THE RABBIS AND URBAN CULTURE 167how to treat images of the gods in general, and how to cope with aspects
of city life objectionable for other than religious reasons—various types of
entertainments, for instance, and the building of gallows (M. Avodah Zarah
1:7)?
In trying to make sense of the rabbis’ view of paganism, it may be best for
us to begin with a story in M. Avodah Zarah 3:4, which is unusual in the
context of the Mishnah in that it lacks any clear legal content. In fact, it may
appear in the Mishnah for no other reason than that one of its protagonists
quotes Deuteronomy 13:18, which is quoted also in the previous Mishnah.
However, in my view, M. Avodah Zarah 3:4 also articulates the meta-legal
principles that underlie rabbinic legislation onavodah zarahas a whole in a
way that highlights their contrast with the sort of rigoristic interpretation of
the Pentateuch that may have prevailed in some contemporary nonrabbinic
circles and had almost certainly been widespread among the Jews before 70,
in prerabbinic times.^11
Proklos ben Philosophos^12 asked Rabban Gamaliel in Akko, when they were
bathing in the bath-house of Aphrodite, “It is written in your Torah, ‘let nothing
of theherem[roughly equivalent to “sacer”—a status the Pentateuch ascribes to
any object associated with idolatry] remain in your hand’ (Deuteronomy 13.18);
why then are you bathing in the bath-house of Aphrodite?” He said, “One may
not respond [to questions about Torah] in a bath-house.” When they went out,
Rabban Gamaliel said, “I did not enter her territory; she entered mine. You do
not say ‘the bath-house is made as an ornament for Aphrodite,’ but ‘Aphrodite is
made as an ornament for the bath-house.’ Furthermore [davar aher], if you were
given much money, you would not^13 enter your temple naked, having just ejacu-
lated,andurinatingbeforethegoddess.Andyetheresheissetoverthedrainand
everyone urinates before her. It is written ‘their gods’ [probably an allusion to
Deuteronomy 12:3: “you shall dismember the idols of their gods”]—in cases
where they are treated as gods they are forbidden, when they are not they are
permitted.”(^11) S. Kanter,Rabban Gamaliel II: The Legal Traditions(Ann Arbor: Scholars, 1980), pp. 175–
77, misreads the story as a report of Gamaliel’s halakhically objectionable behavior as revised by
a sympathizer, comparable to the complex of material in M. Berakhot 2:5–7. But in M. Avodah
Zarah Gamaliel’s behavior is precisely not objectionable in terms of rabbinic halakhah, only in
termsofthesortofrigoristicreadingofthePentateuchtherabbisaretryingtodistancethemselves
from.
(^12) Or in the better MSS, the unconstruable PLSLWS: see D. Zlotnick, “Proklos ben
PLSLWS,” in S. Friedman, ed.,Saul Lieberman Memorial Volume(New York: Jewish Theologi-
cal Seminary, 1993), pp. 49–52, for an attempted construal. For the text of the tractate, see D.
Rosenthal, “Mishnah Abodah Zarah: Critical Edition with Introduction” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew
University, 1980), esp. 2: 40–43.
(^13) MSS Cambridge, Kaufmann, and Parma omit “not” and presumably read the statement as
a rhetorical question.