The opening mishnah of Tractate Avodah Zarah limits trade with gentiles in the days leading up to a pagan festival. The point is to prevent Jewish traders from providing their neighbors with materials or funds that will be used for idolatrous purposes. The explicit reason for this rule is that the Torah commands all people to refrain from idol worship. It also commands Israel to root out these idolatrous practices. But this ruling that Jews do not trade with gentiles in the days leading up to their festivals may also be influenced by Jewish distrust of those neighbors. The Jewish community experienced centuries of oppression under the yokes of a series of empires. As we progress through the tractate, we’ll see that the rabbis have difficult feelings about these empires and the people who inhabit them. With this in mind, today’s daf contains a particularly interesting observation:
Just as in the case of fish of the sea, where any fish that is bigger than another swallows the other, so too in the case of people. Were it not for the fear of the ruling government, anyone who is bigger than another would swallow the other.
And this is as we learned from Rabbi Hanina, the deputy high priest, who says: One should pray for the continued welfare of the government, as were it not for the fear of the government, every man would swallow his neighbor alive.
Rabbi Hanina’s mandate to pray for welfare of the government may be uncontroversial for those who live in free and democratic nation states where Jews benefit from the protections of civil law and those who enforce it. But to do this while living under an oppressive regime does not seem as rational. Yet the Gemara makes the case that it is.
Like the fish of the sea, argues the Gemara, humans are prone to feast off of those who are smaller and weaker than they. If predators are left unchecked, those at the bottom of the food chain stand little hope of survival. Empires are far from an ideal form of government, yet they create stability and social order which ultimately protect the minnows — Jews and other peoples without significant political power. Living in one of these empires is difficult, says Rabbi Hanina, but things could always be worse. If the lion is eliminated, what is to stop the wolves from devouring us?
According to rabbinic tradition, Rabbi Hanina served as the deputy high priest in the Temple in the latter half of the 1st century of the Common Era when the question about whether to rebel against Rome fractured the Jewish community. Many of his contemporaries believed that taking up arms would free the Jewish people from Roman oppression. Rabbi Hanina’s teaching suggests that he was not among them. As we know, the rebellion failed, the Temple was destroyed and Rabbi Hanina was martyred.
Yet his words live on, preserved in the Mishnah and recalled in the opening conversation of Tractate Avodah Zarah. Perhaps they are there to remind us that even if we have suffered at the hands of idolaters who have ruled over us, we might still be better off if we prayed for their welfare.
Read all of Avodah Zarah 4 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 22, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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