Reply To: To All Yeshiva Haters

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I don’t know about 2) and 2a). (This is not a maalah per se, but at least it hasn’t led me to farkrum the gemara.)

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See, the Mishna/Gemara are actually talking about statues of unknown status, and whether their form, symbolism and location make us assume, or at least be choshesh that they’re a”z. In your zeal to apply your vast knowledge of historical worship, you’re applying known statues to what Chazal say were not known to us.

The halachah, for example, that comes out of the Gemara, is that a statue known to not be atlas or zeus or whatever, but is holding a spherical object, is assur b’hana’ah out of a concern that it might be a”z based on the general symbolism of holding a ball (maybe they learned this from seeing atlas, but I don’t even know that that’s important). With your shtickel, though, since we know its not actually atlas, it would be okay, yet the Gemara clearly didn’t say that.