On Tish'ah b'Av, we recite from the Torah a passage that is found in this Shabbat's Torah reading. (Va'etchanan is always read on the Shabbat following Tish'ah b'Av, which is also known as Shabbat Nachamu from the first words of the Haftarah.) We read the following words:
כי-תוליד בנים ובני בנים, ונושנתם בארץ והשחתם ועשיתם פסל תמונת כל ועשיתם הרע בעיני ה'-א-להיך להכעיסו. העידתי בכם היום את-השמים ואת-הארץ כי-אבד תאבדון מהר מעל הארץ אשר אתם עברים את-הירדן שמה לרשתה לא-תאריכן ימים עליה כי השמד תשמדון. והפיץ ה' אתכם בעמים ונשארתם מתי מספר בגוים אשר ינהג ה' אתכם שמה. ועבדתם-שם אלהים מעשה ידי אדם עץ ואבן--אשר לא-יראון ולא ישמעון ולא יאכלון ולא יריחן.
When you bear children and grandchildren, once you are long-established in the land, if you should act wastefully, making sculpture of any image, doing evil in the eyes of Hashem, your God, to anger Him. With heaven and earth as my witness, you will be quickly and utterly lost from the land to which you are crossing the Jordan to possess. Your days on it shall not be lengthened, for you will be utterly wiped out. Hashem will scatter you among the nations, and you will remain, in small number, among the nations to which Hashem will lead you. There you will worship gods that are the works of human hands: of wood and stone – that cannot see, hear, eat or smell. (Dt 4:25-28)
Now, this is not the first time that we come across this opposition to idolatry in this chapter. See v. 3:
עיניכם הראות את אשר-עשה ה' בבעל פעור: כי כל-האיש אשר הלך אחרי בעל-פעור השמידו ה' א-לקיך מקרבך.
Your eyes have seen what Hashem did at Ba'al Pe'or, for Hashem destroyed from your midst every man who followed after Ba'al Pe'or.
Likewise, vv. 16-18:
פן-תשחתון--ועשיתם לכם פסל תמונת כל-סמל: תבנית זכר או נקבה. תבנית כל-בהמה אשר בארץ תבנית כל-צפור כנף אשר תעוף בשמים. תבנית כל-רמש באדמה תבנית כל-דגה אשר-במים מתחת לארץ. ופן-תשא עיניך השמימה וראית את-השמש ואת-הירח ואת-הכוכבים כל צבא השמים ונדחת והשתחוית להם ועבדתם--אשר חלק ה' א-לקיך אתם לכל העמים תחת כל-השמים.
Lest you make waste of yourselves and make for yourselves a graven image, the likeness of any form, the image of a male or female, the likeness of any animal on land, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish in the waters under the earth. Lest you raise your eyes skyward, see the sun, moon, and stars, all the hosts of heaven, and be pushed to prostrate yourselves before them and worship them, that which Hashem, your God, allotted to all the nations under the heavens.
And v. 23:
השמרו לכם פן-תשכחו את-ברית ה' א-לקיכם אשר כרת עמכם ועשיתם לכם פסל תמונת כל אשר צוך ה' א-לקיך.
Be on guard, lest you forget the covenant that Hashem, your God, made with you, and make a graven image, the likeness of anything, which Hashem, your God, forbade you.
It seems repetitive, but in fact, it isn't. Verse 3 recalls the incident where men were driven by their lust for Moabite women to serve Ba'al Pe'or. Verses 16-18 speak of the deification of anything found in nature. Verse 23 extends the idea further, forbidding the deification of anything that could be captured in any image, or the attempt make an image of anything that could be venerated in some way.
What does this section, verses 25-28, tell us that we haven't already heard?
Those gods that are the work of human hands are not necessarily what one would think of as gods. They are the works of our hands, the things we make, the possessions we crave, the objects we seek to acquire that become the focus of our attention and our veneration. They become our focus on earnings and our materialistic yearnings, the things that supplant the sublime with the superficial.
This passage begins with an interesting phrase: ונשנתם בארץ, once you are long-established in the land. The word ונשנתם derives from the ישן, which means old, and also connotes sleep, tiredness, boredom, things that can be easily lead to complacency. Under these circumstances, the restless heart seeks something new, something beyond the established, the familiar. It is under those conditions that values break down, ideals disintegrate, and restless souls seek out creature comforts. Often, this does not occur in a single generation, not in the days of the founders, but after generations, כי-תוליד בנים ובני בנים, when one can look back on the privations of the builders with little more than a sense of nostalgia. By then, the ideals, or more specifically, the covenantal commitment, is all but lost. They are no longer in the land of promise, but in the land of premise, based on the supposition that our satisfaction with creature comforts is all we need to keep us fulfilled. But these things are inanimate. We find ourselves in a vicious cycle of trying to keep up with the newest fad and fashion, the things that lack any staying power because they are אלהים מעשה ידי אדם עץ ואבן--אשר לא-יראון ולא ישמעון ולא יאכלון ולא יריחן, gods that are the works of human hands: of wood and stone – that cannot see, hear, eat or smell.
And then something happens...
ובקשתם משם את-ה' א-לקיך ומצאת כי תדרשנו בכל-לבבך ובכל-נפשך. בצר לך ומצאוך כל הדברים האלה באחרית הימים ושבת עד-ה' א-לקיך ושמעת בקלו. כי א-ל רחום ה' אלקיך לא ירפך ולא ישחיתך ולא ישכח את-ברית אבתיך אשר נשבע להם.
From there you will seek out Hashem, your God, and you will find Him, because you have sought Him out with all your heart and with all your being. In those later times, when in your straits and you find these words, you will return unto Hashem, your God, and listen to His Voice. For Hashem, your God, is a compassionate God, He will neither forsake nor destroy you, nor will He forget the covenant that he swore to your fathers. (vv. 29-31)
The spiraling quest for materialistic meaning leaves us bereft of meaning, but we do have a way out.
The challenge is not to get ourselves to that point where we are in the straits. We cannot allow ourselves to lose sight of the notion that unfettered materialism is nothing less than a form of idolatry, something we must avoid in the first place. We should be able to live lives where our needs are met, without deprivation, hunger or want. But there are limits. When life becomes more focused on stuff than on meaning, on the people in our lives, our fellow man, and our relationship with the Provider of all, we are at a loss. When we start to believe the words of the bumper sticker that says “Whoever dies with the most toys wins,” it is time to stop and reflect on where we are, where we are heading, and what it all means.
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