It does not take a majority to prevail…but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men. -- Samuel Adams
Imagine the following: You sign up for a psychology experiment, and on a specified date you and seven others (whom you think also are participants) arrive and are seated at a table in a small room.
You don’t know it at the time, but the others are associates of the experimenter, and their participation has been carefully scripted. You’re the only real participant.
The experimenter arrives and tells you that the study in which you are about to participate concerns your visual judgment. Two cards are placed before you—the card on the left contains one vertical line, the card on the right three lines of varying length.
The experimenter asks each of you to choose which of the three lines on the right card matches the length of the line on the left card. This is repeated several times with different cards.
On some occasions the other “participants” unanimously choose a patently wrong answer. And while it is clear to you that they are wrong, they have all given the same answer.
Would you conform to the majority’s answer?
In his 1951 experiment, psychologist Solomon Asch attempted to answer just that.
Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view and found that about 75% of participants conformed to an obviously wrong answer at least once and nearly one-third of the participants did so consistently.
Asch’s experiment demonstrated just how persuasive a majority opinion can be—a valuable study since so much of our lives are governed by majorities, especially living in a democracy.
Majorities govern much of Jewish law too, such as when a halachic dispute between an individual and the many is resolved in favor of the many (see e.g. Berachos 9a; Bava Metzia 59a; Sefer HaChinuch 78).
But sometimes the majority gets it wrong.
When spying the Land of Israel, for example, Yehoshua and Calev comprised a minority of the spies, yet they chose not to submit to the opinion of the majority in denigrating the land. Likewise, during the era of the second Bais HaMikdash, the Jewish people were “the few” and the Greeks were “the many”—and yet the Jewish people prevailed, as G-d “gave over the many in the hand of the few.”
As much as the Torah often mandates that we follow the majority, it is equally quick to encourage us to abandon the majority when that majority falters. “Do not follow the majority to do evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after a multitude in order to pervert justice” (Shemos 23:2). This teaches us to not follow the majority when what they do is wrong (Rabbeinu Bachaye ad loc.).
A non-Jew once posed the following question to R’ Yehoshua ben Karcha: “We non-Jews comprise the majority of the world, whereas you Jews are but a tiny minority. Does your Torah not obligate you to follow the majority? Why, then, do you persist in your beliefs?”
R’ Yehoshua ben Karcha asked the non-Jew whether he had any children.
“Yes,” the non-Jew answered, “I have several. And every time we sit down to eat, each one blesses his own god. Inevitably, we all end up fighting.”
“If so,” retorted R’ Yehoshua ben Karcha, “you are not a majority. You are simply many different minorities. Before you attempt to subsume the Jewish minority, worry about subsuming your own minorities” (Vayikra Rabba 4:6). The humiliated non-Jew slinked away.
This same question has been put to us, explicitly and otherwise, countless times throughout the ages.
When a gentile cleric posed the question to a young R’ Yonason Eybeshutz, he received the following answer: “The obligation to follow the majority applies only when one is in doubt. For example, if one finds a piece of meat on the street and is in doubt as to whether it is kosher, if there are nine kosher butchers in the vicinity and only one non-kosher butcher, the finder may follow the majority and eat the meat. When it comes to the truth of the Torah, however, there is no doubt. We are positive of its unassailable truth. So we need not follow the majority.”
A wayward Jew once posed the question, with a slight variation, of the Chofetz Chaim. “Rabbi,” the man argued, “doesn’t the Torah itself say that we must follow the majority? Well, the overwhelming majority of Jews today are not religious. So you religious Jews must come over to our modern way of thinking.”
The Chofetz Chaim replied with a story.
“Recently, I had occasion to travel by coach. The coachman distributed generous measures of vodka to his passengers to keep them warm and content, and he also helped himself to more vodka than he should have. When we came to a crossroads, there was confusion as to which way to turn. Most on board shouted to turn left, but I—the only sober passenger—knew without a shadow of a doubt that we needed to turn right. So I ask you, my friend, should I too have followed the majority?”
R’ Elchonon Wasserman offered a different answer, explaining that the obligation to follow the majority refers primarily to judges—i.e., judges should decide cases brought before them in accordance with the opinion of a majority (of the judicial panel). Of course, a suitable judge’s primary characteristic is impartiality, so if a majority of the judges on a given panel are partial or have an interest in the case’s outcome, we would follow the remaining judges—even if they are the minority.
So it is, explained R’ Elchonon, with the Jewish people. True, the Jewish people are a minority. But the majority of the world is blinded by self-interest in leading ungodly lives in favor of physical gratification. The Jewish people therefore need not follow this majority.
This answer may be amplified with a parable often related by the Ben Ish Chai.
There once was a province whose king lived secluded in his castle, totally removed from the public eye. As such, his subjects remained in constant awe of the king. To conduct the country’s affairs, the king permitted only seven of his officials to see him; through them, he would conduct all the countries affairs. As would be expected, these seven officials wielded great power and influence.
One day, the king died and his son assumed the throne. Afraid that the change in regime might cause them to fall out of favor, the seven officials devised a plan by which they could ingratiate themselves to the new young king. They gathered together with the king and told him how he shone an aura that bespoke his majesty—a surefire sign that his rule would be a long and prosperous one.
Several months later, the king was sent a present of a massive mirror. But when the king looked at it, he saw that he was positively hideous. The king was furious and threatened to kill the officials who had lied to him about some majestic “aura.”
The officials tried to calm him down. “Who are you going to believe, us or the mirror? There’s only one mirror but there are seven of us! Surely, the mirror is mistaken. You must break the mirror.”
The young king was convinced. Angry at the mirror that had attempted to deceive him, he took a metal bar and shattered it to a hundred pieces.
Then the young monarch looked down at the dozens of shards of mirror. He looked up at the officials. And he was enraged again.
“Just a moment ago, you all told me to ignore the mirror in favor of your opinion, since it is but one and you are seven. Now, you are but seven, and the mirror is in the dozens—and each shard shows me to be a monstrous beast!”
So, the Ben Ish Chai would explain, a self-interested majority is not to be followed.
Perhaps one can also answer the age old question posed to the Jewish people (“Why do you persist in your beliefs?”) based on the responsa of R’ Shmuel of Modina (the Mahrashdam; 1505-1589), who once was asked whether communal matters should be decided by a minority of wealthy community members though they are the minority or whether communal matters should be decided in accordance with the less affluent majority (see Piskei Rashdam, Orach Chaim 37).
The Maharashdam answered that the Torah only requires us to follow the majority when dealing with two equal factions; when there are differences between the factions, however, it may be that the minority is to be followed. Thus, the community should heed the words of its wealthy minority rather than those of its less affluent majority. (Perhaps this is the reason Jewish communal boards of directors are comprised predominantly of wealthy community members, even when some board members are of questionable commitment, common sense, and proper hashkafa.)
Based on this, perhaps once can explain that there is no need for the Jewish people to accede to the beliefs of the non-Jewish majority: we are different than the rest of the world and their majority opinion is therefore not binding upon us.
* * * *
Let’s face it: the world’s judgment and values are not always rights (are they ever?). No matter how outnumbered we might be, our obligation is to follow the path of decency and sanity. We’ve never been a people daunted by the odds. We’ve always been the smallest of nations with the biggest of hearts. We are precisely the “tireless minority” Samuel Adams envisioned as prevailing.
The trick is knowing when to follow the majority. And when not to.