For the
Jew, Christianity (the belief in Jesus as lord and
savior) is an irrefutable form of idolatry.
The prohibition against and rejection of idolatry is at the very
core of Judaism.
The following is an excerpt from Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's book,
The Real Messiah? a Jewish Response to
Missionaries
What can a Jew lose by embracing Christianity?
The answer is Everything.
"Christianity negates the fundamentals of Jewish faith, and one who
accepts it rejects the very essence of Judaism. Even if he
continues to keep all the rituals, it is the same as if he
abandoned Judaism completely. The Talmud teaches us, “Whoever
accepts idolatry, denies the entire Torah.” A Jew who accepts
Christianity might call himself a “Jewish Christian,” but he is no
longer a Jew. He can no longer even be counted as part of a Jewish
congregation.
Conversion to another faith is an act of religious treason. It is
one of the worst possible sins that a Jew can commit. Along with
murder and incest, it is one of the three cardinal sins which may
not be violated even under pain of death."
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Below is just a sampling of the many sources found in
Tanach which proclaim the Oneness of Hashem, and warn
against Idolatry
TORAH SOURCES:
Shemot (Exodus) 20:2-3
"I am the L-rd thy God, who brought thee out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods
before Me" ("
You shall not recognize the gods of others in
My presense").
Shemot (Exodus) 20:18
"One who brings offerings to the gods shall be destroyed - only
to Hashem alone!"
Bamidbar (Numbers) 23:19
“G-d is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He
should relent.”
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 4:15
“Take good heed of yourselves, for you saw no manner of form on
that day when G-d spoke to you at Horeb...”
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 4:35
“Unto you it was shown, that you might know, that the L-rd is
G-d, there is none else besides Him.”
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 4:39
“Know this day, and lay it in your heart, that the L-rd is G-d,
in the heavens above and on the earth below, there is none
else.”
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 6:4
"Hear, O Israel: The L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is One".
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 11:16-17
“Be careful lest your heart is seduced, that you turn away and
serve other gods and that you bow down to them. And then the L-rd’s
anger will burn against you and He will shut up the heavens and
there will be no rain and the land will not yield its produce. You
will be quickly cut off from the good land that the L-rd is giving
to you.”
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 13:1-2
"Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it.
You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it. If there arise
among you a prophet, or a dreamer, and he gives you a sign or a
miracle. And the sign or miracle comes to pass, and he calls on
you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods, whom you have not known,
and let us worship them.’ You shall not listen to that prophet or
dreamer. For G-d is testing you, to see whether you love the L-rd
your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul"
THE PROPHETS
Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) 16:19-20
"To You the nations will come from the distant parts of the
land" and they will confess, 'Our ancestors inherited falsehood,
futility that has no purpose. Can a man make a god? The man not
being a god?'"
Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 40:18
"To whom can you liken God? Or what likeness can you compare to
him?"
Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 42:8
"I am G-d; that is My Name. I will not grant My honor to anyone
else or My glory to idols."
Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 43:10
"You are My witnesses," says G-d, "and My servant whom I chose,"
in order that you know and believe Me, and understand that I am He;
before Me no god was formed and after Me none shall be."
Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 43:11
" I am G-d, I alone. There is no Savior besides Me."
Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 45:5
"Thus says G-d, the King of Israel and its Redeemer, the L-rd of
Hosts, "I am the first and I am the last, and there is no god
besides Me."
Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 45:22
"Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am G-d,
and there is no other."
Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 46:5
"To whom can you liken Me and whom can you declare My equal? To
what can you compare Me that we should seem similar?"
THE SIN OF IDOLATRY
The following is an excerpt of a commentary by Rav Mosheh
Lichtenstein on the Haftara
reading in Yeshayahu and Yirmiyahu for Parashat Shemot. Read it
in full at the Virtual
Beit Midrash site.
"....other sins are forbidden and negative acts, but they are
performed in the framework of a relationship between Israel and
God. He is our God and we are His people; the sins do not cancel
the connection between man and God, but rather they are committed
within its framework. Idolatry, on the other hand, cancels the very
connection, because it indicates preference for the idol over God
as master, father and spouse. It is for this reason that Scripture
is full of metaphors for fidelity, betrayal, and promiscuity
regarding idol worship. This is because it is the question of basic
and fundamental fidelity, and not the fulfillment of specific
particulars, that stands at the heart of the matter. It is only
with respect to idolatry that the Torah uses the term kin'a,
"zealotry" (see Ramban, Shemot 20:3), because it has pretensions of
substituting for God and creating an alternative relationship with
Israel. In light of this, Yeshayahu focuses the exile on idol
worship, for only that can lead to Israel's expulsion from its
"house," i.e., Eretz Israel. It is because of idol worship that the
people of Israel are regarded as renegades who are unfit to live in
God's place...
...The sin of idol worship is not necessarily committed out of the
pursuit of pleasure and the setting of man in the center. On the
contrary, it often appears in periods of spiritual tension and
religious seeking. The sinner does not loath spiritual life and the
desire to conjoin with a being that is beyond his world, but rather
he errs in his choice. His sin is a sin of treachery."