I was attacked by Arabs and taken to the local police station to make a statement, and then to the police station in Binyamin for other reasons. Then after the interrogation was over, I was thinking about the Gemara in Avoda Zara page 23 that serves as the source for the previous blog entry [about the Israeli setting up a brick to worship, and then comes a gentile and worships it--in which case the brick is forbidden to be used.]

The Gemara says this: It says in the verse: "their worshipped trees you should burn". [That refers to when the children if Israel entered into the Land of Canaan.] The Gemara asks, 'but a person can not make forbidden that which belongs to another'. The Gemara answers, since Israel served the Golden Calf that shows idolatry is OK to them, so when the Canaanites were worshipping their trees, that is just doing what Israel sent them to do.

My question is this: What about trees they planted in order to be worshiped trees (i.e. tree planted by the Canaanites in order to worship them )? That is the regular case of "ashera" and so when the Torah says to burn those trees, why can it not be talking about the most regular simple case of worshipped trees that in fact belong to the Canaanites? [Not trees that were planted for other reasons or which grow by themselves.]

הגמרא אומרת: הפסוק אומר: "אשירהם תשרפו אש". [הכוונה היא, מתי ישראל נכנס לארץ כנען.] הגמרא שואלת אך אדם אינו יכול לאסור את מה ששייך לאחר. הגמרא עונה מאז שישראל שימשה את עגל הזהב זה מראה שעבודת אלילים זה בסדר מבחינתם, אז כשהכנענים עבדו לעצים שלהם זה מה שישראל שלח להם לעשות

השאלה שלי היא זו: מה עם עצים שהכנענים נטעו על מנת שיעבדו עצים? זהו המקרה הרגיל של "אשרה" ולכן כאשר התורה אומרת לשרוף את העצים האלה מדוע היא לא יכולה לדבר על המקרה הפשוט ביותר של עצים סגודים השייכים למעשה לכנענים? [לא עצים שנשתלו מסיבות אחרות או שגדלים מעצמם

[The police offered to me one of their sandwiches which costs them 26 shekels [around 8 dollars] which was kind of like a combination of pizza doubled over with vegetables and coffee.  I had no money to return home, so the police gave me money from a sort of general purpose collection box they keep there in the station. I still could not get home, until some soldier bought me a ticket to the central bus station in Jerusalem. There is a lot more interesting stuff but that is enough of my personal affairs for now. 

I was attacked by Arabs and then the police were informed that the police at Binyamin wanted me under arrest. I was very afraid this was going to be a many year prison sentence, and prayed hard the whole way, But God turned the heart of the police officer towards me and let me go.