(RNS) — “Are you not entertained?”
That was probably my favorite line from “Gladiator,” the original epic about gladiators in ancient Rome, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix.
“Are you not entertained?” Crowe’s Maximus shouted from the arena up at the thousands of bloodthirsty spectators in the Colosseum.
Romans regularly organized fights to the death between hundreds of gladiators. This was nothing less than the mass execution of unarmed insurgents, captives or criminals and the indiscriminate slaughter of domestic and wild animals.
As Luke Tress reminds us in JTA, gladiatorial fighting was an essential part of Roman culture. It took place in amphitheaters throughout Rome and its provinces. Historians estimate there were 400 arenas throughout the Roman Empire, with a combined total of 8,000 deaths per year from all causes, including combat, execution and accidents.
What did Jews think of all this? As the JTA article mentions, a Talmudic sage, Reish Lakish, worked as a gladiator for a time (I have always admired Reish Lakish; he was the bad boy of the sages).
But, in general, the sages looked askance at the gladiator games. The Talmud (Avodah Zarah 18b) prohibits Jews from attending them. Why?
Because it was a waste of time that could otherwise have been devoted to the study of Torah.
But wait. Not so fast.
Maybe, in fact, you should go.
The passage continues:
One is permitted to go to stadiums, because he can scream and save the life of a Jew who would otherwise be killed there.
Because if you had gone to the Colosseum and you saw a gladiator gravely wounded, with his opponent standing over him, ready to finish him off — what happened?
Everyone in the crowd would be yelling, “Spare him!” or “Kill him!”
Who would be there in the crowd? The Roman emperor. This was how the emperor spent his leisure time. He had the power over life and death. If he wanted the gladiator to live — thumb up. If he wanted the gladiator to die — thumb down.
So, why should you be in the Colosseum?
Because you would have had a job to do.
You would have been able to scream out: “Spare him! Let him live!”
And, who knows?
Perhaps it would have been your scream that saved the life of the wounded man.
Actor Joseph Quinn plays Emperor Geta in “Gladiator II.” (Photo © Paramount Pictures)
You, amid the crowd of callous people, perhaps the emperor would hear you.
Because of your single, solitary scream, the emperor might change his mind.
The emperor might decide to spare that human life. The emperor would turn his thumb from down to up.
Even if you were the only one screaming for that gladiator’s life; even if you were a radical minority.
Here is the amazing thing: Rome did not lack for sensitive individuals — poets, playwrights, philosophers.
But almost none of them — with the notable exceptions of the philosopher Seneca the Younger and Emperor Marcus Aurelius — protested this madness.
Of the few people in the Roman Empire who dared speak out against this barbarism were the Jews.
To be alone in the crowd at the gladiator games — and to have the courage to scream out: Let him live.
This passage in the Talmud is about what it means to be a radical minority.
Once upon a time, we knew what that meant.
Abraham stood alone — a radical minority — when according to the ancient legend, he shattered his father’s idols and made his way to a new, unknown land and a radically unknown reality.
Moses stood alone — a radical minority — while the Israelites were worshipping the golden calf.
Generations later, the Prophet Elijah stood alone — a radical minority — while the majority of the ancient northern kingdom of Israel seemed to have gone to the worship of the Canaanite god, Baal.
In ancient Israel, confronting the culture of the ancient Canaanites; in the time of the Greeks; in the time of the Romans — Jews knew they were a radical minority. Jews knew their values, and they knew there were times when they had to scream out: “No!”
Rabbi Leo Baeck, the leader of German Jewry during the dark days that led to the Holocaust, put it this way: “A minority is always compelled to think. That is the blessing of being in the minority.”
Why is that? Because when you are a minority in a larger culture, you don’t have the luxury of simply taking it easy.
It means you have to think about your role in society, and you have to think about what your group has to say to society.
I have always loved that teaching from the Talmud, because I think it is the first Jewish critique of popular culture.
But now I look at it a different way. That text is saying: As bad as the ambient culture might be, you cannot barricade yourself from it. You must immerse yourself in it, while maintaining a protective moral shield around yourself. You must speak out.
The passage from the Talmud actually counsels against that. It says: No, don’t stay away! Show up! Make your voice heard! That is what it means to be a Jew in the world! Perhaps your single, solitary cry will be the cry that spans the distance between life and death.
That would be my Judaism — not one of withdrawal from the world but, rather, one of active protest.
Get ready.
We will have many opportunities to go into the Colosseum of American life and to scream.
Will your voice be among them?