Do not listen to the words of that prophet…Hashem your G-d is testing you, to know whether you love Hashem…with all your heart, and with all your soul.[2]
As many have observed, there are at least two distinct forms of love. One kind is pure, unadulterated attachment to another. A second is really reflexive, or self-love. When one loves another for what benefit and pleasure that second party has given him, they really love themselves. The provider of the good is just a vehicle for conveying a commodity. The real affection is for the commodity, not the provider.
This applies to loving Hashem as well. I person may love Hashem because he has bestowed innumerable favors and benefits upon him. Such love, however, is quite deficient. It is actually self-love.
For this reason, the Torah instructs,[3] “You shall love Hashem your G-d with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your possessions.” The gemara[4] understands this to include loving Hashem even when it will mean giving up your life, and loving Him no matter what measure of suffering He may deal you. These should be understood as indicators of true love. Self-love would not extend to a relationship in which the Object of that love made life difficult, or even extinguished it.
Our pasuk should be understood similarly. If a person’s love is the reflexive, inauthentic type, it will not take much to convince him that G-d his Provider has instructed – through the prophet – that a different deity should be served. He won’t ask “why,” or how this instruction comports with all His earlier exhortations against doing just that. He will think, “If I want to continue receiving goodies from G-d, I better listen to His new – even if confusing – instructions.”
The true lover of Hashem will not be misled. He will tenaciously cling to what he knows to be His Will, regardless of the consequences. As the saying of the true chassid goes, “Even if I will get Gan Eden for aveiros, and Gehinnom for mitzvos, I will not depart from what Hashem commanded me.” That is authentic love.
We take note of a different ambiguous term in reference to the false prophet. “That prophet… should be executed, for he spoke soroh about Hashem your G-d Who took you out of Egypt.”[5] The word soroh has been translated as rebellious (from “departing” from His ways), or perverse, or leading astray. They all sound serious – but shouldn’t the Torah have labeled his words simply as false/sheker? He certainly had no intention to lead people away from Hashem! To the contrary, he urged them to follow Hashem’s instructions, not to ignore them. Granted – he invented that instruction. But that made him a liar, not a rebel.
Here’s a thought. The name Elokim is shared with others. Sometimes other deities (as in elohim acheirim), and sometimes judges. That’s because it essentially means “powers,” and there are other seeming powers that can be imagined. The name YKVH, however, is never shared with anything else. It speaks of what Hashem is – all existence, past, present, and future. It is impossible to imagine it linked to anything else.
When the false prophet urges the people to “go after elohim acheirim and serve them,” he treats Hashem as if, kivayachol, He is in the same league as other gods. He is Elokim; they are elohim.
This is indeed rebelliousness/soroh. Since we know Hashem as the One who took us out of Mitzrayim, we know about His uniqueness. In Egypt He demonstrated His mastery over all forces of Creation, breaking all rules, toying with all the protocols of the natural world.
After witnessing that, it should be impossible to make any comparison at all between real or imagined powers, and the reality of Hashem!
- Adapted from Divrei Shaul, by Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson, the Shoel U-Meishiv ↑
- Devarim 13:4 ↑
- Devarim 6:5 ↑
- Berachos 54a ↑
- Devarim 13:6 ↑