A sneak preview of my article for the May Newsletter at my pulpit:
Page 61b in Tractate Sanhedrin of the Babylonian Talmud discusses the different punishments for engaging in idol worship and for causing others to subvert to idol worship. There is a lengthy discussion devoted to how and why an individual or a community may be subverted into idol worship. We learn that there is a difference between an individual who has subverted to idol worship and a community who has subverted to idol worship. The individual is sentenced to a more severe death than a community because it is assumed that the individual made a conscious decision, whereas the same thing cannot be said of an entire community. The Gemara then challenges this assumption and asks the question: Is the individual still guilty if he subverted to idolatry out of love or fear of the person who tried to convince him? Different rabbis hold different opinions on this issue. Some believe he is still liable because he is still physically engaging in the act of idolatry. Others say he is not liable because he has no intention of actually serving the idol, but instead made a decision based on maintaining relationships and peace in his community.
At first it may seem like all of this is irrelevant to our lives as modern Jews. We don’t subscribe to the judiciary practices laid out by the rabbis of the Talmud and we certainly don’t define idolatry as a crime that should be punishable by death. A deeper look, however, uncovers an important lesson about how peer pressure affects our lives as individuals and community members. Usually, when I hear the phrase “peer pressure,” I think about teenagers and drugs or alcohol. I think this is because I am unwilling or embarrassed to admit that many times I give in to peer pressure as an adult. As adults, we consistently sit in on meetings where we don’t agree with what is being said, but we don’t say anything for a million reasons. So many of the activities we participate in, we find boring or even disturbing, but we do them anyway, so that we can spend time with family and friends. We do these things for the sake of shalom bayit, for peace in the home, in the community, and in the greater world. By not punishing an individual who engages in idol worship because of peer pressure, the Gemara acknowledges that upholding one’s ideals sometimes comes into conflict with maintaining peace in the world. It allows for the possibility that maintaining peace is more important even than breaking the first and second commandment. As we contemplate where we fall on the spectrum of maintaining our ideals verses maintaining peace, I encourage you to think about your own ideals. What are you willing or not willing to do for the sake of shalom, for the sake of peace?
As a corollary to this, one of the rationales given for why there's a more lenient view about the group engaging in idolatry is because they are more likely to change their minds than an individual. I wonder if this is because peer pressure works the other way. When there are one or two passionate people in a group who disagree they might be able to sway the whole group in their direction. Like the 10 of Sodom and Gemorah, a small number of righteous might save a city from destruction.
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