Wyjścia 34:14 Halacha: Mishneh Torah, Foreign Worship and Customs & Sefer HaChinukh

The prohibitive commandment concerning such worship is deducted from what Holy Writ says: "Nor serve them" (Ex. 20.5; Deut. 5.9). Whereat are these words directed? At all other manner of worship, save bowing down, slaughtering sacrifice, burning incense, and compounding drink offering; for whosoever employs any of these kinds of worship to revive any form of idolatry, is guilty, although it be not the particular manner of its worship. For example? If one offered a drink offering to Peor, or slaughtered a sacrifice to Mercury, he is guilty, as it is said: "He that sacrificeth unto the gods, save unto the Lord only, shall be utterly destroyed" (Ex. 22.19.). Inasmuch as slaughtering sacrifices was included in worship generally, why was it singled out and separated from other modes of service? To teach you, even as slaughtering sacrifices is a particular manner of service dedicated to the Name, and whosoever offers sacrifices to another god is guilty of an offense punishable by stoning, whether its mode of worship was to slaughter sacrifices for it or whether it was not, even so every service which is dedicated to the Name, if he employed it in his service to another god, whether its manner of worship be so or not, is guilty. Even because thereof it is, moreover, said: "For thou shalt bow down to no other god" (Ex. 34.14), to prescribe guilt for bowing down to idolatry even if its mode of service be not so. So is also the law pertaining to offering incense and drink-offering, forsooth, stone-casting and pouring drink offering is one and the same thing.³Ibid. C.

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.