Israeli rabbi orders maiming of dolls
Jerusalem - In a tough break for the children of Orthodox Jewish families, a former grand rabbi of Israel has urged parents to amputate their dolls to avoid the perils of idolatry.As a friend of mine pointed out, you'd think the horns would have been the real deal-breaker. No?
Basing the move on a Biblical ban on the possession of idols, Mordechai Eliyahu, a Sephardic rabbi, broadcast his edict on a religious radio station calling for an arm or a leg to be dismembered.
In the case of a teddy bear or other stuffed animals, the children will see their beloved toys lose an ear or an eye instead.
...Shmuel [Eliyahu] revealed that his father had forced one of his followers to snap off the ear of a replica of a statue of Moses by Michelangelo that he had bought at an exorbitant price.
Now, some of the folks I've talked to have criticized people for poking fun at this. "Who are you," they say, "to question the great Harav? The Rishon Letzion? The Sultan of Sages, the Great Rav-bino!"
Who am I? Nobody. I don't know the tradition of dealing with graven images. However, I would be very curious to learn how frum Jews have traditionally gotten around this problem. Why is the old approach (whatever it was) no longer acceptable? Or is Eliyahu's latest pronouncement in response to people "losing their way"? What were people doing with dolls and art last week? Have we seen a backsliding?
Now, why do I think is this problematic and/or stupid? Among other things, saying that dolls are being treated as idols seems more than a little ridiculous. Are haredi children really setting up shrines to their teddy bears? (Insert Rebbe King Moschiach joke here.)
There are a couple of defenses of Eliyahu's logic that I've heard. One explanation is that the real problem is the over-humanization of the dolls or art in question. To which the obvious question seems to be, why not just buy your kids stuff that bears less resemblance to humans? Like this, or this, or this?
The alternative issue raised is that this is really a strike at materialism, at the urge to hold something up beyond its value. That's a nice gloss, but there's a very obvious problem with this, and which also applies to the first apologia. Namely, that slightly mutilating something does not necessarily change it. Is your GI Joe less "humanized" because he's missing a limb? There are people walking around without arms and legs. Moshe Dayan was missing an eye. Does that mean a doll of him is idolatry-safe? Will this lead to an increased popularity of pirate dolls among Haredim? The argument that a toy or object being covetted is so dangerous they must be defaced has a serious flaw, which is that something with that much potential for corruption is not likely to be changed simply because you've dinged it up a little. Does the Orthodox Jew in the article value his statue less because it's missing an ear? For that matter, isn't there a major logic hole in presuming that nobody could possibly "worship" (in whatever form you pick) a broken idol?
Am I glad Haredi kids can have toys and their parents can enjoy art? Sure. But the fact that this is deemed a logical solution just underlines how absurd a world these people are living in. I'm very curious how many people are actually going to follow this ruling.
Failed Messiah says, "Better the children should deface their gedolim cards." This raises an important point- aren't the demarcation points being established here for "idolatry" rather arbitrary? No one can worship a photograph? Why not cross out the ears on pictures of rabbis? How would Eliyahu deal with something like this? Or this? And doesn't this ignore the fact that frum Jews, like everyone else, struggle with materialism in many other areas, too? Why is having a thousand-dollar streimel or spodik ok, but not a Judah Maccabee doll? Why can the Belz Synagogue have 100 Torah scrolls, but little Rivka has to content herself with a disabled kitty?
Isn't this, to a certain extent, an easy target, and a rather ridiculous solution? Has Rabbi Eliyahu not lifted himself and his righteous crusade against (wait, what is he fighting against, again?) above and beyond its value?
Who's really the idol here? And who's worshipping him?
3 comments:
This is just narishkeit.
As you can see, I think it's fairly ridiculous as well.
I just found in a sefer that someone else assurs, however Rav Ovadia Yossef does say that it's permitted because the dolls are mistreated and it is well known that they are not worshipped.
Post a Comment