Commento su Esodo 23:25

That is that we are commanded to serve Him. And this command is repeated several times: His saying, "And you shall serve the Lord, your God" (Exodus 23:25); and His saying, "and you shall serve Him" (Deuteronomy 13:5). And although this command is from the inclusive commands - as we explained in Principle Four (Sefer HaMitzvot, Shorashim 4) - it nevertheless has specificity, since it is the command to pray. The language of the Sifrei is, "'And to serve Him' (Deuteronomy 11:13) - that is prayer." And they also said, "'And to serve Him' - that is [Torah] study." And in the Mishnah of Rabbi Eliezer, the son of Rabbi Yose HaGelili, they said, "From where [do we know that] the essence of prayer is a commandment? From here - 'You shall fear the Lord, your God, and you shall serve Him' (Deuteronomy 6:13)." And they said, "Serve Him through His Torah; serve Him in His Temple." This means, direct [yourself] towards it, to pray [towards] there, as Shlomo, peace be upon him, explained. (See Parashat Mishpatim: Mishneh Torah, Prayer and the Priestly Blessing 1.)

AND YE SHALL SERVE THE ETERNAL YOUR G-D, AND HE WILL BLESS THY BREAD, AND THY WATER. The intention of this verse is as follows. Most idolators acknowledge and know that the revered G-d is G-d of gods, and Lord of lords,⁴³⁵Deuteronomy 10:17. and they do not intend to worship the idols themselves, but they think that because of these acts of worship they will have success in their endeavors. Thus when they worship the sun it is because they have found it to have a beneficial power over their crops, and they find the moon to have influence over fountains and all deep waters, and similarly [they attribute powers] to all the hosts of heaven. They are even more inclined to think that they will be greatly benefitted by worshipping the angels, since they are invested with dignity through ministering before the Great G-d. Therefore this verse states that only through the worship of the Holy One, blessed be He, can you have success and protection, and the uprooting of idolatry⁴³⁶As commanded in Verse 24. will not cause damage; on the contrary, it will add goodness and blessing to you, for the Holy One, blessed be He, will bless your “bread,” this being a term which includes all manner of food, and will bless your “water,” which is a generic term for all liquids that people drink. The blessing referred to means increase, so that you will have an exceeding abundance of them.

ועבדתם את ה' אלוקיכם, the manner in which you will demonstrate that you indeed serve Him is by destroying all the idols as mentioned in the previous verse. As a corollary of having destroyed idolatry and its representatives you will not need to worry about anyone in your midst trying to convert Jews to such alien religions and to thereby estrange them from serving Me.