Beyond the graven image

The proscription against using images in worship sets Judaism, together with Islam, apart from all other religious systems. In Beyond the Graven Image, Lionel Kochan explains the reasons for this prohibition and demonstrates how influential this image-ban has been in determining key aspects of Jewish thinking.

Has the Biblical prohibition made the Jews a people of the ear rather than of the eye? The attraction of idols stems from their physical imagery and visual appeal. What distinguishes God from the "other gods," Kochan argues, is God's invisibility. As God communicates directly with people through voice, material entities purporting to transmit divine messages are deemed false. The worship of idols is seen as the ultimate form of disobedience.

Such tenets have profound ramifications for Jewish thinking. The denigration of idol worship leads within Judaism to an attempt to devalue the material world. Symbolism is viewed with skepticism, as is representational art.

Kochan argues that the Jewish conceptions of holiness and symbolism, our relationship with God, and the role of memory in religion, as well as the preference for non-material arts such as music over visual modes of artistic expression within Judaism, have all been shaped by the prohibition against physical representations of God.