What Counts as Worship and How Sin Is Carried Across Generations

"You shall not bow down to them" (Exodus 20:5). You do bow down to a human being. One might think that even if it is venerated like Haman, the verse therefore teaches: "You shall not bow down to them and you shall not serve them" — you shall not bow down by way of worship. "You shall not bow down to them": bowing was included in the general rule, so why was it singled out? To compare other acts to it. Just as bowing is distinct in that it is a single act and one is liable for it on its own — whether one regularly worships the idol or not — so too any service that is reserved for the Divine Name: if one performs it for idolatry, one is liable, whether one regularly worships the idol or not. And what are the services reserved for the Name? Slaughtering, burning incense, bowing, and pouring libations. If one performed any of these for an idol, even though that is not the ordinary manner of worshiping it, one is liable. "And you shall not serve them": that one should not worship an idol in its ordinary manner — such as throwing a stone at Mercurius, or exposing oneself before Peor, or offering one's hair to Chemosh, or passing one's child through fire to Molech, and the like. And so it says, "How did these nations serve their gods, that I too may do likewise?" (Deuteronomy 12:30). This teaches that one is not liable until one worships it in its ordinary manner. Thus there are three liabilities to extirpation in idolatry: one who worships it in its ordinary manner; one who worships it through one of the four services reserved for the Name even though that is not its ordinary manner; and one who accepts it upon himself as a god even though he has not worshiped it. Another interpretation of "and you shall not serve them": that one should not wash for, anoint, scour, sweep, sprinkle, kiss, or embrace any kind of idol. "For I the LORD your God": this teaches that they beheld the Presence that will one day grant reward to the righteous in the time to come. And since the prophets proclaim Him in many descriptions — one verse says, "His garment was white as snow" (Daniel 7:9), and another says, "Why is Your apparel red?" (Isaiah 63:2) — could you imagine that what they see lasts only a moment? Therefore it says of Ezekiel, "and I saw visions of God" (Ezekiel 1:1). He said to them: many visions did I see until I was worthy to receive the face of the Presence. "A jealous God": this teaches that they beheld the Presence destined to exact punishment from the wicked in the time to come. "A jealous God" — a God who judges, a God who is severe, a God who is unsparing. Another interpretation of "a jealous God": is there jealousy before Him, and does He exact punishment by way of jealousy? Rather, He exacts no punishment by stone, by arrow, or by spear, yet everyone who goes after idolatry has, as it were, supplanted Me. Agrippas the Elder asked Rabban Gamliel: a man is not jealous except of one smaller than himself, not of one greater or equal to him. And so it says, "For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters" (Jeremiah 17:13) — if those who forsook Me, the fountain of living waters, were despised, how much more those who hewed for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water. "Visiting" — "visiting" means nothing other than recalling, and so it says, "And the LORD remembered Sarah" (Genesis 21:1), and it says, "I have surely remembered you" (Exodus 3:16). Rabbi Yehudah says: I gather up their iniquities into My hand and suspend the reckoning until the fourth generation, as with Jehu son of Nimshi, and so it says, "Your sons of the fourth generation shall sit upon the throne of Israel" (II Kings 15:12), and so it was for him. One verse says, "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children," and another verse says, "the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son, nor the son the iniquity of the father" (Ezekiel 18:20). If the fathers were righteous, He suspends the reckoning for the children; if not, He does not suspend it. They told a parable: to what is this like? To one who borrowed a hundred maneh from the king and denied the debt; then his grandson borrowed a hundred maneh from the king and denied it. To the fourth they will not lend, because of his fathers who were deniers. And so it says, "Our fathers sinned and are no more, and we have borne their iniquities" (Lamentations 5:7). Do not read "we have borne their iniquities" but "we have borne our own iniquities" — who caused us to bear iniquities of our own souls? Our fathers, who were deniers. "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children": one might think upon their own offspring alone; therefore it says, "and upon the children's children." Were this verse to say only that, I would say He suspends the reckoning only for the second generation; from where do we learn three and four generations? Therefore it says, "upon the third and upon the fourth generation of those who hate Me." "Of those who hate Me": at the time when they cling to the deeds of their fathers.