It is forbidden to set up a single stone for worship – even if it is in order to worship the true G-d, Hashem. He has despised these stones ever since the pagans decided to employ them as a means for their own worship. Only an altar comprised of numerous stones or of earth creates the proper modality of worship. Horav Levi Yitzchak, zl, m’Berditchev, renders this prohibition homiletically as referring to the most common form of worship: self-worship.
Chazal state (Pirkei Avos 4), “This world is compared to a vestibule before Olam Habba, the World to Come.” Our world is but a bridge, a means of attaining entrance into the real world, the World of Truth, of eternity, Olam Habba. Any type of physicality is a medium by which we survive our stay in this world. Thus, physicality must be recognized as nothing but a means, a vehicle, but certainly not an end unto itself. Without food, we cannot survive. We eat to live – we do not live to eat.
Lachem, for you, denotes man’s physical dimension. We find that, on Yom Tov, we celebrate lachem: half for “you”; and half for Hashem. Lecha/lachem, both represent preoccupation with physicality. Therefore, the pasuk is teaching: Do not transform the lecha, you/physical dimension into a single pillar of significance, through which it becomes an entity in its own right, rather than a means for spiritual ascendancy.
