A word from the Rebbe on this week's parshah, Parshat Mishpatim. One of the pesukim in Parshat Mishpatim is ושם אלקים אחרים לא תזכירו, the name of other gods you shall not remember, and also means not to mention it, לא ישמע על פיך, shouldn't be heard through your mouth. And then the pasuk continues, את חג המצות תשמור שבעת ימים תאכל מצות, you should keep Pesach, חג המצות, seven days you should eat matzah. So the Baal HaTurim notes that here we see that the Torah connects the two. He writes about the issur of עבודה זרה together, close to the inyan of Pesach where there's an איסור חמץ, and he explains the reason for it because there is a comparison, there's a similarity between the two. Just like עבודה זרה is אסור בהנאה, not only you can't eat it, you can't have any use of it, any pleasure from it, the issur is בכל שהוא, and it makes things forbidden to a drop. Other aveirot, other things which are forbidden are בטל בששים if they get mixed up with some with other things many, then it becomes batel, nullified. But עבודה זרה is אסור בכל שהוא. If one drop falls in into, no matter, into thousands, into million, all becomes asur. So too חמץ בפסח is also אסור בהנאה, you can't have any use from it, and it's אסור בכל שהוא, and it's asur in a drop.

But the Rebbe adds another point to the comparison between עבודה זרה and the איסור חמץ. And he says like this. We know what the Ran says, the Ran in Pesachim says, that what is the reason why the Torah was so strict by the issur of chametz? Chametz is אסור בבל יראה בל ימצא. You can't even own chametz. While by other issurim, even if it's treif and even if it's אסור בהנאה, you can't make any use of it, you're allowed to keep it in your house. So the Ran says why is by chametz the Torah machmir so much? Because chametz is something a person is used to a whole year. You're always used to having chametz in your house, you're always used to eating chametz, you're always used to handling chametz, and having hanaah from chametz. So it's very possible and very probable that a person will be over, will transgress the איסור of chametz, because he's so used to it that he'll forget. So therefore the Torah was machmir very much.

Now this idea that the Torah was machmir the איסור חמץ so much because it is something that people are used to, applies also to avodah zarah, it's the same thing. That people are so used to this inyan of connection to avodah zarah, that a person might really be עובר עבודה זרה. How is that? What's the pshat that the איסור people are used to avodah zarah? So you know what it says in Chasidus, that avodah zarah be'emes is not only if you bow down to an idol, pashut physically have a statue and you bow down to an idol. Avodah zarah is also if a person gives importance to other powers. If they think there's another other power in the world besides Hashem, that's avodah zarah. Because really there's no other power, even though there are powers, powers of teva, there is powers of the sun, of the moon, but they're only a keli, a vessel through which Hashem works. Hashem does everything. He made it so He does it through those, but they don't have their own power. The truth, it goes a step further. Not only if you believe in another power it's avodah zarah to a certain degree, if you believe in another metziut, if you believe in any other being, there's no other being in the world, the whole everything is the Eibershter. There's no other being. If you think that there's another being in the world and you give chashivut, importance to that being, that's also avodah zarah, in a refined way, but that's avodah zarah. And that is something that people are used to. People constantly use other things in the world. People go to business, people do other things. People are ragil, used to it, to this concept which is similar to avodah zarah. So it's very possible and probable that a person might forget and think that those things that you're used to doing are really important on their own. And therefore the Torah was very much machmir by avodah zarah. But the similarity is that they both come because you are ragil, you are you used to it. By chametz because you're used to chametz all year, that's why the Torah was machmir, and by avodah zarah because you're used to doing other things a whole year, always, which makes it possible and probable for a person to forget that all this is not a real metziut, it's all just a levush, a garment to what Hashem does. And that's the comparison between the two. So besides what the Baal HaTurim says that the comparison is in the strictness of the aveirah, the Rebbe goes a step deeper and he says the strictness of the of the aveirah, why the Torah was so strict, is for the same reason: because they're both ragil. Chametz you'll you're ragil usually, and it's very probable that you'll be forgetting, that's why the Torah was machmir, and same thing with avodah zarah, because you're so much involved in other things in the world that it's very possible, and maybe even probable that you will be over on the issur of avodah zarah. That's why the Torah was machmir so much in the issur of avodah zarah.