Against Idolatry

When my local rabbi asked me which of the seven commandments was the hardest to keep, I answered without hesitation: the prohibition against idolatry.

He seemed a bit surprised, and I had to think about what I meant with my answer and why it had come so quickly. As I understand it, the prohibition against idolatry is the heart and soul of the Seven Commandments of Noah (the Sheva Mitzvot). Embrace this mitzva and you will acquire the humility to keep the other six.  Not that you can't keep the other six without keeping this one. You can, but you will be seen by the Jewish community as nothing more than an ethical pagan, Hindu, Christian, or humanist. Embrace the prohition against idolatry  — and accept the Elohim of Avraham, Yitzkhak, and Yaakov  — and you will find that doors in the Jewish community begin to open to you.

But embracing this mitzva is not particularly easy. At least it wasn't for me. Like other geirim, I have had to give up my childhood religion, the faith of my father, the church of family and friends.

One night a couple of years ago, after an argument with my wife over my religious transition, I could not sleep and got up to pray. I soon found myself face down on the floor, crying in great heaving sobs from the basement of my soul. I had cried this way only one other time  — when my mother died. And I realized that I was grieving for my two mothers: my biological mother who died in 1991 and my spiritual mother, the church, who died not long after.

There was no going back, and I felt utterly alone. That, I think, is why keeping this prohibition against idolatry is so difficult. For those of us coming from other places, it demands the shedding of all that is familiar. And yet is necessary. If we are to become children of Abraham and Sarah, we must uproot ourselves as they did for the sake of worshipping HaShem. We must leave our family, our friends, our rituals, our foods, our images, and head out to who knows where. This is a powerful and negative experience that is a cause for tremendous grief. But it is necessary, and a prelude to the tremendous joy that comes when Torah rushes in to fill the vacuum.— KENNETH GUENTERT

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Copyright © 2004, Schueller House. Revised - 03/18/07

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