Avodah Zarah 3:4-5

Avodah Zara 3:4

Rabban Gamliel was bathing in the bathhouse of Aphrodite in Acco when Proclus, the son of Philosophus, asked him the following question: In your Torah it says to let none of the prohibited items (i.e., of idols) remain in your hand, so why do you bathe in the bathhouse of Aphrodite? Rabban Gamliel responded that we do not talk words of Torah in the bathhouse. When they exited, he answered the question by saying, “I didn’t enter her place, she entered mine! People don’t make a bathhouse to celebrate Aphrodite, they install a statue of Aphrodite to decorate the bathhouse. Also, even if people were to give Proclus a great sum of money, he wouldn’t go before his idol naked or after a seminal emission, nor would he urinate in front of it. Nevertheless, the statue of Aphrodite stands next to the sewer where everyone urinates in front of it. Deuteronomy 12:2 says “their gods,” from which we infer that only things that idolators treat as gods are prohibited but what they do not treat as gods are permitted.

Avodah Zara 3:5

If non-Jews were to worship the mountains and hills, they would remain permitted but benefit from whatever is on them would be prohibited as per Deuteronomy 7:25, “Do not covet the silver and gold that is on them, nor take it for yourself.” Rabbi Yosi HaGlili cites Deuteronomy 12:2, “their gods on the mountains” – but not when the mountains themselves are their gods; “on the hills” – but not when the hills themselves are their gods. So why is an asheira (a tree worshipped as an idol) prohibited? Because human effort is involved, and whatever includes human effort is prohibited as an idol. Rabbi Akiva interpreted the verse as follows: wherever you find a tall mountain, a high hill or a leafy tree, know that there’s an idol there.