Herd Mentality

Why do some Israelis insist on pushing onto the bus before letting the others off? This has always baffled me as its inefficient.

Just wait a few seconds, let people exit, and then get on. It would be faster, and honestly, way less stressful.

To be fair, we as a nation have been embroiled in wars since our very existence and in the ’70s and ’80s dealt with hyperinflation, so I’ll give us a bit of a break—when your currency is devaluing by the second and you are in a state of war, you develop a certain urgency in life. Thankfully, today we have a government with foresight, and things like retirement savings and child savings plans are mandatory by law. Plus, we are winning hopefully our final war. So why, despite all this progress, does the bus situation remain unchanged?

Here’s the thing: If an entire society does something and I’m the only one who doesn’t, maybe—just maybe—there’s something I need to understand before assuming they’re wrong (though for the life of me, I don’t and will never understand why Israelis insist on schlepping around a pachal kafe around for days just to make coffee while hiking. I don’t get it, and do appreciate when they make me a coffee).

To call Israelis pushy is oversimplifying a deeply ingrained psychological behavior, as a lot of what people do comes from herd mentality. It’s not necessarily a conscious decision. People push onto buses not because they believe in it as an efficient system but because that’s just what everyone does. It’s automatic. It’s ingrained. No one stops to think, Is this the best way to do this?

This is exactly what we see in this week’s parsha. Hashem doesn’t take Bnei Yisrael through the shortest route to Eretz Yisrael because the moment they see war, they’ll run right back to Egypt—not because of deep thought or personal conviction, but because that’s just what the crowd is doing. They left as a group, and if the group panics, they’ll go back as a group.

That’s the power of herd mentality. It’s easy to fall into patterns simply because “this is what we’ve always done.” But the Torah is reminding us that true growth comes from pausing to ask: Why am I doing this? Is this the best way? Is this even the right way?

Life is full of bus situations. The question is whether we’re mindlessly pushing forward just because everyone else is—or whether we take a second to step back, reassess, and maybe, just maybe, wait for the people to get off first.

Shabbat Shalom!