By Rabbi Danny Rich

This article was originally published in The Jewish Chronicle.

The challenge of writing a piece several weeks before publication is that events, particularly as recorded by social media, gather pace more quickly than the written word.

As I prepared this article, the United Kingdom experienced its worst incidents of public disorder for more than a decade. The murder of three children at a dance class in Southport was used offensively (in both senses of the word) to engage in acts of criminal thuggery, including assaulting police officers, looting and threatening to burn religious and other public buildings — often by individuals from outside the local area.

Parashat Re’eh envisages a town where it appears that decency has broken down and the threat to good order (in this case idolatry) is so stark that the Torah proposes an extraordinary measure. The Torah calls for the killing of all the inhabitants and cattle of the town and that the very town be burnt to the ground.

In common with a number of other cases including the rebellious child who requires stoning (Deuteronomy 21:18-21), later rabbinic tradition suggested that the Torah was describing a hypothetical case as a tool for learning.

The possibility of destruction was certainly a warning of the serious consequences of idolatry, but perhaps the redactors of the Torah did not believe that, in the event of a widespread breakdown in order, an individual — or indeed a number of people —could withstand the pressure, choosing either to leave the town or to join the mob.

Jewish history has taught us otherwise and, whatever period one studies, it is possible to find Jews and non-Jews who have bravely taken a stand when the behaviour of their neighbours or indeed their nation has fallen short.

In a judicial context the Torah has already warned that one ought not take the side of a guilty party because of the popularity that will follow if you accede to the majority’s wishes or because you wish to ingratiate oneself with the powerful or any other interested group (Exodus 23:2).

Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) expands that responsibility by requiring the Jew to take the initiative, to embrace responsibility, to show leadership when and where others fail to do so (2:5). It declares: “In a place where there are no persons [willing to do what needs to be done], strive to be the person [who does take the initiative].”

We Jews are not alone in having been victims of the bystander syndrome, but our history, the Torah and Jewish teaching demands a brave response if collective madness envelops a community.

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