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Deuteronomy 16:21 - sacred posts

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Lisa:
So go ahead and be as patriotic as you like!

muman613:
In this weeks Parasha we read the following:


--- Quote ---You shall not make for yourselves idols or statues, nor shall you set up a pillar for yourselves, nor shall you place in your land a patterned stone to prostrate yourselves on it; for I am Hashem your G-d. My Sabbaths shall you keep, and My sanctuary shall you revere; I am Hashem (Vayikra 26:1-2).

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I believe that the 'pillar' and the 'patterned stone' which is referred to here is relating to the ways of idol worship.

http://www.ou.org/torah/ti/5761/beharbechuk61.htm


--- Quote ---
RASHI (ADAPTING FROM TORAT KOHANIM) comments that these warnings are directed towards the one who was sold (as a slave) to a non-Jew. He should not say, "Since my master is sexually immoral, so will I be like him; since my master worships idols, so will I be like him; since my master desecrates the Shabbat, so will I be like him" (26:1).

THE PARALLEL TO EGYPT IS CHILLING. In Egypt, we served idols (Yalkut Shimoni 1:234). This is because the oppressed, while abhorring their oppressors, have a psychological need to emulate the dominant value system they represent.

THE INDIVIDUAL JEW AS WELL, sold in slavery to a non-Jew, is at risk of being influenced by his new environment, descending from emulation to assimilation, and from there to idolatry. Until such time as he is saved, the Torah reminds him: Remember who you are. He is enjoined to shun, not only actual idolatry:

You shall not make for yourselves idols or statues,  but even marginal idolatry nor shall you set up a pillar for yourselves, nor shall you place in your land a patterned stone to prostrate yourselves on it.

RAMBAM OPINES (Book of the Commandments, Neg. 11, 12; Laws of Idolatry 6:6), that these objects are so closely associated with idol-worship that the Torah rejects the pillar and the patterned stone, even if they are dedicated to the worship of Hashem. Presumably, if one begins by emulating these practices, he will eventually embrace idolatry.

HOWEVER, THE PATTERNED STONE - a stone floor for prostration before an idol (Rambam) or as an idol (Sefer HaChinuch, ascribed to R. Aharon HaLevi of Barcelona, mid-13th Century, #349) - is different. The Talmud (Megillah 22b) derives from the words "in your land" the ruling that, although this object is forbidden everywhere in the world, it is permitted in the Temple, for the people prostrated themselves to Hashem on the stone floor of the Temple. Rashi therefore explains that prostration on a stone floor is a form of worship that must be dedicated solely to Hashem, and only in His Temple. The Minchat Chinuch (commentary on the Sefer HaChinuch by R. Yoseph ben Moshe Babad of Tarnopol, 1800-1874) compares this to the prohibition against fashioning a sculptured human image (Shemot 20:20); the cherubim atop the Holy Ark had the faces of children, yet other human images were forbidden. That which is special to the service of Hashem must be exclusively reserved for the Temple.
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