The Prohibition Against Idol Worship and Its Practices

Do not bow to their idols and do not worship them and do not act as they act, rather you should destroy them and smash their standing altars.

The Ohr Hachaim asks, why does the Torah repeat this commandment? We have been warned already, in Parshas Yisro, not to bow to idols or serve them in any way? The Torah even tells us not to mention them by name, how would anyone worship them?

The Ohr Hachaim gives three specific lessons this possuk is teaching us:

1. The Torah is adding another prohibition to serving them, and that is וְלֹא תַעֲשֶׁה כְמַעֲשֵיהֶׁם – do not act as they act. If the Torah would merely have exhorted us with this commandment, we would understand it as forbidding idol worship. That which idol worshippers do outside of the realm of idol worship may be seen as permitted. The possuk now tells us that all of their actions and ceremonies are forbidden, even seemingly innocent ones. If the Torah would not have begun with the exhortations against idol worship, we would have misinterpreted this possuk. Now that the Torah forbade idol worship and added a prohibition against acting as they act, we know that the Torah’s meaning is any action that they do. A person may not dress like them, take haircuts like they do, or follow their ways in any shape or form.
2. The Torah means to underline this prohibition and to explain that all of the actions of an idol worshipper are connected to the idol worship. Even seemingly innocuous actions are an expression of his connection to evil. If someone dresses like an idol worshipper, he has tasted of the forbidden fruit of idol worship, even if he does not realize it. This is the message of this possuk.
3. The Torah wished to command us to destroy their idols and smash their altars. The Torah is telling us that if we allow their places of idol worship to last, it is to be considered as though we would have joined them in idol worship. Idol worship is the most serious of sins, and any small sympathy or connection to them is a weakening of our barriers to this lifestyle. We must uproot any hint of an idea of idol worship from our hearts, through destroying their entire infrastructure.