The True Danger of Molech
וּמִֽזַּרְעֲךָ֥ לֹא־תִתֵּ֖ן לְהַעֲבִ֣יר לַמֹּ֑לֶךְ וְלֹ֧א תְחַלֵּ֛ל אֶת־שֵׁ֥ם אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ אֲנִ֥י יְהֹוָֽה׃
Do not allow any of your offspring to be offered up to Molech, and do not profane the name of your God: I am יהוה.
What is Molech? Molech may be known to some of you as the Mesopotamian God who demanded human sacrifices, specifically child sacrifices. Some say the Jewish faith as a whole was developed as a response to the practice of human sacrifice. Some view the story of the Akedah as the turning point, the emphatic moment in which God stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, saying: WE don’t do this.
Here is Rashi on the verse:
“This was an idol the name of which was "Molech", and this was the manner in which it was worshipped: that he (the father) handed his child over to the priests of the idol. These lit two large pyres one opposite the other and made the child to pass on foot between the two pyres (Sanhedrin 64b).”
There is something here which goes a lot deeper. Our tradition views this act severely not only because of the obvious horror of it, but also because of the deep spiritual contradiction it holds with the core of our faith and spirituality.
Rabeinu Bechaye (Rabbi Bahya ibn Paquda. 1050–1120) comments on this verse: “They thought that once the father passed one of his sons through the pyres, the other children would be saved and he (the father) would gain abundance and success.”
According to this, in order to be protected from calamity and gain abundance and happiness, one must pay a little tax, cut a portion of that happiness and give it away.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808 – 1888) explains further. According to him, the name Molech is not describing an entity or a God. Molech is not like Melech - King, he explains, but rather it has the grammatical structure of an abstract noun, similar to Kodesh or Godel…
Molech, the Rashar Hirsch explains, is the “force of destiny of the idolatrous world view” meaning, the living in constant fear that the Creator is out to get me, that if I’m too happy or too successful, something horrible is going to happen to me, unless of course, I give some of that happiness away.
There are people who declare a complete faith in our one God, the monotheistic God, and yet live their life constantly on the lookout for something terrible to happen. Either, unable to enjoy true happiness and abundance without fear, or expecting punishment for any mistake they make.
This, according to our Torah, is the worst form of idolatry, it is the worst because it is not just worshiping other gods but rather, bringing idolatry into worshiping Adonai.
לְמַ֗עַן טַמֵּא֙ אֶת־מִקְדָּשִׁ֔י וּלְחַלֵּ֖ל אֶת־שֵׁ֥םקׇדְשִֽׁי׃
“...defiled My sanctuary and profaned My holy name.”
People who worship the Jewish God but all the while are sure that God will cause them harm “Defile God’s sanctuary and profane his name” according to Leviticus.
Science Fiction incredible author Ursula Le Guin (1929-2018) has a short story called The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.
In it, she writes about a visitor to a utopian city, one which every day in it resembles a festival full of enjoyment, games, love, music, food and drink. Day in and day out, this celebration of abundance never ends.
After a long while the visitor discovers that below this city of unending happiness there is a dungeon. In the dungeon there is one child who is condemned to a life of misery and suffering. It is only due to this one child’s suffering that the city above can continue to exist in its constant form of bliss.
When it comes to Dinei Nefashot (laws regarding loss of lives) our sages teach us that every soul is eternal and it is not up to us to determine which is worthy of sacrificing for the benefit of the other.
Our true faith in God is living with confidence that the only thing that we can do in order to live a happy life, is not live our life in a constant fear, attempting to protect ourselves from a punishment which may or may not come due to us being too happy or too evil.
The only way to live a happy life is to constantly try to do better. This is what Yom Kippur is all about. It is about an opportunity, an opportunity to correct. To begin again. It’s about us focusing our intention on recognizing where we harm and finding ways to fix it. It is very simple. If we improve the world, the world becomes better.
But if we give in to Molech, if we harm one another in a false belief that this is a sacrifice we make for the greater good, the world will just continue spiraling down — and so too our fate.
When the people of Omelas grow old, some of them are told about the child..Most remain in the city. But every year, some choose to walk away.
Le Guin’s story ends like this:
"The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."
Gmar Chatima Tova.
