Avodah Zarah 2

There are three cardinal sins in Judaism: murder, adultery and idolatry. Tractate Avodah Zarah deals with the third: What idolatry is, how to avoid it and, much more complicatedly, how to interact with those who practice it.

In the time of the rabbis, most non-Jews were idolaters, which made things economically and socially complicated for Jews, as evidenced by the opening mishnah:

On the three days before the festivals of gentiles, it is prohibited to engage in business with them, to lend items to them or to borrow items from them, to lend money to them or to borrow money from them, and to repay debts owed to them or to collect repayment of debts from them.

Rabbi Yehuda says: One may collect repayment of debts from them because this causes the gentile distress.

The rabbis said to Rabbi Yehuda: Even though he is distressed now, when he repays the money, he is happy afterward.

Jews should shun a variety of interactions with their gentile neighbors in the days before a festival so that they do not gladden them. Only activities which might cause emotional distress, like collecting debt, are permitted. Is this because Jews despise their non-Jewish neighbors and want their holidays to be a little less joyous? No, the actual reasoning here is that gentiles who worship idols are likely to make offerings on their festivals in response to things they feel good about. The point is for Jews to avoid becoming a catalyst for those offerings. Better, the rabbis say, to give the gentile business after the holiday, when it is less likely the gentile will pour a libation out to their gods in honor of the deal.

But aren’t gentiles allowed to worship idols? The Jewish answer, uncomfortably for many of us in the modern world, is no. Idol worship is not only forbidden for Jews, but for all people. Jews bear a responsibility, therefore, for not abetting it in non-Jews.

The Gemara that follows this mishnah expresses a larger hope that in the distant future gentiles will do more than simply not worship false gods — they will study Torah.
 
Rabbi Hanina bar Pappa taught, and some say that it was Rabbi Simlai who taught: In the future, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will bring a Torah scroll and place it in His lap and say: Anyone who engaged in its study should come and take his reward.

The Gemara then describes how nations line up before God to claim the rewards of Torah study, in order of importance. The Roman Empire comes first. When God asks them how they have advanced Torah study in the world, they respond that they have built marketplaces, bathhouses and other cultural structures that have increased the wealth of society — all so Israel can be free to study Torah. But God doesn’t buy it:

The Holy One, Blessed be He, says to them: Fools of the world! Everything that you did, you did for your own needs. You established marketplaces to place prostitutes in them; you built bathhouses for your own enjoyment; and as for the silver and gold that you claim to have increased, it is Mine, as it is stated: “Mine is the silver, and Mine the gold, said the Lord of hosts.” (Haggai 2:8)

Rome, one of the worst oppressors of Jewry, steps away, properly put in its place. Persia steps up next, and a similar interaction unfolds. Other nations, though they persecuted the Jews far less, are similarly chastised by God. Eventually, all these peoples have had enough and object that the game is rigged:

The nations will say before God: Master of the Universe, did You give us the Torah and we did not accept it?

The nations object to divine mistreatment, pointing out that they had no opportunity to follow God’s Torah, because it was presented only to Israel. If only Israel has received the Torah, how can other nations be held responsible for not studying it? What follows is perhaps the most famous midrash about the giving of the Torah:

Rabbi Yohanan says: … the Holy One, Blessed be He, took the Torah around to every nation and those who speak every language, such as the Edomites in Seir and the Ishmaelites in Paran, but they did not accept it, until He came to the Jewish people and they accepted it.

… Rav Dimi bar Hama says: The verse (Exodus 19:17: “And they stood at the nether part of the mount”) teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, overturned the mountain, above the Jews like a basin, and He said to them: If you accept the Torah, excellent, and if not, there, under the mountain, will be your burial.

The Jews are special, the rabbis say, because they accepted Torah when other nations did not. But perhaps they are not so special after all, as they accepted it only under threat of imminent annihilation.

This delicate tension runs throughout the tractate, which will not be an easy one — intellectually or emotionally. Other tensions also abound: Idolatry is wrong, and yet (in the rabbi’s world) most people practice it. Jews should avoid idolatry, and yet it is everywhere. God wants everyone to accept Torah, which might make us think of Jews as superior, and yet they really are no better if they only accepted it because they had no choice. 

So far, in our journey through Daf Yomi, the Talmud has been a predominantly internal text: It discusses Jewish law in a Jewish society, with only sparse references to the outside world. No longer: Tractate Avodah Zarah blows the doors open. And as the kids say, it gets complicated.

Read all of Avodah Zarah 2 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 19, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.