Presence

R. Moshe Taragin spoke a total of five times last Shabbos, and offered many poignant thoughts. One that stuck with me was his explanation of the idol worship known as Baal Peor.

For those of you unaware, the method by which one worshiped the god Peor was by defecating before its idol. R. Taragin explained this as pointing to a worship of the natural. The acolytes of Peor felt that something natural, no matter how revolting, was inherently holy. Defecation, while revolting, is completely natural, and was therefore chosen as their form of worship.

R. Taragin progressed from here to a discussion of humanism, and ultimately settled on the Akeidah and questions of natural or rational morality vs. revealed divine will (most of which can be found in previous posts on this blog).