Proklos the philosopher once posed a challenge to Rabban Gamliel: if God truly hates idol worship, why does He allow the sun and moon to continue shining? After all, millions of people across the nations bow down to them every single day. Surely an all-powerful God would simply snuff them out.
Rabban Gamliel answered with a parable. "Suppose a man names his dog after his own father," he said. "When the dog does something foolish, does the father destroy the dog — or punish the son who dishonored him with the name?" The sun and moon are not the problem. The people who worship them are the problem.
But Proklos pressed further: "If the objects are useless to God, why keep them?" Rabban Gamliel replied that God created the sun and moon to serve all of creation — to give light, to govern the seasons, to sustain life on earth. Should God destroy the entire world because some fools choose to worship the tools instead of the craftsman?
The Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law) in Avodah Zarah (4:7) preserves this exchange as a foundational teaching on the nature of idolatry. God does not punish the instrument. He holds accountable the one who misuses it. The sun rises each morning not because God approves of sun-worshippers, but because He refuses to let the foolishness of some deprive the rest of creation of its light.