Today's blog will not include any type of detailed review of the day's daf. Instead, I offer a few words about the topic that is introduced and discussed today.
A number of rabbis question each other about what should be done if a Gentile who is about to convert sells his or her idols. Is s/he permitted to benefit from their sale? The rabbis consider a number of issues, including the intention of the person about to convert and precisely when one might nullify the 'power' of the idols.
Idolatry is a bizarre idea in today's world; believing in idols seems foreign to many in the western world. But looking closer at the concept of idolatry, we might ask what an idol is, in its essence. It must be a thing or a discreet idea. It must be thought to carry some sort of power, whether that is the capacity to change our physical world or to affect change in more subtle, internal ways. It would have to be worshipped - and how does one worship? In past passages, we learn that people defected in front of some idols as a form of worship. So prayer is not the only way to show our devotion. Would time spent meditating near the idol count as 'worship'? What about preoccupation with the idol?
If those last questions are answered honestly, we might agree that modern idols include computers, phones, televisions and mirrors. We are enveloped in a society that prostrates itself to technological tools and self-devotion. What if we were not permitted to benefit from the sale of our cell phones? our computers? our self-indulgent thoughts?
Perhaps we participate in idolatry when we attach ourselves to our ideas of the 'self' and the 'other. Perhaps all there is is G-d everywhere - in every being and every creation. If we see G-d in all people, we might truly distance ourselves from idolatry.
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