We’ve spent much of this tractate emphasizing the ways that the rabbis require Jews to distance themselves from foreign worship. But as becomes clear on today’s daf, living in the real world makes that difficult, if not impossible. The Mishnah recounts:
Proclus ben Plospus spoke to Rabban Gamliel in Akko while he was bathing in the bathhouse of Aphrodite. Proclus said to him: It is written in your Torah: “nothing of the proscribed items shall cleave to your hand.” (Deuteronomy 13:18) For what reason do you bathe in the bathhouse of Aphrodite?
Proclus, a non-Jew who is apparently well-versed in Torah, asks Rabban Gamliel an uncomfortable question: If it is forbidden to interact with or benefit from idolatry, how can he patronize a bathhouse dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite? As will soon be apparent, the bathhouse is not only dedicated to this goddess, it houses a statue of her.
Rabban Gamliel initially delays the conversation, telling Proclus that Torah deserves to be discussed in a more dignified place than a public bathhouse. After they are washed and once again clothed, he offers two explanations for his actions.
Rabban Gamliel said to him: I did not come into her domain; she came into my domain. They do not say: Let us make a bathhouse as an adornment for Aphrodite; rather, they say: Let us make a statue of Aphrodite as an adornment for the bathhouse.
Alternatively: Even if people give you a lot of money, you would not enter before your idol naked, nor as one who experienced a seminal emission, nor urinate before it. Yet this statue stands upon the sewage pipe and all the people urinate before it. It is stated only: “Their gods” (see Deuteronomy 12:2) — i.e., those which people treat as deities — are forbidden. But that which people do not treat as a deity is permitted.
Rabban Gamliel’s first answer makes it clear that the bathhouse existed before it was dedicated to Aphrodite, and the inclusion of the statue did not turn it into a temple. Therefore, while the statue may be forbidden, the bathhouse itself is not. But then, more evocatively, he points out that the statue of Aphrodite in the bathhouse is not treated as an object of worship at all, but as a piece of decor. Its placement above the toilet is particularly noteworthy — hardly a spot worthy of a true object of worship. To Rabban Gamliel’s thinking, then, a purely decorative statue is different from a real idol of the goddess.
As we’ve already seen, the rabbis are fully aware of how the foreign images around them convey religious messages. But here Rabban Gamliel rejects the idea that these objects always convey such messages. I’m not entirely persuaded. When I hang a hamsa or a wall-hanging with the seven species up in my house, it’s true that I’m not fulfilling a mitzvah per se. That is, its not an overt religious act. But I am making powerful if subtle claims about my identity, my community and my relationship to Judaism. Art, even simply decorative art, is never neutral.
So why does Rabban Gamliel claim that it is? Seth Schwartz argues that the rabbis draw a legal distinction between decorative art and other non-cultic forms of religiosity and true Avodah Zarah in order to be able to live and function in cities covered in Roman iconography. While modern scholars seek to understand Rabban Gamliel’s behavior more generally, what troubles the rabbis of the Talmud in this story is something else entirely: Rabban Gamliel’s first statement to Proclus, that one may not teach Torah in a bathhouse. Their concern? Stating this halakhah is itself Torah, which has now been discussed in a bathhouse! To resolve this problem, the Talmud rewrites the end of the mishnah:
Teach: When he left the bathhouse, Rabban Gamliel said to him: One may not answer questions related to Torah in the bathhouse.
The fact that the Talmud doesn’t rewrite the rest of the story is telling. We are left to conclude that Rabban Gamliel is doing nothing wrong by frequenting a bathhouse dedicated to Aphrodite. To live in a multicultural city requires a degree of nuance and accommodation which halakhah can and does provide in this case.
Read all of Avodah Zarah 44 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on August 1, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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