Haftarah of Mattos/Masei: Becoming Hevel

Originally posted in July 2013.

Haftarah of Mattos/Masei: Becoming Hevel

What happens to you if you worship avodah zarah? I’m not talking about the halachic penalty for avodah zarah, nor am I talking about your fate in Olam ha’Ba. I’m not even asking about the hashgachic consequences of avodah zarah in Olam ha’Zeh, as far as reward and punishment are concerned. I am asking an existential question: What happens to you – to the very essence of who you are, in this world – if you worship avodah zarah?

Yirmiyahu ha’Navi provides an answer in this week’s haftarah:

כֹּה אָמַר ה' מַה מָּצְאוּ אֲבוֹתֵיכֶם בִּי עָוֶל כִּי רָחֲקוּ מֵעָלָי וַיֵּלְכוּ אַחֲרֵי הַהֶבֶל וַיֶּהְבָּלוּ

Thus said Hashem: What wrong did your forefathers find in Me, that they distanced themselves from Me, and they went after the hevel and they became hevel? [1]

I’d like to focus on two questions:

1. What does the Navi mean by “hevel” in this context? It is clear from the rest of the perek that he is referring to avodah zarah, but what idea about avodah zarah does he intend to convey by characterizing it as “hevel”?
   
2. Furthermore, what does he mean by “they became hevel”? I can understand how a person can chase after hevel, but what does it mean for a person to become hevel? 

Metzudas David defines “hevel” as “davar she’ein bo mamash” meaning “that which has no substance” or “that which has no reality.” [2] Elsewhere he explains that this use of the term “hevel” was borrowed from the literal denotation of “hevel” translates to “breath” or “air,” neither of which have any tangible substance. [3]

To my mind, this is the perfect description of avodah zarah. The entire belief system of the oved avodah zarah – comprised of false gods, supernatural beings, and mystical forces – has no existence in reality. It is hevel: nothingness, emptiness, and non-existence. This answers our first question.

In order to answer our second one, we must ask an even more basic question: What is avodah zarah? “Avodah zarah” is commonly translated as “idolatry” or "idol-worship." In truth, idol-worship is merely a particular form of avodah zarah, but not its very definition.

Essentially, avodah zarah is a derech: a certain way of relating to reality. One of best definitions of the derech avodah zarah I've heard is the one given by my rebbi. He defined avodah zarah as “relating to the products of your psyche as reality.” Unlike the Torah system, whose veracity can be demonstrated rationally, the oveid avodah zarah’s belief system rests on nothing but his own wishes, fears, and other emotions. He believes that his avodah zarah is true because he feels it is true, not because he has verified it with his mind.

According to Torah, the essence of the human being is his tzelem Elokim – the truth-seeking part of him which enables him to comprehend reality. The oveid avodah zarah lives in a manner contrary to his tzelem Elokim. He ignores the voice of his rational intellect and instead relies on his irrational imagination to tell him what exists and what doesn't exist. The Rambam explains that a person who abuses his imaginative faculty in this manner is not living as a human being, but as an animal. [4]

Now we are in a position to understand what Yirmiyahu meant when he said that those who go after avodah zarah will “become hevel.” Bruce Lee said, “As you think, so shall you become,” and that is exactly what happens here. By embracing a derech of hevel – an unthinking, subjective, imagination-driven way of determining what is real – the oveid avodah zarah has ceased to exist as a tzelem Elokim and has chosen to live as an animal. Thus, he has therefore become hevel (“non-existent” as a human being). [4]

The Torah is a system which was designed each individual’s existence as a tzelem Elokim. Avodah zarah undermines the Torah’s goal on a fundamental level. It is for this reason that Chazal said that believing in avodah zarah is equal to denying the entire Torah, and affirming the truth of Torah involves denying avodah zarah in its entirety. [5] This is also the reason why a Jew who worships avodah zarah is halachically treated as a non-Jew in almost all matters. [6] His worldview is antithetical to that of the Torah, and the Torah reclassifies him accordingly.

I hope that this understanding of avodah zarah helps you to understand why the Torah and all of the Neviim make such a big deal about it. As the month of Av approaches, it would behoove us to reflect on the fact that avodah zarah was one of the sins for which the Beis ha’Mikdash was destroyed, and that while “idol worship” has been greatly diminished since then, the derech of avodah zarah is alive and well.

[1] Sefer Yirmiyahu 2:5
[2] Rav David Altschuler (Metzudas David), Commentary on Sefer Yirmiyahu 2:5 

[3] ibid. Commentary on Sefer Koheles 1:2
[4] Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam / Maimonides), Commentary on the Mishnah, Chagigah 2:1  

[5] Talmud Bavli Nedarim 25a, Kiddushin 40b, Shevuos 29a, Horiyos 8a,Chullin 5a; see also Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam / Maimonides) Mishneh Torah: Sefer ha’Mada, Hilchos Avodah Zarah 2:4 
[6] ibid. 2:5