Torah Portion: Mishpatim
The name of the gods of others you shall not mention. You must not let it be heard through your mouth (Shemos 23:13).
It is a negative commandment that a person may not invite other people to worship idolatry nor encourage them about it, even if the one inviting does not himself worship it and performs none of its practices but simply calls others to do so. Such a person is called a meisis (instigator) or a madiach (one who leads astray). This law is derived from the verse The name of the gods of others… must not be heard through your mouth (Shemos 23:13).
The root of the mitzvah is obvious.
The laws of the mitzvah include: If the instigator led only one person to idolatry he is pronounced a meisis, but if he says such things to two or more people, he is pronounced a madiach.
The reason why there are so many precautionary measures against idolatry — indeed, the Torah repeats these admonitions in forty four places — and why the punishment for it is so grave is because of the damage it causes to the humans who engage in it, but as far Hashem is concerned, whether people serve an angel, sphere, star or any one of His creatures, it does not add or detract anything at all to His glory. His ultimate honor and glory are not affected by anything and certainly not by the actions of His creatures — humans.Hi
Rather, all of these admonitions are relevant only to the recipients of these admonitions. For when a person completely removes himself and sheds his belief of Hashem, may He be blessed, and instead directs his body and mind to follow emptiness, he becomes unworthy of receiving any blessing or good. Having distanced himself to the farthest extent possible away from [the source] of good, he deserves only the opposite of blessing and should be pursued by evil from all quarters. But God, may He be blessed, is not beholden to any creature and is not jealous of humans, for it is in His power to turn everyone and everything in the world back to nothingness, if He should so wish. But when the Torah describes Hashem as a “jealous” God (Shemos 34:14 and elsewhere), it is a borrowed term to describe His great displeasure, using the way people talk, for among humans there is no greater hatred than when one person is jealous of another person. This is why the Torah uses these figurative expressions: in this manner the messages are effectively conveyed to those who hear them.
This prohibition applies in all places and at all times, to both men and women.
