It’s a famous photograph: a single bright yellow tulip amid an entire field of fiery red flowers. When we look at it struck by the contrast we resonate with the artistic expression of that deep human need: to stand out from the crowd. To feel the strength of my uniqueness. To be an individual.
But we’ve also gazed in wonder at the perfect symmetry of a flock of geese in flight. The power and raw beauty of a perfectly blended group also elicit gasps of wonder.
It seems that we’re drawn in two directions: We have a need to express our individuality and yet we also want to be part of a group. These two needs are not easy to reconcile.

Standing Apart
When I think of an individual I think of Joe. Joe is a teenage camper at Chai Lifeline’s Camp Simcha Special where I have the zechus to spend my summers. More than the fresh mountain air refreshes body and spirit getting to know the campers refreshes the soul.
When I saw Joe this past summer I noticed that he was sporting a yarmulke and tzitzis. Camp Simcha caters to kids coming from the full range of Jewish observance. I didn’t recall Joe having presented himself as religious the previous year. “Is the new look in honor of camp?” I asked Joe.
“No ” he said with pride. “This has been since camp ended last year!”
I was impressed not least because Joe doesn’t live in an environment where outward displays of Judaism are the norm. “Do you go dressed like that to your public school?” I asked.
“Sure thing ” Joe said. “Why should it bother me? I know that I am different already and so do they!”
Joe is a yellow tulip in a field of red. And I admire him tremendously for his inner strength. At its basic level becoming an individual entails standing up to peer pressure. That’s not easy. The Rambam himself writes: “It is man’s nature to be drawn after his surroundings.” He doesn’t classify our malleability as a failing; rather documents it as an intrinsic part of the way in which we were created. Which only makes it more difficult for us to withstand peer pressure and become like Joe.
Friends of mine found themselves living in a community that offered them financial security friendship and community involvement. At the same time as their children were approaching high school age they found that the quality of and focus on Yiddishkeit they had pictured for their family as inspired newlyweds was not what was materializing. The schools offered premium education but catered to a crowd of parents with different priorities. A very thought-provoking school dinner galvanized the decision: “We must move!”
They sold their home searched for jobs in a new city put their possessions in storage and upset what had been a happy and stable situation.
How did they do it? They clearly recognized that they held the reins of their own lives. This clarity gave them the confidence to do what was best for their family. Baruch Hashem now a number of years later they are seeing much Yiddishe nachas in their new community.

A Dance of Forces
The pull toward being in and with-it can be insidious. And perhaps the worst fallout is that it subtly pulls us away from our individuality from the identity that comes from deep within. The importance of a social framework is highlighted in the account of Creation. There we are told: Lo tov heyos haadam levado (Bereishis 2:18). When alone without a social framework man is in a state of lo tov. What is “tov”? Shlomo Hamelech states in Koheles (4:9) “Tovim hashnayim min ha’echad — Two is better than the one.” That pristine level of tov is attained through our relationships. Our unique worlds are filled with the people Hashem placed there to guide us and to challenge us. Social frameworks are an intrinsic part of our life’s mission.
And yet how to balance between the pull of the group — even the most positive social group — and the tug of our inner soul? The dance between these two forces is not new. Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky highlights a startling paradox in the parshah of the metzora that illuminates just this point. A metzora is condemned to isolation. He sits outside the camp in isolation. However the process of becoming a metzora must start within. Each victim must present himself to the Kohein Gadol who then determines the man’s status. But nowhere does it say that a man is compelled to consult the Kohein Gadol. Potentially the small white hair could be plucked out and the whole incident ignored! Reb Yaakov compares this to someone who is placed in handcuffs but given the key.
He then explains that tzaraas the physical repercussion of speaking lashon hara constitutes a message: Mend your ways! A person was free to ignore that message if he chose to do so. However a person of spiritual sensitivity realized that his negative speech was intrinsically bound up with the company he kept. His social network enabled — perhaps even motivated — him to speak wrongly.
If the man had kept better company if he’d surrounded himself with peers who were careful with shemiras halashon he would never have had the opportunity to indulge in the one-upmanship of another’s deprecation.
Sitting outside the camp therefore was not simply punitive. It was restorative. It gave the metzora an opportunity for self-discovery and personal fortification. Being alone without the whispers of a group’s comments allowed the metzora to discover that he’s an individual — empowered to make his own spiritual decisions — and to become aware of how he’s influenced by others. The spiritual root of negative speech is thus rectified. Reb Yaakov expresses it thus: “It is for his own good that he sits outside the camp so that he will not be negatively influenced by his peers — for he has been nizok (spiritually injured) because of that group!”
The antidote to negative peer pressure then is to step back move within and reexamine oneself as an individual.

Jilting Jealousy
Rav Shlomo Wolbe cautions us not to take this too far. In his Alei Shur he explains that overemphasis on the me can have a deleterious effect on an entire group. What prevents a group from being a chevra tovah a positive force? he asks. The anochi — the I! The I is the source of jealousy theft and lashon hara. Focusing on the I causes a person to constantly compare his neighbor’s life and possessions with his own. The I will then search for any means possible to match his lifestyle with the neighbor’s.
When drawing back from a group and stepping into one’s own personal space a balance has to be found. The I within is not simply the urge to keep up with others the coveting of lifestyles and possessions not my own. I have to look for I that brims with the confidence of bishvili nivra ha’olam — the world was created for me: for the choices I make the person I become. A natural extension of this is the understanding that whatever I need for my life is already within my world.
At the crux of withstanding peer pressure is the commandment of “Lo sachmod — Do not covet.” Imagine what would happen to the advertisement industry if coveting was a simple challenge to withstand. The Ibn Ezra acknowledges that in this command the Ribbono shel Olam makes high demands of humanity. After all the “me too” urge seems ingrained in us since childhood. It’s this “me too ” in an adult form that has spawned a billion-dollar industry. Knowing that all commandments we are given are meant to be challenges that we are innately capable of overcoming the Ibn Ezra postulates the mind-set through which one can fulfill this one.
Lo sachmod in its broader sense is a positive injunction to awaken to my own individual world. Instead of straining against the parameters in which I live I expand my inner horizons and am energized and gratified by what I find within.
When I speak to teenagers I regularly comment about the struggle to be individuals while at the same time fitting in. Those often turbulent years are characterized by the innate need to define one’s self coupled with a burning desire to “belong” to something.
With adulthood we become aware that successful balance incorporates both the individual and society. The symphony of self-confidence can only result from the combination of the beautiful tune of self-tempo within the larger orchestra of the social world.

Rebbetzin Aviva Feiner is the rebbetzin of Congregation Kneseth Israel (The White Shul) and menaheles of Machon Basya Rochel Seminary both in Far Rockaway.