Our Gemara on Amud Aleph discusses whether finding a hand or foot figure constitutes an idol or merely a fragment:

If one found an object shaped like a hand or foot, it is forbidden, as similar objects are worshipped. Rabbi Yoḥanan asks: Why are they forbidden? Aren’t they fragments, which Reish Lakish permits?

The Gemara answers: Shmuel interprets the mishna as referring to objects standing on pedestals, showing they were designed as idols initially.

Tehilim (115:4–7) describes the inertness of pagan deities:

 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak; they have eyes, but cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear; they have noses, but cannot smell; their hands do not feel, their feet do not walk; they can make no sound in their throats.

Commentaries note a linguistic shift: mouths, eyes, ears, and noses are prefaced with “they have,” but hands, feet, and throats lack this prefix.

Chanukas Hatorah uses our Gemara to explain this anomaly. Since hands and feet can be standalone idols, the verse treats them as independent entities, not attached to a larger form. But This clever answer doesn’t explain why the throat lacks the prefix. Perhaps, once the pattern breaks, the verse omits it, but why place the throat last instead of grouping it with other non-standalone parts?

The Maharal (Gevuros Hashem 64) offers another explanation, based on hierarchy. The verse doesn’t merely mock idolaters for believing in inanimate objects, as this underestimates them, akin to Rav Ashi’s error with Menashe (Sanhedrin 102b). Menashe rebuked Rav Ashi in a dream: “Had you been there, you would have lifted your cloak and run after me!”

Maharal explains that idolaters believed idols channeled spiritual forces symbolized by their form (e.g., sun, rain, thunder). Tehilim disproves this: objects lacking the power they represent cannot channel it. Mouths or eyes that cannot see or speak lack such ability. Conversely, humans, through spiritual acts (mitzvos), channel energies via body parts. Waving willows on Succos, a mitzvah, helps bring rain.

Maharal says the verse follows a hierarchy: mouth (speech, intelligence), eyes (distant perception), ears (lesser perception), nose (subtle sense), hands (touch), feet (ambulation), and throat (grunting). From highest to lowest ability, idols possess no power, incapable of channeling anything.

The prefix “they have” for mouth, eyes, ears, and nose denotes functions beyond the body (intellect, soul), while hands, feet, and throat perform localized physical functions, thus lacking the prefix, as they are the body itself.

This sophisticated explanation of idolatrous philosophy echoes Daf 41’s theme: don’t underestimate ancients as primitive. The Gra (Biur Seder Olam 30) notes that prophecy waned as paganism’s compulsion lessened, as both stemmed from a spiritual consciousness modern man lacks. Our post-Newtonian world of cause-and-effect science yields technological marvels but deprives us of intuition for unprovable truths. We miss God’s quiet whispers, like the Bas Kol, a “daughter of a voice,” subtle and delicate (Tosafos Yom Tov, Yevamos 16:6:3 Notably, not as many people imagine, a booming thunderous voice from Heaven). God is found in subtleties, unheard by closed hearts or minds.