Avodah Zarah 011

12:
The first clause of our mishnah was concerned with public holy days in the Roman Empire, and, for the most part, imperial celebratory days. We now come to the second clause of our mishnah which is concerned with private holy days. In the case of all four items which are listed in this clause it is forbidden for a Jew to have commercial or social contacts with the specific non-Jew involved (and not all non-Jews) and on that specific day alone (and not for the three days prior to the event as well.)

13:
One wonders why the day on which a person in the Roman Empire goes to the barber should cause that person to offer thanks to a god. But knowledge of Roman customs will direct us to a very specific day in a man's life. In his book "Daily Life in Ancient Rome" Jerome Carcopino writes:

Roman adolescents did not cut their hair or shave their beard until both reached proportions which became uncomfortable. Then their hair was cut for the first time and their beard shaved. Carcopino notes that in the case of the Emperor Augustus, for example, this rite was performed in September 39 BCE. Augustus was then 23 years old. So, the first shaving of his beard for an adolescent or young man was indeed a 'rite of passage' and a day for celebration and thanks to the gods.

14:
The next two items are self-explanatory. That a Roman would offer thanks to the appropriate god for the safe end of a sea-journey and release from involuntary incarceration is but natural. It is even possible that these days were observed for celebration annually. Certainly, we know that even illustrious Jews in the Middle Ages still observed such customs. Rambam records that he escaped from Morocco in the dead of night and boarded a ship for Eretz-Israel. The journey took one month and upon disembarking at Akko he vowed to set aside the day of his arrival as an annual family holiday to be celebrated with distribution of gifts to the poor. After visitng Jerusalem and Hebron he writes:

Inadvertently I omitted an important element in our discussion of the word Kratesis. Please click here to read the extra paragraph.

In In AZ 005 Mark Lautman described an incident at work involving a Hindu woman. Amnon Ron'el writes:

We have safely returned, thank God, from India and I find Mark Lautman's query concerning Hindus, programming and idolatry. One of the deepest impressions was of the number and quality of the people (millions, among them modern and progressive business men!) who kneel and prostrate themselves and bring offerings to the Hindu god-dolls. No explanation about a supreme and pure deity, the stages of whose development these dolls represent, could persuade me to mollify this impression. I learned there again that blind religious faith can cause catastrophes and wars of global proportions. God preserve us.

Rémy Landau writes:

You began this intriguing set of shiurim with the etymology and definition of a particular Hebrew word. May I be allowed to ask for your opinion on a particular western cultured word appearing in these shiurim? Would I be alone in feeling considerable discomfort at the term 'monotheism' or 'monotheistic' when applied to the Jewish religion? Such a term is used very uncritically to characterize any societal grouping that claims to worship only a single godhead… whether it be HaShem or some other deity. Assuming a society worshipping and serving only a god known to them as Oysgbebloozt, then , by the loose definition of the descriptor mentioned, their religion also would be described as 'monotheistic'. In turn, we would therefore be equating the description of their religion to ours since both would be characterized as 'monotheistic'. And that's why the term 'monotheistic' as applied to our beliefs makes me very uncomfortable, since I believe that there is a vast gulf of differences separating our faith and beliefs from the worshippers of Oysgbebloozt, or for that matter, any other artificially created but singular theoplast. Is my discomfort justifiable?

I respond:

It's a good thing that I still have a reasonably good memory. I remember answering this same question when Rémy asked it nearly twelve years ago! See my original response here, given on 30th October 1996.

Modern dictionaries define 'monotheism' as:

The doctrine or belief that there is only one God.

The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy defines monotheism thus:

A belief in one god. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all monotheistic religions.

Thus, the term monotheism is nowadays accepted as referring only to religions which profess a belief in a sole Deity to the exclusion of all others. Furthermore, the term nowadays is reserved exclusively for three religions whose Deity seems to have one sole origin. Of course, the content of the belief about God of these three religions differs widely: we have seen how our own sages had great problems in recognising Christianity as believing in the One God (though they had no such qualms concerning Islam).

The Jewish term which is usually translated as 'monotheism' is Emunat ha-Yiĥud. This means the belief that God is a unique and incomparable entity. For the reasons that underlie Rémy's discomfort it is now customary to describe religions that believe in some other sole god (or that worship but one god while not denying the existence of others) as 'monolatry'.

For more information about my own conceptualizations concerning Israel's God please see the second essay on A Masorti (Conservative) Theology here.