Don't Remove God from Your Picture

In Parshat Re’eh Moshe criticizes the pagan worship of other nations and then states (12:4)

You shall not do so to the Lord, your God.

דלֹא תַעֲשׂוּן כֵּן לַיהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם:

Moshe here warns us to avoid the temptation of foreign worship and stick to serving God as delineated in the Torah through the commandments.

Many commentators address the question from this verse: What in particular does Moshe want the people to avoid?

Rashi quotes the idea that in this pasuk we are being warned against erasing God’s name.

אזהרה למוחק את השם

I could not help but wonder: Of all the practices we associate with paganism, why is erasing the name of God singled out and why are we warned especially to avoid that behavior? (and furthermore, is it really so that pagan service entails erasing names of gods?)

To answer this question let us consider the underlying philosophy of paganism: self worship. Avodah zarah is an expression of the ego to the extreme. Adherents of idol worship do so because they think that they are in total control of their life and their destiny; not directly, but they can intercede on behalf of whatever future result they seek. It is an attitude that sees no role for God. It is an attitude based on achieving certainty in one’s life, by believing in the formulaic approach to worship that believes that if you want this outcome, all you have to do is serve this god. And if that happens to you, just brings gifts to this other god to fix the situation. In this model man is helpless to better his own lot. He is totally dependent on the whims of the gods.

The first step in adopting a pagan attitude is to erase God from areas of our lives. This can come from a place of helplessness (ie “even God can’t help me now”) or from a place of misplaced humility (ie “Who am I that God should intercede on my behalf?”)

 Moshe is adamant that we not erase God’s name. Judaism rejects paganism and affirms the Presence of Hashem in every facet of our lives. Let’s do our best to never removeGod from the beautiful and complex picture of our lives.