If G-d is so great why does the Torah and the Prophets etc. talk about G-d’s intolerance for idol worship? You shall not have another god “ because I Hashem am a vengeful G-d?? It’s almost as if the text is saying there are powers or deities that have influence but none compared to G-d who has greater control. This seems to make God so human with mortal failings of jealousy and a need to show off. The idea of being unfaithful etc. means to say that the other party is a threat and has power in its own right – not just the power the idol worshiper gives it.

The Torah can be understood on many levels, and all of them are true. On the level of people’s perceptions, idolatry was very real. Everyone believed in it, except for the Torah Jews. There was a great desire for it, and, all the proofs by prophets notwithstanding, people took it very seriously. And the whole way that it worked was in complete contradiction to a Torah lifestyle, and to a true relationship with Hashem. If Hashem “hated” it, as it were, it is because idolatry was at that time the major barrier to everything he wanted to accomplish with humanity.

On a different level, we know that relationships between human beings are paralleled by relationship between Hashem and his people. He is our Father, our King… Even if we don’t understand too well how that works, we know that Hashem relates to this world in various ways, and we are helped to grasp some of them by equivalent relationships between people. Anyhow, one of the ways is the relationship between Choson and Kallah. In this metaphor, Hashem is, so to speak, deeply and passionately in love with us, and we with Him. All of Shir haShirim (Song of Songs) describes this metaphor. This doesn’t make him mortal, it just means that we have a means of grasping this relationship by comparison to human equivalents. On this level, his “jealousy” is as real as his love. Unfortunately, Israel sometimes forgets its love for Him and turns to other interests, and that (temporarily) harms our relationship with Him.

Best wishes,
Michoel Reach