Abram vs. the Idols

The story that I’m going to tell you is from the Jewish tradition. It’s about the young lad Abram, who lived with his father Terah in the city of Haran (present day Turkey). By profession his father Terah was a maker of fine clay statues. These statues were in constant demand; people bought them, set them up in their houses and prostrated themselves before them, invoking their blessing and protection. Young Abram helped his father in the shop and would ask questions, “Father, why do they worship lumps of clay, things that we make and that can break if dropped?” His father ignored him, told him to be quiet and help sell the images.

Abram would greet the people when they came into the shop and he would ask questions of those who bought the idols. One day an old man came in and pointed to an idol he would buy. Abram asked him how old he was. Startled, the man replied, “Sixty-five.” And Abram then asked, “Why are you buying an idol that is only two days old when you already are much older and wiser than what we have just made?” The man left without buying and Abram was cuffed for the loss of a sale.

Another came, a woman frantic and frightened. Her house had been broken into and she had been robbed. She wanted the biggest idol she could find for protection. Abram said, “Why don’t you steal an idol?” It’s as easy as stealing anything else.” He picked up one and brought it to her. She too left without buying. Another cuff for a lost sale!

One night Abram couldn’t sleep. He walked in the desert enchanted by the thousands of stars in the night sky. They calmed him. They were surer than any idol that he helped his father to make. He worshiped the stars, but then he noticed the moon. It was stronger and brighter and he thought about worshipping the moon. But the sun son rose over the sand and pushed back the edges of the night. The power of the sun was stronger; he would worship the sun. Sometimes he thought he would worship the clouds, the rain the wind. One day he thought, “I do not see what makes the sun to rise, or the moon to wane, or the wind to blow, although I hear it. There must be something behind all of these things that I cannot see. That is what I shall worship.” After that night of insight, he crept into his father’s shop, picked up a huge hammer and smashed all the idols.

In the morning his father was furious and asked what could have happened. Abram said, “It must have been the idols. Maybe they had a fight. Look, that big one over there has a huge hammer beside him.” As he spoke, he smiled, and his father was enraged, screaming, “Idols can’t quarrel. They can’t even talk!” Abram looked at his father and agreed, adding, “Then, why worship them? They are dumb, mute, and without any power. They are certainly not gods. How can they be?”

Abram’s father was silent and Abram told him of his discovery, and of the One behind the stars, the moon the sun, the winds and the desert, greater than anything made, invisible but present here nonetheless. This god was the only god that Abram and his family would worship. This one spoke: in winds, in thunder, in all seasons, in the heart.

And when we meet Abram in Genesis 12, we are told, “Yahweh said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your family and your father’s house, for the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation,....and you will be a blessing.” Abram became Abraham, our father in faith. He gave up idols to worship the true God.