Halakhah sur L’Exode 20:5

It is also appropriate for us to attach this preface: And that is that anything for which one is liable a death penalty of the court or excision is perforce a negative commandment - except for the Passover (sacrifice) and circumcision. For they involve excision, even though they are positive commandments - as they said at the beginning of Tractate Keritot (Keritot 2a). But besides them, there are absolutely no positive commandments for which one who transgresses them would be liable for excision; all the more so a death penalty of the court. And anything about which it appears in the Torah, that if one does a certain action, he is to be killed or become liable for excision - it is certainly known that this act is prohibited and that it is a negative commandment. But behold sometimes Scripture explains the punishment alongside the prohibition, such that it explains the punishment and the prohibition. For example, the desecration of Shabbat and idolatry - about which it states, "you shall not do any work" (Exodus 20:10), and "you shall not worship them" (Exodus 20:5); and afterwards renders the one who does work [on Shabbat] or who worships idolatry liable for stoning. And sometimes the prohibition is not made clear as a definite negative commandment in Scripture; but He rather mentions the punishment and omits the prohibition. But the principle amongst us is that Scripture does not punish [for something] unless it prohibited [it], and that it is impossible not to have a prohibition for anyone who is liable a punishment. And hence, it is said in every place, "We have heard the punishment; from where [do we know] the prohibition? [Hence] we learn to say, such and such." And when the prohibition is not in Scripture, it is learned out by one of the Talmudic methods - like that which they mentioned about the prohibition of cursing one's father and mother and of striking one's father and mother, which is not explicit in Scripture at all. As it did not say, "You shall not strike your father." Yet it made one who strikes or curses liable for a death penalty. Hence we know that they are negative commandments; and we derived the prohibition for them - and those like them - from other places, by way of analogy. And this does not contradict their saying, "We do not derive a prohibition from an inference," nor their always saying, "And can we derive a prohibition from a derivation?" For we only say, "We do not derive a prohibition from an inference," regarding the derivation from an analogy of a prohibition that is not understood at all. However when we find the punishment for one who does this action explicit in the Torah, we perforce know that it is a forbidden action from which we are prohibited. Yet we regardless derive it from an analogy, so that the principle of their saying, "Scripture did not punish [for something] unless it prohibited [it]," be reinforced. But once the prohibition has come to us - not to do that thing - the one who transgressed and did [it] will become liable for excision or death. And know this principle and guard it together with the previous ones, to remember it in all that is coming up.

To not bow down to idolatry: To not bow down to idolatry - and idolatry is anything that is worshiped besides God, blessed be He - as it is stated (Exodus 20:5), "You shall not bow down to them or serve them." And the explanation of the verse is not "do not bow down to them with the intention of worship," [so] that we would learn that bowing down, by itself - without the intention of worship - would not be forbidden. As behold, in another place, it is stated in the Torah (Exodus 34:14), "For you must not bow down to another god," which forbade bowing down by itself, from any angle. Rather, [the reason] it made "or serve them" adjacent, [is] to say that bowing down is one of the ways of worship. And we learn from here, with the assistance of other verses, that there are four worships about which the Torah is insistent with any idolatry in the world - and even if it is not the way of its worship, we are liable for it. And one of [these four] is bowing down.

To not worship idolatry in that which is its way to be worshiped: That we not worship any idolatry in the world with the things that are the way of those that believe in it to worship it. And even though its worship is not with one of the four worships that we said above, since he worshiped it with that which is its way to be worshiped, he is liable. And even [if] its worship is in a way of disgrace - for example, one who defecates to Peor, or one who throws stones at Markulis or one who passes his seed to Kamosh - as it is stated (Exodus 20:5), "or worship them," meaning to say with what is their way to be worshiped, whatever worship it may be.