Torah is Monotheistic.]

The main idea of Israel is the idea of protection of individual rights for everyone in its borders-regardless of faith. This is displayed very well in the case of enemies of Jews that live in Israel that work to kill Jews and yet their rights are still respected unless they actually break some law. It is a degree of respect for individual rights that you don't see anywhere else.

At any rate the only way that I can see one can defend the state of Israel is from a libertarian point of view, of respect and protection for all people in its borders--even those that ought not to be protected.



 There is something about the superorganism and the State that is interesting at least. All I am saying is that you can't defend any state from the standpoint of Hegel because I just don't think nationalism is that great of a principle. While people certainly choose their morality based on group identity but I see that as a negative thing. I think it is better to choose ones morality based on principles that are perceivable by reason.

In Israel, there is a tight kind of community that believes in just learning Torah. This is different from the American yeshiva world, in  that going to work in Israel is considered a bad thing. The thing that keeps this going is government stipends from the State of Israel. Some use this stipend system even though they could not care less about learning Torah. But that is to be expected with any kind of institution. There will always be people around that will try to misuse it.
In any case, it seems to be an ideal situation for people that want to learn Torah their whole lives. And some people manage within this system fairly well.  I can tell by a glance who is learning Torah seriously, and who is just playing games. And I can tell there are a considerable number of people that are very much into the idea of sitting and learning all their lives for the sake of Torah alone. You don't see this much in the USA, even if people say that that is what they are doing. But in Israel you see this in  cities where there are traditional Lithuanian yeshivas.

I should mention this is an ideal I believe in, even if I don't have the merit to do it myself.

On the other hand there is a parallel community of Religious Zionist yeshivas that do believe in work and this system also I approve of. And each one I think is good and I have no preference one over the other. But it is when I see abuse of either system that bothers me.
The advantage of the Religious Zionist is that you see less abuse of the system. If people want money, they work.  If they are satisfied with little, they learn. You don't get that freedom in the Lithuanian yeshivas. But in the Lithuanian yeshivas, you get a degree of learning that is of the highest quality.
Both systems and communities complement themselves. It is like a natural ecosystem with its natural balance.
I cant stress enough how essential this idea of sitting and learning ones whole life is in the Israeli system. And the source of the idea is legitimate. [See the Nefesh HaChaim from Chaim from Voloshin. He brings the main sources. But you can see this yourself in the Gemara and Rambam.] And throughout the ages this was considered the highest ideal. It is just that it was never realizable until the State of Israel was born. Before that it was kind of ad hoc. The best a person could do who wanted to be learning was to accept some rabbinical post but that often had the unfortunate effect of taking ones time away from Torah. There never was sufficient funds in any community to support anyone who wanted to get married and still spend all their time learning. So people found arrangements with rich father-in-laws. I am not saying you have to like this, or agree with this. It is just that you have to understand it in order to understand what the Litvak yeshiva world in Israel sees as the goal of life.
But in the USA you see less of this, perhaps because of the expenses involved.
Certainly I saw plenty of people in the three great NY yeshivas, Chaim Berlin, Mirrer, and Torah VeDaat that also wanted to spend their whole lives learning Torah and somehow managed it. But in no case did I ever see this without the support of the wife.

 I would have to say the Religious Zionist approach is probably closer to the actual path of the Torah.
Mainly because as you have guessed that living off charity ones whole life is not the path of Torah. And in the USA, I have even seen places that claim Torah is a legitimate means of making money in order to get people to support their kollels. [That is, of course, a lie; and a malicious one at that. It is meant to scam people.] So there are enough kinks in this system to get me thinking the Religious Zionist approach is better. Torah with Work. And if one does Torah alone, then he does not lie about what it is he is doing. Torah is not a means for a living. Rather there is a kind of permission  (to some opinions) to accept charity in order to learn. But that is all it is -- charity.

דברים שבלב אינם דברים

Words in the heart are not words

The two blank areas are where we do not know what Rav Shach and the Rashba would say. [Unless I could get around to learning this with my learning partner.]

I mean we have Truma and kadshim where we know words in the heart are words and we have an open Gemara in Shavuot circa 26 that says we don't learn from them because of the rule שני כתובים הבאים כאחד אין מלמדים
Marriage is an act so we clearly need words. Buying and selling are acts so we need words to show intention.

See Kidushin 49b and the Rashba there , and Ketubot 75 and the Tosphot there.
Rambam Hilchot Shavuot 3 about an oath to a person that is using violence.
And what about Chametz and הפקר letting go and abandoning something. מבטלו בלבו ודיו he nullifies the Chametz in his heart and that is that." What about דברים שבלב אינם דברים

The Golden Calf and Joining something to God.

R. Meir said that if not for the vav in "These are your gods Israel which brought you out of Egypt," the Jewish people would have been destroyed. The vav meant they were not denying that God brought them out, but rather God and the Golden calf. ["These are your gods," not "this is your god"].
R. Shimon Ben Yochai said joining (שיתוף) is liable destruction. So rather it means they desired many gods.
 How is R Shimon answering R Meir?
I think he is claiming "joining" is worse than regular idolatry.
At least that is how Rashi explains this saying that they in fact accepted other gods.
In any case, I think we can see clearly from this Gemara what the problem with the Golden Calf was. It was either adding something to god [that is R Meir's opinion] or it was worshiping another god in which case joining would have been worse.

Now once I was connected with Moharosh's group in Safed and I think they were giving hell to the local rav. [I am not sure of all the details but I think they had tried to take over a local building under building 7, to make it a Breslov shul. That is a law in Israel that once a building has been made into a synagogue you can't do anything with it after that.] In any case the Rav was bothered and so made  a speech that was critical of Breslov. The idea of the speech was that the problem with the golden calf was not that they denied God but they said the God is everywhere and in everything and so it was the part of God in the Golden Calf that brought them out of Egypt. I felt he was being critical of me, but later I decided that I was mistaken in that notion. [Later he invited me back to the community after I had left so clearly he was not mad at me. ] Rather I think he was just being critical of that group. But was that in fact the problem with the Golden Calf?  Not according to our Gemara here in Sanhedrin 63. Here in Sanhedrin 63, the Gemara is thinking God  made the world and he is not the world. The trouble with the Golden Calf was adding something onto God. "Joining."
But what that rav said might be true anyway. It is just that you don't see it in our Gemara. They were not subtracting but rather they were adding. 

)סנהדרין סג. הקדמה. רב אמר האומר לעבודה זרה אלי אתה חייב. התלמוד שואל חייב במה? אם מיתה זה כבר כתוב במשנה. אלא להביא קרבן חטאת. אבל אם זה נכון אז רב אמר משפטו רק לפי דעת רבי עקיבה שאמר בן אדם חייב גם על מעשה קטן למשל השתטחות. ומה היינו חושבים בלי רב? שכרת כתובה רק אצל גידוף. קא משמע לן שיש היקש ויזבחו וישתחוו ויאמרו אלה אלהיך ישראל. זה הגמרא. השאלה כאן היא שהגמרא התחילה לשאול על דיבור. מפריע לגמרא שבן אדן יהיה חייב קרבן על דיבור. ואז היא מביאה פסוק שיש בו היקש בין דיבור ומעשה. זה אמור להורות שיש חיוב על דיבור. אבל קרבן ע''ז נכתב דווקא על מעשה, וכרת נכתב רק על דיבור במצב של מזיד."כי השם הוא מגדף". מה שהגמרא מכוונת כאן היא שע''ז חייב קרבן בגלל שקרבן נכתב הפירוש אצלה ויש היקש מ"אלה אלהיך ישראל" ל מעשה ע''ז. ומה היתה ההווא אמינא? שאין חיוב ע''ז אלא אם כן נכתב כרת אצלה. וכרת נכתב רק בפרשת שלח לגבי ע''ז במזיד


The Talmud in Sanhedrin wants to find a way of getting saying "You are my god" to a false god to be liable a sin offering. It can't do this except to R Akiva who says bowing is liable, and bowing is not considered a pure act. [I think because it does not act on anything.] But if we had R Akiva alone we might not know that saying you are my god to a false god would also be liable because cutting off is written only by cursing. So Rav informs us that saying "You are my god" is also liable a sin offering because of a juxtaposition "They bowed and sacrificed and said these are your gods O Israel."

The question was how does this work? We have a juxtaposition היקש from "You are my god" to idolatry but there is no cutting off written by regular accidental idolatry  only for idolatry done on purpose and for that there is no sacrifice.


The important thing to realize here is that cutting off is not written by accidental idolatry. So what the Talmud means is we know regular idolatry is liable a sin offering because a sin offering is written by it explicitly, at the end of Parshat Shelach  Number 16. So we have a היקש from saying "You are my god" to regular idolatry.

In any case, the way the Talmud puts this is difficult. We have R. Akiva saying bowing is liable a sacrifice. Then the Talmud says If we had had only this statement of R Akiva I might have thought that is liable because it is גידוף blasphemy and for blasphemy there is a כרת that is openly written. So now with Rav we know saying you are my god is also liable because of our היקשץ

This last paragraph I am just saying over what the Gemara says. But what is difficult here is this: In the parshah where we have a sacrifice for doing idolatry Numbers 16 גידוף blasphemy is not mentioned at all.  And right after that when it does mention גידוף it is talking about doing idolatry on purpose for which there is no sacrifice. There is something going on here I just can't figure out.











Appendix;

Introduction: In the Talmud we have a statement of Rav that one who says to an idol "You are my god" is liable.

The Talmud asks liable for what? If the death penalty when he does it knowingly, then that is anyway what is says in the  Mishna. [Rav has told us nothing new and that is not good. He would not have just repeated the Mishna unless he would say that that is what he is doing.]

So he must have meant he is liable to bring a she goat [a sin offering]--the sacrifice prescribed by the Torah for doing idolatry by accident.
The Talmud asks that this does not seem to be like the Sages but only like Rabbi Akiva. [And that is not very good. We already know the law is not like Rabbi Akiva against more than one sage. If he would be arguing with only one other person that would be different.]
Where do you have this argument? In a Braita [teaching] that says:  One is liable to bring  a sin offering only for an act, e.g. bowing, pouring, burning, and sacrifice.

Reish Lakish said, "That is coming to Rabbi Akiva who said the law is one can be liable even when there is not a perfect act, but even just a small act like bowing."
The Gemara concludes that you have to say that the statement of Rav is coming only like Rabbi Akiva. (Even though the Talmud is obviously not happy with this.)

"So what might have we thought?", the Talmud continues. That being cut off from ones people is not written by idolatry. So now we know it is by means of a hekeih היקש -אתקושי אתקש-juxtaposition that God told Moses, "Go down from this mountain because the people gave sacrificed and bowed down and said these are your gods Oh Israel."

End of introduction.

So what is the obvious question here? It is that we start out not being happy with a obligation to bring a sin offering for speech. In the middle of the discussion we discovered that R.Akiva makes one liable even for bowing which is an act with no object.  So we decided that for speech also R Akiva would say one can be liable even though it is an act with no object.
But then look what happened. "We might have thought that כרת cutting off is not written by idolatry. So now we know it is by this juxtaposition. for idolatry.
We know you need an act to bring a sin offering because of Leviticus 4. ועשה אחת מהנה. And we know כרת  is written by idolatry in Numbers 16 where it gives the rules for the high priest,  the king, the congregation, and an individual to bring a sacrifice for idolatry. But there it is speech that is singled out. The verse says "This is the law for one who does by accident, but one who acts on purpose will be cut off from his people, he has blasphemed God." So what do we learn from the  היקש juxtaposition? That acts are also liable! Not just words.
So we learn from speech to acts. What the Talmud is trying to do is to learn from acts to speech. So what is going on? Could it be the Talmud is trying to answer for R. Akiva, and not Rav as it seems? Any suggestions?


)סנהדרין סג. הקדמה. רב אמר האומר לעבודה זרה אלי אתה חייב. התלמוד שואל חייב במה? אם מיתה זה כבר כתוב במשנה. אלא להביא קרבן חטאת. אבל אם זה נכון אז רב אמר משפטו רק לפי דעת רבי עקיבה שאמר בן אדם חייב גם על מעשה קטן למשל השתטחות. ומה היינו חושבים? שכרת אינו כתוב אצל עבודה זרה. קא משמע לן שיש היקש ויזבחו וישתחוו ויאמרו אלה אלהיך ישראל. סוף ההקדמה.השאלה כאן היא שהגמרא התחילה לשאול על דיבור. מפריע לגמרא שבן אדן יהיה חייב קרבן על דיבור. ואז היא מביאה פסוק שיש בו היקש בין דיבור ומעשה. זה אמור להורות שיש חיוב על דיבור. אבל קרבן ע''ז נכתב דווקא על דיבור

Can one be liable to bring  a sin offering if he accepts a false god in his heart without saying anything?
This would be practical if it were the case. He could come to the the court of law and say he accepted some god like Allah or Brahman, and asks if he must bring a female goat. And they say "Yes." I could go further, but I think clearly you can't be liable for thoughts of idolatry.
If you were, then why does the Talmud in Sanhedrin bend over backwards to find a way to make liable  someone who said to a false god, "You are my god?" And it has to conclude it is only like R. Akiva, and it obviously is not happy with that fact, because that would push it out of the realm of Jewish Law. [The law we know goes by the majority. But there are many exceptions. Still in this case it is an established principle: The law is like R. Akiva against his friend, but not against his friends.    הלכה כרבי עקיבה כנגד חבירו ולא כנגד חבריו]

Now I have to mention that the Gemara is not involved in the issue of the death penalty for when one does idolatry on purpose. It knows that there is an open verse that one who bows to a false god gets the death penalty. It is only bothered by the question of-- if the guy does it by accident, does he bring a sin offering? And that is where the Talmud is bothered because for a sin offering we need some act with an object. [See the discussion of Prichard of the British school of Intuitionists about what constitutes an act. But in our case here we see the Talmud considers an act to be only something that has an object.- not bowing, and not words.]

Of course, you can imagine this got me thinking about דברים שבלב אינם דברים - קידושין דף מט
ב words in the heart are not words [Kidushin 49 Ketubot 75 and see the Rashba  Shelomo ben Aderet on that Gemara in Kidushin  who has the idea that this is only when the words in the heart contradict some act. (That is his idea. You won't find it in Tosphot.) [Not the same as the Rashba of Tosphot who is Shimshon ben Avraham]  [What I mean is that the thought can make him obligated in a sin offering even if he say nothing. The court can't make him obligated but he knows himself that he is obligated.]

And Rav Elazar  Shach [author of the Avi Ezri] says that applies specifically where one makes an act by means of his words.

In any case, you are obviously thinking about the Gemara at the end of Hulin about guy who was sending off the mother bird from the eggs and fell and got killed, and the Gemara suggest that it was because he might have been thinking thoughts about idolatry.  For thoughts one does have to bring a burnt offering, which can be brought  just like a peace offering. It does not have any conditions attached to it. You get get up in the morning and say "There is  upon me to bring a peace offering" or "a burnt offering." But you can't do this with a sin offering which can be brought only for very specific things.

The main engine of yeshivas in NY is the idea ביטול תורה כנגד כולם. Lack of learning Torah is equal to all the other sins put together.
It is not the idea that learning Torah is equal to all the mitzvot put together. If learning Torah was just a nice mitzvah there would be little reason for yeshiva.
But this idea that lack of learning Torah is equal to all the other sins together means that Torah is an obligation on every person.
And the idea that lack of learning torah when one is able to learn is a sin has a good source in the gemara in Sanhedrin כי דבר השם בזה הכרת תכרת הנפש ההיא מקרב עמה זה מי שאפשר לו ללמוד ואינו לומד.
This would be the reason why I myself went against my parents wishes and went to yeshiva instead of to university. I felt learning Torah was that important. Still in hindsight I  see that my parents were right and if I could go back, I would have learned half a day in the yeshiva, and spent the other half in Brooklyn Collage.

I know there are different opinions about this issue. Some people think that one should learn Torah all the time and that is that. That is in fact the general approach of Lithuanian yeshivas in Israel. In fact, in Israel if one works and learns he is considered a second class citizen in the Charedi world. Forget about decent shidduchim for his children. People won't touch him with a ten foot pole.
And based on the statement in the Talmud about the importance of learning all the time it is hard to argue with the Israeli approach.
I don't have a clear resolution to this matter, but I think that a possible solution goes like this: If you are learning Torah and you don't let go for any reason, then there will be help from heaven that you can continue to learn. But if you let go, even a little bit, then you will not be able to get back to it. And if you try to get back to it after you gave it up --it will blow up in your face. It won't be real Torah you will get back to, but some false pseudo Torah. [I can't explain this. It is just what I think I see happens.]
I can' answer this contradiction and I don't minimize its importance. But I can minimize the area of conflict.
I claim there is much less of a controversy here than people think. Litvaks traditionally had a side learning project. And we know the Rambam held that one must learn Physics and Metaphysics. I think that areas outside STEM subjects in fact should be shut down in universities. I can't see any good in any of the social or humanities departments  in most colleges.

Sanhedrin 63

Introduction: In the Talmud we have a statement of Rav that one who says to an idol "You are my god" is liable.

The Talmud asks liable for what? If the death penalty when he does it knowingly, then that is anyway what is says in the  Mishna. [Rav has told us nothing new and that is not good. He would not have just repeated the Mishna unless he would say that that is what he is doing.]

So he must have meant he is liable to bring a she goat [a sin offering]--the sacrifice prescribed by the Torah for doing idolatry by accident.
The Talmud asks that this does not seem to be like the Sages but only like Rabbi Akiva. [And that is not very good. We already know the law is not like Rabbi Akiva against more than one sage. If he would be arguing with only one other person that would be different.]
Where do you have this argument? In a Braita [teaching] that says:  One is liable to bring  a sin offering only for an act, e.g. bowing, pouring, burning, and sacrifice.

Reish Lakish said, "That is coming to Rabbi Akiva who said the law is one can be liable even when there is not a perfect act, but even just a small act like bowing."
The Gemara concludes that you have to say that the statement of Rav is coming only like Rabbi Akiva. (Even though the Talmud is obviously not happy with this.)

"So what might have we thought?", the Talmud continues. That being cut off from ones people is not written by idolatry. So now we know it is by means of a hekeih היקש -אתקושי אתקש-juxtaposition that God told Moses, "Go down from this mountain because the people gave sacrificed and bowed down and said these are your gods Oh Israel."

End of introduction.

So what is the obvious question here? It is that we start out not being happy with a obligation to bring a sin offering for speech. In the middle of the discussion we discovered that R.Akiva makes one liable even for bowing which is an act with no object.  So we decided that for speech also R Akiva would say one can be liable even though it is an act with no object.
But then look what happened. "We might have thought that כרת cutting off is not written by idolatry. So now we know it is by this juxtaposition. for idolatry.
We know you need an act to bring a sin offering because of Leviticus 4. ועשה אחת מהנה. And we know כרת  is written by idolatry in Numbers 16 where it gives the rules for the high priest,  the king, the congregation, and an individual to bring a sacrifice for idolatry. But there it is speech that is singled out. The verse says "This is the law for one who does by accident, but one who acts on purpose will be cut off from his people, he has blasphemed God." So what do we learn from the  היקש juxtaposition? That acts are also liable! Not just words.
So we learn from speech to acts. What the Talmud is trying to do is to learn from acts to speech. So what is going on? Could it be the Talmud is trying to answer for R. Akiva, and not Rav as it seems? Any suggestions?

 
)סנהדרין סג. הקדמה. רב אמר האומר לעבודה זרה אלי אתה חייב. התלמוד שואל חייב במה? אם מיתה זה כבר כתוב במשנה. אלא להביא קרבן חטאת. אבל אם זה נכון אז רב אמר משפטו רק לפי דעת רבי עקיבה שאמר בן אדם חייב גם על מעשה קטן למשל השתטחות. ומה היינו חושבים? שכרת אינו כתוב אצל עבודה זרה. קא משמע לן שיש היקש ויזבחו וישתחוו ויאמרו אלה אלהיך ישראל. סוף ההקדמה.השאלה כאן היא שהגמרא התחילה לשאול על דיבור. מפריע לגמרא שבן אדן יהיה חייב קרבן על דיבור. ואז היא מביאה פסוק שיש בו היקש בין דיבור ומעשה. זה אמור להורות שיש חיוב על דיבור. אבל קרבן ע''ז נכתב דווקא על דיבור

I am not so upset about "yes" means "yes." Mainly my feeling is that people should marry young. That is right after high school I think people should spend about 4 years in yeshiva learning Talmud and girls should be in seminary. During that time they should get married. Then after that work or collage. And this aspect that collages in the USA are becoming more puritan is I think a good sign.

And what starts in California inevitably goes east and more east and west. Though I suffered greatly in yeshiva but now I can see that the whole thing was good for me. I know there are people that have legitimate complaints about yeshiva but it is after a human institution with human failings. Still it is the best thing out there.

But the  yeshiva can't be a cult yeshiva. Those are easy to spot. What you need is a place like Ponovitch or Mercaz HaRav. It is usually very clear the distinction between an authentic yeshiva  and a cult yeshiva.