G-d tells the Jewish people: If you don’t drive out the nations in the Land of Canaan, they will be “sikim” in your eyes and thorns in your sides (Numbers 33:55). What are “sikim”?
This word is generally translated as “barbs” or “splinters,” but based on examination of its root and related words (think of s’chach), Rav Samson Rapahel Hirsch translates “sikim” as “hedges.” Accordingly, G-d warned us:
If you allow “the polytheistic inhabitants [to remain] in your land, [they] will become like a hedge around their polytheistic practices, so that these practices escape your attention, your insight into their nature, and your condemning judgment. By your tolerance toward the polytheistic inhabitants amongst you, you will become tolerant of polytheism.”
Modern man prides himself on his tolerance. “I get along with everyone. I’m a tolerant person.” Of course, as a general rule, maintaining pleasant relations with our fellow man is commendable. But some people should be kept at arm’s length lest tolerance of them lead to tolerance of their behavior.
For man is not really able to separate the person from the ideology. If you become close friends with your militantly atheist neighbor, you will soon soften your stance toward atheism. If you enjoy a July 4th barbeque with the same-gender “couple” next door, you will soon grow tolerant of homosexuality itself.
Ideas and people are intertwined. And so G-d warned us: Don’t let pagans remain in Canaan lest your proximity to them cloud your thinking on paganism itself.
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) – head of the Jewish community in Frankfurt, Germany for over 35 years – was a prolific writer whose ideas, passion, and brilliance helped save German Jewry from the onslaught of modernity.
Elliot Resnick, PhD, is the host of “The Elliot Resnick Show” and the editor of an upcoming work on etymological explanations in Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch’s commentary on Chumash.