On Idolatry and Metonymy: Parts of a Whole*

As the daughter of an English teacher, I find myself drawn to linguistic devices; you know, metaphor, simile, alliteration and allegory, onomatopoeia and parallelism – so many clever structures and techniques for expressing ourselves and our ideas in ways that go beyond the basic: "subject + verb = sentence" equation.  As such, let's start out with a literary device that we use all the time in common parlance but for which you likely don't know the name.

The Metonymy.  Ever heard of it? A metonymy is when “a characteristic or important part is used to stand for its corresponding whole.”

Here’s an example:

"Ouch - there goes my back!"  That phrase does not mean that the speaker’s entire back literally went away, but rather "back" there refers to the pain the person feels in their back. 

Or a famous one:

The pen is mightier than the sword.  Which, of course, isn’t about a duel with one person brandishing a Bic and the other a samurai weapon, but rather that writing is more powerful than warfare.

The metonymy is a great device that, generally speaking, adds flair and interest to any message.  But only when the listener understands that the part is being used to describe a greater whole.  If the part is confused with the actual whole, a whole different problem arises, and the metonymy can become quite treacherous. And it just so happens that there is one major Jewish "no-no" that proves a great example of this device and the danger it can pose.

So, hold that thought and see if you can answer this question:

According to Jewish tradition, what is the greatest sin a person can commit?

The answer is idolatry**. Not murder, not abuse, or any other offense – but idolatry. 

And why does idolatry trump the other offenses?  Not because those others aren’t bad, but because idolatry is the gateway to all those other offenses, as its practice can take someone along a path removed from morality and ethical behavior, leading them to more easily turn against God and against humanity in any number of ways. 

In its traditional sense, idolatry refers to the worshipping of other gods.  We know this from Torah, which spends a pretty significant amount of time trying to teach our ancestors about how problematic worshipping another god is; after all, the injunction against it ranks at the top of our most famous top ten list, detailed in the top two: "I am Adonai your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage: you shall have no other gods besides me.   You shall not make for yourself a sculpted image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.  You shall not bow down to or serve them."

But for the average Jew today, it doesn’t seem that hard to avoid the practice of idolatry.  Generally speaking, we don’t see an enormous amount of people in our Jewish community who are literally worshipping other gods on the side.  Yet, idolatry continues to be a modern and relevant threat, not only to our Jewish community today, but to our overall world as well.  And that is because the practice of idolatry isn’t just about worshipping or even sculpting images of other gods.  Idolatry is actually an enacted metonymy!

Think about the most famous idolatry story in Torah: the Golden Calf.  When our ancestors constructed it, they weren’t building an image of some other ancient near-eastern bovine divinity; they were actually making an image of what they felt they needed our God to look like.  From the time they left Egypt, the ancient Israelites’ visually saw the presence of God at all times: whether in the form of a cloud or the form of fire, guiding them as they went.  When Moses ascended Mt. Sinai for 40 days to receive the law, all of their visual connection to God disappeared.  Their complete dependence on the necessity of seeing God led them to grow insecure. To satiate their perceived need for “seeing” the Divine, they built a visible image of God, in an attempt to sum up all that God was in one finite expression.  Afterall, there’s nothing really that offensive about a gold cow.  What is sinful is that their construction and worship of it messaged that God could be summed up in one image. They made the part the whole – enacting a metonymy. 

The Talmud and its commentators repeatedly lift up examples of our ancestors’ noting the majesty of the sun, moon, and stars, and in seeking to honor God’s creation, actually bowing and praying to these celestial beings themselves.  It isn't that they didn’t believe in God, they simply became confused between the part and the Whole.  (See Hilchot Avodah Zarah 1:1-2 for example.) Now we might ask, what’s so wrong with that – admiring that which God has created?  Think of it this way: it is a matter of faith to pray the words: Blessed are you Adonai our God, Creator of the sun, moon and stars. It is a matter of idolatry to pray the words: Blessed are you Sun, Moon, and Stars for being created.

And so idolatry isn’t solely about worshipping another god or even about worshipping something that is harmful or evil.  It is about distorting the importance of our goals and values, assigning them Ultimate meaning.  And why is that so problematic? Because it turns our goals into gods - a real problem.

Think of anything we value or strive for:  financial and professional success, physical fitness, love, fulfillment.  These things in and of themselves are not problematic, and are generally desirable pursuits, Jewish pursuits no less.  In fact, there are myriad teachings that urge us to strive for such aims.  What we must understand is that being Jewish demands we see those aims not as a final goal, but rather as a means by which each of us can enact God’s presence in the world. 

If we seek to acquire as much money as possible because we see it as a way to support our communities, those in need, and as a source of real tikun – repair for our world, that is one thing.  If seek to acquire money because we view money as the end-line goal, that is something entirely different.

If we seek out good health as a way improving our physical condition so that we might live longer, be better, and do more in our families, our community and our world, that is one thing.  If we seek out so called good health to meet the needs of our own vanities, then that is something else.

On one level, when the part is a means to the whole, we will likely find our needs met and find ourselves feeling fulfilled as we journey along our path. But when the part is made into the whole, we likely find ourselves experiencing just the opposite: feeling empty with our needs unmet, trapped in an unending cycle of self-absorption, obscuring our perspective on what is really important. 

And on a deeper, spiritual level, when we see the part as a means to the whole, it is much more likely that we will find ourselves on a path where our Divine purpose can be fulfilled and an imbued holiness made manifest in our lives and in our world.  But when the part is made into the whole, we actually deny our Divine potential and negate the holiness we are all charged to bring – a most dangerous form of idolatry.

The truth is, any number of pursuits have the potential to lead us down paths of fulfillment or distraction, wholeness or fragmentation: all depending on the values with which we choose to anchor ourselves and the Purpose we seek to achieve. 

May we be among those who are strong enough to see that the only end-all-be-all, the only whole for which we should strive is that of the Shalom that our tradition envisions will come when each of us fulfills our unique and Divine purpose in making God’s presence manifest in each and every part of our world.

And that is no metonymy – no literary device at all. 

*Much credit to my teacher and friend Rabbi David Stern for introducing me to this concept in a sermon a few years back!

**Note - this is not unanimously agreed upon by the commentators.  Some assert violating Shabbat is worse than idolatry, among other opinions as well.

Counting Up?

Earlier this week, I reviewed the concept of Sephirat haOmer/ the Counting of the Omer with our adult Bar/Bat Mitzvah class.  When I explained that we Jews mark the 49 day period of time between the 2^nd day of Pesach up to Shavuot  by literally counting each day, some of the students began to panic.  Truth be told, we studied the Counting of the Omer in the class last year, and there was no problem then.  So what was so problematic now?  Well, the class has been learning together for almost 2 years, much of their work in anticipation of being called to Torah on this Shavuot.  When I announced “Today is the 21^st day of the Counting of the Omer…” many misunderstood me to mean that there were 21 days remaining until Shavuot, assuming that they had miscounted, leaving 8 fewer days for them to practice, review etc.   But this wasn't a misunderstanding based on an error in calculation of time.  There were in fact still 29 days left until Shavuot. This was a misunderstanding about how we approach markers in time, because there is a major orienting difference between the way popular culture marks time verses how Jews do!

Generally speaking, at least in most circles of modern American society, the concept of counting down is the way we do things.  Think about the drum roll as David Letterman finally announces “…and number one on the top ten things that…”; or the anticipation in the “5,4,3,2,1” before midnight on the secular New Year; or even crossing off each day on a calendar in anticipation of experiencing a big event, thinking to yourself, ‘only _x_ many days until…."  In mainstream culture, we heighten anticipation and excitement through counting down.

Judaism teaches us something entirely different.  Jews always count up.  Not just on the counting of the Omer where we announce each day: “Today is the __x_ day, that is the __x_ day of the __x_ week of the Omer.”  We count up when it comes to marking Holy Days too: the 1^st day of Sukkot, the 2^nd day of Sukkot – not the 7^th to last day of Sukkot, the 6^th to last day of Sukkot, etc.   

And although I can’t be sure of the exact point in Jewish history that this understanding emerged, I imagine much of it comes from a  famous Talmudic machloket (disagreement) between the Houses of Hillel and Shammai, not on the way we count the Omer, but rather on the way we handle the Chanukah lights. (See Talmud Bavli Shabbat 21b).   Shammai’s school appreciated the idea of a countdown, and as such, believed that on the first day of Chanukah, we should light all 8 candles, and each subsequent day, take 1 away; Hillel’s camp took a different approach, saying we should light only 1 candle on the first night, and then continue adding 1 each night until all the candles on the menorah were lit on the final night.   Later rabbinic teachers offered reasons for their positions, asserting first that Shammai’s suggestion corresponded to the days of the holiday that remained, whereas Hillel’s corresponded to the days that had past. They offered a second reason: Shammai’s corresponded to the parallel sacrificial ritual of the Biblical Sukkot, whereas Hillel’s followed the legalistic notion that we “ma'alin ba'kodesh, v’ain moridin -  we increase in matters of holiness, not decrease.”  And because Jews today start with 1 candle and increase to 8, we deduce that the judgment went with Hillel.

So in matters of holiness, we count up, we build up, we lift up.  The drum rolls and anticipation of modern countdowns are one thing, but cultivating a sense of increased importance, an accumulating momentum that carries within it the experiences that have  come before it, proves entirely different, more challenging, and also more rewarding in the end.  To view life through the lens of the countdown insinuates an under-valueing of what has led up to any given experience.  It places emphasis entirely around the destination, with little if any value placed on the steps and stops along the path.  To see life through the lens of the "count up" enables us to celebrate our arrival at the finish line, but at the same time, to honor the significance of the journey we've travelled to get there. 

And so, for our Adult Bar/Bat Mitzvah students, I hope they know that the hours and hours of study they have undertaken are what will make Shavuot, when it arrives, most meaningful. And although they may sigh of relief once their aliyah is over, I hope they will also look back with great pride on the entire experience in all its fullness.  For the Jewish people, I pray our annual spiritual journey from the freedom of Passover to the receiving of Torah on Shavuot is enhanced and deepened by each opportunity we have to add another day to our Omer counting, as we build to 49.  And for all of us, regardless of faith, I dream we  might each honor and raise up every experience we have, both positive and negative, as a means of becoming the best of who we are meant to be so we can serve our world in a way that not only makes it better, but makes it whole.