Our story begins with Terah, Abraham's father, falling ill. He needed cash – specifically, money to cover expenses. And his solution? "Sell these idols!" he tells his sons Haran and Abraham, as we learn in Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews.
Haran apparently just went along with it. But Abraham? Abraham was a different story.
When someone approached Abraham to buy an idol, he’d quote a price – say, three manehs (an ancient unit of currency). But then he'd ask, "How old are you?" If the man replied, "Thirty," Abraham would retort, "You're thirty years old, and you’d worship something I made today?" The potential customer, understandably, would walk away.
He'd try it again. This time, the idol costs five manehs. The man is fifty years old. Same response from Abraham: "You're fifty, and you'd bow down to this?"
Can you picture it? Abraham, with a twinkle in his eye, challenging the very notion of idol worship.
But he wasn't done yet. According to Legends of the Jews, Abraham then took two idols, tied ropes around their necks, and dragged them face-down through the dirt. All the while, he shouted, "Who will buy an idol that profits absolutely nothing? It has a mouth, but it doesn't speak! Eyes, but it doesn't see! Feet, but it doesn't walk! Ears, but it doesn't hear!"
Think about the sheer audacity of it. Here's Abraham, surrounded by a society steeped in idol worship, publicly ridiculing the practice. He's not just questioning it; he's making a spectacle of it.
What a powerful image, right? Abraham, the iconoclast. Even before his covenant with God, we see the seeds of his revolutionary spirit. He couldn't just passively participate in the world around him. He had to challenge it, to expose its absurdities.
It makes you wonder: what idols are we dragging around today? What outdated beliefs or practices are we clinging to, even though they offer no real substance or meaning? Maybe, like Abraham, we need to take a closer look at what we're worshipping and ask ourselves: is this really worth it?