M.
TO BE AN INDIVIDUAL
(g9 tih'yeh acharez rabbim 1'ra'ot, "You shall not follow a multitude
to do evil" (Ex. 23:2). There are(3hre%)waya of looking at such a verse.
V
We can ask ourselves: Precisely what did the author mean by it?
a historical question; and the answer, in this case, is clear.
That 13
It is a
warning to the members of a court of law, namely that they must not let
themselves be influenced by the majority when recording their verdict.
They must not be party to the commission of an injustice, whether it be
the conviction of the innocené or the acguittal of the guilty, because
they are over—awed by the opinion of'the majority.
In other words, the
situation enrisaged is precisely that of one of the most powerful films
of recent times, fifixxfixmfim:lebww
_.
1
a,um-
.~
"Twelvs Angry Men".
There, as many of you will remember, the Jury are at first undecided about
their verdict.
But as the hours drag on, and the heat of the summer's day
becomes more oppressive, so, one by one, the& succumb to the temptation to
pronounce the defendant guilty, in spite of the facp that there is room for
doubt.
But one man holds out, and incurs increasingly the hostility of
the others.
How dare he prolong the proceedings?
mxxxxxxgnx Who is he
to set himself against the collective wisdofi of the other eleven?
But
he stands his ground, and gradually, painfully slowly, he manages to gow
doubts in their minds.. First one switches over to his side, thento,
then three. In the end the ierdict is'not guilty'. 'Justice is done because
one man had the courage, even under immense prpssure, to heed the principle,
"You shall not follow a multitude to do evi}."
I§§condly we can ask: What has Jewish tradition made of this verse?
What use has it been put to particularly in the deve10pment of the Hahachah,
of Jewish Law? And here the answer is that it has been given an even
more restricted and
KHXXKiKfiXKKHXfiKKK precise HEX! interpretatibn. It has been taken to nmr//\\
LEO BECK COLLEGE
EXERARY
'.—
‘
p
_
_2_
A:
that in
KKfixqXKHKKE criminal
law you may not convict the defendant on
the strength of a simple majority.
There must be a majority of at least
on the other hand, as a matter of interest, a
two (Sanhedrin 1:6).
unanimous verdict IEXKXKE in favour of conviction is also invalid; for
if all agree, without
.
a single dissentient, that the defendanm is guilty,
then there ;a ground to suspect that there may have been a conspiracy
against him, and he is given the benefit of the doubt arising from that
suepicifion. So there must be a substantial majority, but not unanimity.ill
But then there 15(?N¥3E§@5question we can ask.
say to us?
what can ue.1earn from it?
does it EXEXHKE convey?
'Wbat does the verse
What general ethical principle
And here we can lgave the narrow confines of the
court-house and enter the wider arena of human life.
For sure1y we are
constantly tempyed to follow the multitude; to do as others do, to talk
as others talk, to think as others think.
It is interesting to speculate why this is so.
I
suppose it is due
fundamentally to the herd instinct which we share with the animal world:
a compulsion_go aasqciate ourselves with others for our own protection,a§d
eeounitg.
And this, in turn, has prodmced over the millennia, an animosit
on the part of the group
from it.
towards the individual who dissociates himself
The dissenter, the odd man out, he who looks different or acts
differently, becomes very easily an object of suSpicion and acorn; he
is liable to b9 told, like the ugly duckling, to "get out of town",
But we do not like to get out of town.
Tfie town is our security.
'
'
A}
m
,zLGaw
ficreove
u'lizcd
we do not aid) merely to be tolerated in Fhe town. We want to
accepte%.
For it is not only physical security that we crave. It is also emotional
security.
And for that we need not only the tolerance but the aggrobation
of our feIIOW—men.
So we conform, for that is the way to win their
‘
,
H
.
.
.
_
A
Wé become
approbation.
a
7‘
3._
.
u
:
.4,
1
member pf thg in-group, one—ni—tbe—hnys, and
soon1we 301p them in according to the intruder, the diasenter, the same
animosity which might have been meted out to us.
so the vicious circle
perpetuates itself.
Now, you might ask, what harm dues it do?
Surely the Biblical Zflfi
verse warns us only against followmng the fiultitude £2 g2 213;? Therefore, prov§ded that the multitude is not actually bent upon committing
°~01Vnc
gm“;
a'grave $njustics,\ thggzeéfi~33‘§eason why we should not conform. On the
contrary, it is good KKKXKLfio do so. When you are in Rome, do as the
Romans do.
Why cause unnecessary friction?
Why rock the boat?
Well, for one thing the multitude is not just occasionally mistaken;
it is frequently mistaken. It is frequentiy mistaken precisely because
it is composed of indibiduals who do gs the Romans do, who have in varyin
degree abdicated their respénsibility, or who feel that their reaponsibility is diminished because they are not acting alone put in concert with
thousands.
That is why the morality of the communityinearly alwayst;;§g
bentné the moralmty of the individual.
The community will approve many
things which the individual, fully conscipus of his responsibility,
would fiot approve.
It will condone wars of aggression; it will condone
racial discrimination;(}t will condone Antisemitism;)1t will condone
édultepy,
There is no greater danger to civilisation than the comfort-
ing thought that what millions think right cannot be wrong, or that what
millions think harmless need not cause us any compunction.
A11 moral progress has been due to the few who have had the cpurage
to dissent; and we Jews, who have been among the world‘s principal
arflchitects or moral progress, have the proud record of being a people
of dissenters.
Noah, we are told, was "righteous in his generation"
-’+-
_
(Gen. 6:9). ;Abraham‘was qalied an‘lgggl, a Hebrew; because he stood
oné one 2123, on one side, while all the world stood on the other (Gen.
R. u2:13). Moses had to stir the Hebrew slaves out of their lethargié
acceptance of their fate before he could lead them out of Egypt.
The
Prophets fought g lonely battle against the unquestioned assumptions
of their society, and risked their lives to protest against its injustioég
Akways abd everywhere the history of progress has been the history of
the struggle of the few against the many.
(éob's suffering segmed to him undeserved, not because he was a man
of average decency, but because he fififiXfiXfiEflXfiXKflXflKfiXXKHKIXKKKXKHI
aqxxx rose above the mores of his society;
because he did not accept what others reggrded as adequately decent
conduct but set himself his own standards, guided by his own ethical
sensitivity.
While others treated their servants like beasts of burden,
he treated them as equals.
While others mingled only with chosen friends,
he kqt an open house for all,
While othérs rejoiced fiKKKXXKKX§ at the
destruction of their enemies, he grieved.
And so Job affirms his
integrity by saying: "If I feared the great multitude...so that
I
kept
.silence and went not out of doors", then let me be cgndemned. (31:84.)
Tunas who fear the multitude, those who keep silence, those who stay
at home, are the enemieg of progress.
Thoag who KEEXfiKKfiEIEHXXfi
challenge the multitude, those who speak up, those who leave the
Eecurity of their homes to do battle for justice, they are the
benefactors of mankind£>
But whattihe multitude be not actually mistaken?
issues are not involved?
What if moral
Surely then it is right to conform?
I suppose there is such a thing as
Well,
harmless conformity; [fibers is,
-5-.
7
‘
.
.
.
LGV
after all, a difference betwéen dissent and excentricity.) Ifégomen)want
to spend a small fortune every year in order to conform to the latesfi
fashion in clothes(és dictated by some Parisian couturieg} I gt;;%gtyigfiM&V
qld
be pedantic to objecfiL
But surely the greater danger in our society
is not excessive individualism but excessive‘conformism.
For even when
no moral principles are involved, the crmwd mentality is st411 dangeroua.
(@hen I see a gang of beatniks all dressed alike, all with the same hairstyle, roaming the streets like a phalanx, I am worriedQ) For those who
behave collectively in things which do no harm HEX can easily be incited
to act collectively in things which do gravé harm.
Qfiereferey—though
n9¢~jawékAfixflr1r1mrttifiuée'at-aiis
But there is still more to be said.
Even when there is no moral
danger in comformity, it still involves a suppression of individuality;
and individuality is the most precious thing we possess.
It is a sad
paradox of our time that,_whereae we have more freedom than star to
Political
express our individuality, we seem to use it less and less. fininuxfi
compulsion
sociological compulsion has
its
fiififixfiifi havfi ceased, but xnmzxn fiKKXKEKKXXKHXK taken XKKIK place. More
and more we seem to surrender individual judgment and individual taste
‘
»
V
,.
'
I
under the pressure-to—confonn of the anonymous multitude and under the
bombardment of the televfision screen.
is needed
The tlme has coma when a deliberate effort mmxxxngxmxflg in our
educational system énd throughout our society to make individuality
I
and
non-conformity a sought-after virtue, IsLwe—are—tnifi-that‘nine-huusewtves
ee-‘:..
~
welcome and encourage the dissemter.
.Letus
Let us not regard the ugly duckling
as an ugly duckling, but as a beautiful Swan.
.‘
‘I_
.
._-6_
.3
,
'For men were not created to be alike, or to act alike, or to think
alike. éfien if all the 700,000,000 people of China here to accept the
Thought of Chairman Mao Tse—Tung of their own volition, without any
polltlcal
.
.
1mm“
cempulsinn,
V
ALI/“Mann
it would still be a terrlfying'syecfiaeiei> For,
_
as the Mishnah says, "man stamps many coins with one seal, and they are
all alike; but GEE the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be he, has
stamped every manuwith the seal of Adam, yet not one of them is like
his fellow" (Sanhefirin #:5).
Let us therefore not strive to be alike;
it is sufficient that we are united by our common humanity.
(?here is a gem of a Midrash based on a verae>in the Book
of Numbers.
Mmses, having been told that he is soon to die, expresses the hope that
"the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh", will appoint a worthy
as
MUCUI‘WUWMJ
successor te—becnme—fihe—leader of the community. And the Mldrash comment
‘
"If you see a great crowd of human bemngs, you must say the following
UJL pruflxx
/
prayer; Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, who knongst}the secret thought
of meg, for just as their faces are not alike, so their minds are not
alike, for every single one has his own m1nd...L1kewise Moses, when tfie
hour of his death approached, prayed to God and said: Lord of the
the mind of every siggle
universe, ZKX'r
iheejiuv
individual is known to xxx, and the minds of your children are not
.
beseech GKSQ, when I die, appoint’over them a
leader who will respect the individual mind of each. And that is why
alike.
it
law
Therefore
I
does not say elohey hamach lecho; basarA'the God of the
spirit of all flesh', but(élohey haruchot lechol basar;3'The God of
the spirits of all flesh" (Num. 27:16; Num.R. 21:2).
Let us, then, not follow a multitude to do evil.
let us not follow a multitude at all.
Better still,
Let us be ourselves. (Let us
‘9..."
‘..
.
.
.
I
_f‘7.,_
express ourselves.) Let us develop to the
mu
mm
our various potentialities
A mature society is one which permits and Encourages its
members to do just that. A mature [society
which welcomes individuality.
V'gve
;._a_
difference.
A mature sdc iety
is one
is one which says: