Eikev: When Avodah Zarah Works (and Why)

How does Judaism account for miracles done for and by the practitioners of other religions? My favorite answer is given by Sforno, Rambam, and R' Akiva - one which raises a major question for us Jews.

Aug 04, 2023

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The Torah content for this week has been dedicated by the family of Mindy Pincus for her 20th yahrzeit. She loved wisdom, was always looking to grow, and devoted her life to raising a family in the path of Torah.

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Eikev: When Avodah Zarah Works (and Why)

Holy water works miracles! Such was the claim made on a Christian infomercial I saw as a child. The televangelist[1] promised that if you sent in an order for his “Miracle Spring Water” and followed the instructions, it would cure your diseases, bring prosperity, and work other untold miracles. Dozens of faithful customers called in to bolster these claims with their testimonials. One caller testified that his vial was damaged in transit and all the water leaked out. Nevertheless, he went through the prescribed motions with the empty bottle, and – hallelujah! – a miracle was done all the same! The hucksters praised their lord and savior, and the con went on.

Even though I was just a child, I thought to myself: “Wait a minute – if the miracle is caused by the water, and this guy didn’t even have the water, then something doesn’t add up!” This was the first time I questioned the cause-and-effect reasoning employed by alleged miracle-workers, and it wouldn’t be the last.

It should come as no surprise that this type of faulty inference has been on Judaism’s radar for thousands of years. It is prohibited by Torah law to derive benefit from idolatrous adornments (see Rambam, Sefer ha’Mitzvos Lo Taaseh #22). The source of this prohibition is a short passage in Eikev (Devarim 7:25-26):

The images of their gods you shall burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold upon them and take it for yourself, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to Hashem, your God. And you shall not bring an abomination into your house and become under ban like it. You shall utterly detest it and you shall utterly abhor it, for it is a banned thing.

What does the phrase “lest you be ensnared by it” mean? How is this silver and gold an abomination? Sforno (ad loc.) answers:

lest you be ensnared by it – for sometimes it will happen that you enjoy success with the silver and gold that was upon them, and you will think that this [success] was due to the power of the avodah zarah (idolatry) that it was on.
you shall utterly abhor it – [namely,] you shall abhor the silver and gold of that abomination.

In other words, this prohibition isn’t merely one of the Torah’s generic safeguards against avodah zarah. Rather, it is a protective measure against a specific line of superstitious thinking to which even an “avodah zarah non-believer” is prone. Rambam offers an expanded version of this theory in the Moreh ha’Nevuchim 3:37:

The [reason for] the prohibition to derive benefit from avodah zarah is quite obvious, for it is possible that one might buy [an idol] with the intention to break it, but he keeps it, and it ends up being a snare for him. Even if he broke it, recast it, and sold it to a non-Jew, it is prohibited to derive benefit from the proceeds. The reason for this is that the masses mistake chance occurrences for essential causes. You will find many people who say that as soon as they began living in a certain house, or purchased a certain animal or vessel, they became wealthy, and they were blessed on account of these things. Thus, it is possible that a person may be successful in his business and make a profit from the money [received from the sale of that idol], thinking that it was the cause, and that the blessing of the money he received for the sale of that idol brought him this [profit]. He would then believe in [that avodah zarah], thereby undermining the goal of the entire Torah, as is clear from all the Torah’s verses. This is the same reason for the prohibition against deriving benefit from the adornments of a worshiped object, its offerings, and its accoutrements – all to save [us] from that doctrine, the belief in which was very strong in those times. [It was believed] that it caused life and death, and that all good and bad things came from it – that is, from the stars.
Therefore, the Torah employed powerful means to remove this outlook – covenants, witnesses, severe oaths, and the aforementioned curses – and warned us not to take anything from [avodah zarah] or benefit from it. [Hashem] informed us that if even the smallest amount of money associated with it became mixed into a person's money, it will utterly destroy that money. This is the meaning of His statement: “you shall not bring an abomination into your house etc.” How much more so to believe that there is blessing in it!

This explanation did not originate with Rambam or Sforno, but was stated by R’ Akiva in Avodah Zarah 55a:

Zunin (a Jew) said to Rebbi Akiva: “You and I know in our hearts that avodah zarah isn’t real – yet, we see men who are crippled [by illness] enter [temples of avodah zarah] and come out cured. What is the reason for this?”
[R’ Akiva] replied: “I will give you an analogy. To what may this be compared? To a trustworthy man in a city, and all the townsmen would deposit [their money] in his charge without witnesses. [Nevertheless,] one man [would always] deposit [his money] in his charge with witnesses, but on one occasion he forgot and made his deposit without witnesses. The wife [of the trustworthy man] said to [her husband,] ‘Come, let us deny it [and keep this man’s money]!’ [Her husband] answered her, ‘Because this fool acted improperly, shall we ruin our reputation?!’
“It is similar with [illness-related] afflictions: at the time they are sent upon a person, they are made to take an oath: ‘You shall not come upon him except on such and such a day, nor depart from him except on such and such a day, and at such an hour, and through the medium of so and so, and through such and such a remedy.’ When the time arrived for them to depart [in the case you asked about], this man happened to go to a temple of avodah zarah. The afflictions said: ‘It is right that we should not leave him and depart [so as not to give the impression that he was healed by his avodah zarah], but because this fool acted improperly, shall we neglect to fulfill our oath?!’”

At first glance, one might be tempted to reduce R’ Akiva’s explanation to the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (i.e. since event Y followed event X, event Y must have been caused by event X), but the Gemara concludes by saying that his teaching exemplifies the principle of Reish Lakish, who said: “One who comes in order to be made impure will be given the opportunity, and one who comes in order to be made pure will be assisted.”

In other words, this all happens in accordance with Hashem’s design. If a person neglects to use their tzelem Elokim (truth-seeking intellect) to think critically about the world, Hashem will allow them to persist in their error – even if this means that scores of human beings will be ensnared by avodah zarah. Those who come to Christian infomercials yearning for miraculous fixes will find ample opportunities to be duped.

But this raises a disturbing question: Isn’t it possible to make the same mistake about hashgachah pratis (individual divine providence)? Most of us are familiar with “hashgachah pratis stories” in which people attribute the serendipitous events in their lives to Hashem’s personal intervention. How do we know that the same error isn’t being committed by them? If, for example, a person recovers from an illness after davening to Hashem, can we say that He miraculously healed them? What if their affliction was “scheduled” to depart at that time?

My answer is nuanced. On the one hand, yes – it is possible to make the same mistake. As the Rambam said, people frequently “mistake chance occurrences for essential causes.” They impose their own narratives on events without bothering to engage in critical analysis. We would do well to learn from Mordechai, who recognized that “Hashem’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our ways” (cf. Yeshayahu 55:8). Despite Esther being in a position to save her people, Mordechai did not exclaim: “Hashgachah pratis!” Instead, he responded with intellectual humility, saying: “Who knows whether you attained royalty for a time like this?” (Esther 4:14).

On the other hand, this is not the same mistake at all. The idolator’s error reinforces their delusional worldview – a false, infantile, destructive belief system which distances them from reality. In contrast, even when a Jew misidentifies an event as providential, this will nevertheless strengthen their conviction in Hashem and His hashgachah – true beliefs which draw them nearer to reality. Even if they are wrong about in the particular, they are right that it was caused by Hashem, whether through hashgachah pratis or hashgachah klalis (nature).

[1] I subsequently learned that the charlatan from my childhood memory was none other than the infamous Peter Popoff, who was exposed in 1986 by James Randi, yet managed to achieve “a second coming” of fame and financial success in the 90s. If you haven’t already done so, I urge you to check out the short video of the debunking:

Let me know what you think!

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