You Shall Not Make For Yourself An Idol

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: Why does Beit Shaar HaKavanot describe the spiritual organs as a textbook of anatomy? Didn’t Rabash say that it was forbidden to write down the names of Sefirot on the picture of a human body?

My answer: These are completely different things. It’s permissible to take the names of objects and their interconnections from our life and transfer them upward, to the spiritual world assuming that the same connections exist there as well. However, it’s forbidden to take the spiritual properties from the Upper World and “ground” them here, as if to grant the material objects with spiritual properties.

One can take the language of branches and point to the spiritual objects and actions with these words. This way, one uses the language, symbols, and names. But if one takes the spiritual essence and starts saying that a greater spirit of bestowal is instilled in the right hand while a greater spirit of reception is found in the left one, it is idolatry.

It is because by doing so one is saying that a physical body of flesh and bones contains some spiritual properties. This is called “making idols” – taking still objects and ascribing the Upper, divine spirit to them.

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