In the Torah we are commanded ַחֲ ר≈ י‡ י∆ה¿הƒ ̇ ‡ ל ̇רָ עֹ¿ל יםƒ רַ ב – you should not be after the multitude for evil things (Shemos 23:2), that you shouldn’t incline after the majority when they are doing wicked things.
We’re talking now about pshuto shel mikra, and that’s the way to read the possuk: Don’t follow the multitudes, the numbers, when they are doing something wrong.
Now at first glance, that seems to be a simple thought, something we ourselves would know without being told; don’t do the evil things that others are doing. Only that it seems to be too simple of a thought. After all, when people are doing wicked things, a rational person — even if he’s not such a big tzaddik — doesn't find it so appealing.
Let’s say, when you see today a lot of people coming together in an organization called Exit — today they changed the name to attract more suckers; they call themselves Death with Dignity. And they have conventions and seminars, and they send you literature about all the benefits of suicide; so naturally, you’re not going to sign up. After all, for a sane person, it’s quite unappealing. It’s revolting, actually.
So the question is, what is the Torah telling us? Do we need such a commandment that we shouldn’t go after the multitude to do evil?
Multitude Makes Right
And the answer is that when the multitude does it, it’s no longer evil. It becomes the right thing to do; anything the multitude does is the thing to do. And even something as meshuga as killing yourself, as more and more lunatics join in — one of the bestsellers today is how to commit suicide — so it’s the style already, and after a while you think that you’re behind the times. It doesn’t mean you’ll sign up, but you begin to see a little bit of the rationale, the sevara, and it’s not so wicked anymore.
Let’s say an example; a true story. A boy called me up from a small town where there is no yeshiva. He goes to a high school there. Now this boy happened to know something about Torah, about Jewish practices, but his parents are ignorant people, and they send him to high school.
Now he’s a good boy — he’s trying at least. He dresses with some dignity; he wouldn’t think of dressing like a bum.
What happened? Everybody in the high school wears blue denim. There isn’t a single person, boy or girl, who is not wearing jeans. But not just denim; denim with ragged, artificial patches, artificial splotches on it like somebody poured ink on it or something. So it took only a little time, a few weeks, and he put on jeans.
Now, why would he do such a thing? He told me himself that he doesn’t understand it. So the first thing of course is he doesn’t want to stand out like a sore thumb. But it’s more than that — it’s because it’s not so bad anymore to dress disrespectfully.
Nobody is persecuting him. Nobody is torturing him to put on gentile clothing. But it’s the test of rabbim; if the masses are doing it, then there must be something there. That itself is a constant pressure. A Jewish frum boy who has to go through a high school is going through not one akeidah — day by day he is being tortured on the rack of ַחֲ ר≈ י‡ ̇רָ עֹ¿ל יםƒ רַ ב, of weakening before the masses.
The Festival of Numbers
The Gemara in Mesichta Avodah Zarah (54b) says that when the gentiles make a festival for their avodah zarah and people come together to witness the spectacle, so the Gemara says among the people who came to look הֲוָה מָר מו ≈ל‡רָ¿ׂ ̆ƒי י‡ַ ן„וַ, there’s surely a Yisroel mumar.
Now what does that mean? Just because a Jew was there, does that prove he's a mumar? It could be he's a foolish fellow who wanted to see a spectacle. It could be. But the Gemara says that among the Jews who are there, there is surely at least one Yisrael mumar. And Rashi explains. יƒ‡ יםƒ„¿הָעו ֹב כָל¿ּב ָׁ ר ̆¿∆פ‡ – it's not possible among all those who are present at the avodah zarah service that there shouldn't be one mumar.
And he says as follows, pay attention to the words: ָהּמַט ָ ם„יָ ≈ל‡רָ¿ׂ ̆ƒי ̇∆‡ ָה‡ֹׁ∆ רו ̆ ַחֲ ר≈ י‡ – When he sees that the nations of the world who have so much prestige; they come together in great numbers to celebrate their festivals with panoply, with pomp and great ceremony, and he sees that the Jews don't have anything like that, so it's ָׁ ר ̆¿∆פ‡ יƒ‡, Rashi says, it’s impossible that there shouldn’t be a feeling of יםƒוֹכָבּכ ַ̇„לַﬠֲ בוֹ וֹּבƒל נו ֹט∆ה.
The Psychology of Numbers
Pay attention to what we just heard. The power of the nations of the world without any arguments is enough to lead people's minds astray. When you pass by a big university, if it was a small place with a broken down building, so you could despise them and you'd laugh at their theories. But because they have huge buildings and they cover a great deal of space with a big campus, therefore people are impressed and the minus certainly enters the minds of some people. ָׁ ר ̆¿∆פ‡ יƒ‡, it's not possible there shouldn't be at least one Yisroel mumar present. It doesn't mean only one. It could be many. But it's certain that there's at least one mumar. And even the ones who aren’t so weak to go so far, but they are affected.
Because that's a fundamental principle of human psychology. We look up to the successful. We look up to the powerful ones. That’s what we see in Mishlei (14:20). In Mishlei we read as follows: ׁ ̆רָ ‡ָׂ נ≈ּ ̆ƒיּר≈ ≈ﬠהו¿ל ַםּ‚ – A poor man is despised even to his friends, even to other poor people. Not only is he despised by the rich, but even poor people look down at him. His own relatives look down on him. A shlemazel. יםƒּרַ ב ירƒׁ ̆ﬠָ וֹהֲב≈י‡ – But there are many that love the rich man. Not merely because they expect to get something out of it. No. Even though the rich man is far away from them and they will never have any contact with him, but they admire a rich man.
Now what is he telling us here? That the way of the world is to admire success and to despise the one who is on a lower level of affluence. That’s how a person’s mind functions naturally. And that’s why, when Jews see the smallness of the Jewish people and the great numbers of everyone else — the nations, the newspapers, the scientists, the churches, everything — so the Jews themselves ַםּ‚ׁ ̆רָ ‡ָׂ נ≈ּ ̆ƒיּר≈ ≈ﬠהו¿ל they are weakened. At least a little bit. Lo yimaleit.
The Persecution of Numbers
And that’s the most difficult of all tests. Don’t think that the persecution that our forefathers endured in the Middle Ages was merely the physical and material pressures. It’s true that the persecutions were abundant. They certainly were expelled, they were mulcted, they were harassed and sometimes were massacred. We have no picture today of what they went through.
But all that was nothing compared to the constant ‘persecution’ of the fact that they were in the shadow of the cathedrals. Not one cathedral — wherever they went, there was another cathedral. And they were filled with people. All the masses worshipped these gods, the saints.
The Jews in Spain, when they saw — I’m talking about before 1492 — when they saw the masses gathered together, walking on their knees, don’t think it didn’t have an effect. Imagine a hundred thousand people walking on their knees in devotion as they carry the statue of the saint through the streets. And there’s music and there’s incense. The pressure of public opinion is terrific! We’re not talking about arguments now — they don’t have any arguments — but just the fact that it was a rabbim was a terrible nisayon. A Jewish child, if he was able to withstand that he was a martyr!
A Purposeful History
The Jew was hated because of his foolishness. It was so ‘open’. Everybody ‘knew’ the miracles! Everybody ‘knew’ the statue they were carrying through the streets was bleeding at these and these wounds — the places where the first one bled. They showed you, “Look at the wounds bleeding there!” And everybody saw it as clear as day. And if you didn’t believe you were considered a dog! The stubborn Jew was considered worse than a dog!
That’s why they called us the most stubborn and obstinate people. “They are the worst people in the world.” That’s what they said; open statements by them, by the great teachers of the church. “The synagogues are worse than brothels. They are worse than robbers and murderers. If they can see such open signs and they refuse to yield to such a publicly accepted attitude, then these are the worst people in the world!”
And so you’re hearing now the purpose of a Jew. If we want to epitomize the history of the Jewish people, if we want to characterize the function of the Jew in the world, it’s the resistance against the rabbim. That’s the test that we’re passing through in our history.
And it’s not an accident of history. Our nation was created for this. The Am Yisroel was given this historic mission to go out in the world as a minority and to resist all the forces that tend to overwhelm them. The entire world, with all of its foreign ideals and attitudes was sent by Hakodosh Boruch Hu as a test of our nation, so that we should fulfill our national function of being the יםƒהָﬠַמּ ָלּכƒמ ﬠַט¿מ, of being the smallest of all the nations aligned against the rest of the world (Devarim 7:7).
The ‘Smallest’ Nation
Now, you might say, “Is that literally true? Are we the smallest nation?” You mean to say you cannot find little peoples, isolated tribes somewhere on the globe that have their own languages and own racial characteristics? Certainly, you could. Anthropologists will tell you that there are tribes living in the islands of the South Sea and they’ve been isolated for a long time and they have a distinctive language and distinctive racial characteristics.
Language and racial characteristics, those are the two chief bases for distinctive nationality. And they’re much smaller than the Am Yisroel. They’re little groups. So what’s the Torah telling us that we’re the smallest of all nations?
The answer is what we’re talking about now, that the rest of the world is one big conglomerate. They’re divided into different categories of dupes and fools — whether they're fools who believe in evolution or fools who believe in Muhammad, or Yoshkeh, or socialism or humanism or voodoo worship, but whatever it is, it’s all one conglomerate of idiocy. And we are expected to be the חָ כָם ﬠַם נָבוֹן¿ו, the one little nation, a wise and understanding nation, that stands boldly against the rest of the world.
That’s why we are always a minority in the world. If we were a majority, it would be easy to be a Jew — we would be ashamed not to be Jews. All the blacks and Puerto Ricans would grow beards and peyos. All of them. No question about it!
But Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn’t want that. He wants there to be a test — he wants us to prove our mettle, to show our dedication to Him by not budging one iota from the Torah way of living, even when we are faced with a rabbim, a whole world who have on their side the power of a majority.
