THE RABBIS AND URBAN CULTURE 173neverlookedatanimageinhislife,notevenifitwasonlystampedonacoin.^22
The Palestinian Talmud also reports a series of stories concerning rabbis who
were reluctant to pass before public statuary (Y. Avodah Zarah 3:13, 43b).
The stories all conclude with the rabbis’ giving in at the urging of Rabbi
Yohanan (but, quite literally, closing their eyes to the images as they passed),
but theystillmayreveal thatthe Mishnah’sformalism doesnot tellthe whole
story. We may, however, wonder whether these stories were not retrospective
creations of the later fourth century, when the Talmud was compiled, ideal-
ized projections made by rabbis who no longer knew what it was like to live
ina pagancity.The samemaybe trueofthe storyofR. Yohanan’sinstruction
to one Ben Drusai to destroy the presumably wholly unproblematic statues
in the Tiberian bathhouse (Y. Avodah Zarah 4:4)^23 —the same R. Yohanan
who is reported elsewhere to have permitted to the Jews of Bostra a spring
whose waters were used in the local cult of Aphrodite (Y. Sheviit 8:11, 38b-c)
and to have permitted Jews to pass through the shade of a sacred grove that
had encroached on public land (B. Avodah Zarah 48b) on the grounds that
whatispubliccannotbeprohibited—arulewhoselegalrationaleisunclear.^24
Whetherornottherabbiswereawarethattheirlegislationwasaccommoda-
tive is in the final analysis impossible to determine. What seems clear is that
itfunctionedas accommodation. I am suggesting that although the rabbinic
(^22) A minority opinion, whose precise meaning is obscure, not mentioned in the Mishnah,
attributed in two sources to R. Judah (second centuryC.E.), prohibits looking atdioqna’ot,or
eikoniot(Sifra, Kedoshi mparashah 1, sec. 10; Y. Avodah Zarah 3:1, 42b; T. Shabbat 17[18].1,
where it is quoted anonymously), but this had no impact on general rabbinic halakhah; R. Na-
hum’s refusal to look ateikoniot, whatever precisely they are, is presented as supererogatory. R.
Nahumhimselfwasfor therabbisashadowy,almostlegendary,figure: seeFlorsheim,“R.Mena-
hem (= Nahum) ben Simai.”
(^23) On this story, and on the identification of Ben Drusai with the Ben Drusai who lent his
name to an important category of Sabbath law, see Friedman, “Recovering the Historical Ben
D’rosai.”
(^24) See G. Blidstein, “R. Yohanan, Idolatry, and Public Privilege,”JSJ5 (1974): 154–61. I have
not followed his interpretation of Y. Sheviit 8:11, 38b-c: “R. Shimon b. Lakish was in Bostra and
saw the msprinkling a certain Aphrodite [mezalpin lehada Aphrodite]; he said to them, ‘is it not
forbidden?’ He went and asked R. Yohanan, who told him in the name of R. Shimon b. Yehoza-
dak, ‘that which belongs to the public cannot be forbidden.’ ” Blidstein followed Lieberman,
Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, pp. 132–33, who readmezalpin behada Aphrodite, “were bathing
inthat(bathhouse?of)Aphrodite.”ButinthiscaseitispuzzlingthatneitherR.Shimonb.Lakish
nor R. Yohanan is made to quote the Mishnah. (The same objection rules out what would be
syntacticallythesimplestinterpretation:thatR.ShimonsawJewssprinklingwateronanidoland
declared it forbidden but was overruled by R. Yohanan. Sprinkling water on an idol is explicitly
forbidden by M. Sanhedrin; see above). Furthermore,mezalpinwithout the reflexive pronoun
(’al garmehon) does not mean “bathe” but “sprinkle.” The interpretation given in the commen-
taryattributed toR. Elijahb. Solomon,thegaonof Vilna,is preferable:R. Shimonb.Lakish saw
the Bostrans sprinkling water drawn fro ma spring on a statue of Aphrodite and wished to forbid
the spring to the Jews of Bostra, drawing an analogy fro mthe Mishnah’s prohibition of a barrel
of wine fro mwhich a libation has been offered.