Spiritual and Ethical Issues in the Historical Books of Tanach; SPIRITUAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES IN THE BEREISHIT STORIES
by Dr. Meir Tamari

These four books ostensibly are merely the history of Israel from the entry into the Promised Land until the destruction of the Temple and the temporary loss of independent statehood. In fact they are actually, in a specifically Jewish sense, the most deeply religious and spiritual books of the Bible. One does not have to be specifically Jewish to see or feel the religion and spirituality in the revelations of the prophetic writings or in the words of the Tehillim. They speak to all people, as evidenced by the fact that the Bible is still the world's bestseller and there are millions of non-Jews who regularly recite the Psalms. However, it is specifically and intrinsically Jewish to understand that G-d is revealed in the prosaic material, in the political, social and military events in the lives of ordinary men and women, kings and leaders that are described in the Nevim Rishonim. Here are described the ideology and religious thoughts in Judaism, while in Chronicles we have the purely historical.

Avraham, Lot, and Sedom [1]
The people of Sedom and her four neighbors are evil and sinful and the cry of the oppressed has reached Heaven, yet why is it essential that they be destroyed? Were they then worse than any other people or nation? Ramban sees the reason in the very nature of Eretz Yisrael: "The people of Sedom were no worse that those of the other nations yet as they were living in Eretz Yisrael, a spiritual Land that cannot bear iniquity and evil, they had to be destroyed. All other nations, irrespective of their misdeeds, will strengthen and support the hands of the weak and poor, yet in Sedom they trod on them and oppressed them. So our sages said (Sanhedrin 109a) that although they had all the evil midot, Hashem only destroyed them because they did not support the hands of the poor". "Since Avraham's merits were Chesed and Tzedaka, and Sedom utterly rejected these, its people had to be cast out of the Land that was Avraham's inheritance. Furthermore the destruction of Sedom came during the time of Avraham whose merit is Chesed and not Yitschak, who is Din, in order to teach that unlimited Chesed is pernicious and has to be tempered with Justice" (Shem Mi Shmuel).

Before destroying the five cities, Hashem reveals His intentions to Avraham and gives a reason for this foreknowledge: "So that he will teach the members of his house to keep the way of Hashem to do tzedaka - benevolence as a duty and mishpat - justice, that G-d may bring upon Avraham that which He has spoken of him" (B'reishit 18:19). "How can I destroy the five cities some of which are in the territory that I have promised to Avraham and his descendants and others which belong to their neighbors, and not reveal it to him?" (Midrash Tanchuma). "Hashem informed Avraham of the destruction of Sedom so that his descendants should know that He punishes the wicked and that the destruction was not due to natural phenomena but an act of G-d. Therefore, they themselves should be careful not to imitate Sedom. Rather they should do benevolence and justice otherwise they might suffer a similar fate" (Radak). Rabbi Hirsch sees the explanation in that: "The Abrahamic way constitutes the most complete contrast to Sedom, the tzedaka contrasting with their immorality and the Mishpat with their hardness of heart. We see in the same verse in B'reishit that Avraham will first teach his descendants to keep the way of G-d, since a pure moral life before G-d is the preliminary condition for a truly just life of righteousness with our fellow men; Bein Adam laMakom is the root of bein Adam l'Chavero. Usually Mishpat in the Torah precedes Tzedaka since to rob or act dishonestly with one hand and then to give charity with ill gotten wealth is an abomination to Jewish ideas.

Yet here Tzedaka comes first since in Sedomic justice only achievement, but not necessity, is considered grounds for a claim; wretchedness is despised; rich strangers like Lot may be admitted but begging is prohibited and hungry unfortunates are treated as criminals. Justice without Tzedaka becomes perverted into harshness and uncharitable acts". "Avraham will father a great and populous nation and his name will be famous to his descendants and to the nations of the world, so that if I withhold this knowledge from him future generations will say that this great tzaddik was cruel since he did not pray for his neighbors. Furthermore, I know that he will bear witness that I only do Justice with Tzedaka so he will pray for them and, when convinced that they deserve the punishment, will agree that it is righteous" (Ramban).

"It is written: 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked rather that he turn from his way and live' (Yechezkeil 33:11). So He made His will known to Avraham in order that he should be their advocate; immediately we read 'and Avraham stood before Him in prayer'" (Midrash Tan- chuma). He did not base his plea on the presence of his kinsman Lot in Sedom; his concern went beyond the family, tribe or nation just as Moshe protected the daughters of the non-Jew Yitro. He did not invoke mercy nor did he argue that Sedom was not evil rather his question was if Divine Justice could be reconciled with punishing tzadikim because of the evil-doers. "Applied to the whole world this would not be justice, but destruction of the whole world, since most of Mankind are evil" (Sforno). We see that Hashem had actually answered this question in verse 21 where there is a pause between "whether they have done as the cry of the oppressed that has reached Me" and "Kalah" which can mean I will destroy but also all of them, so that there were no protesters against the evil. This would make the evil in Sedom not merely the acts of individual criminals but rather a corruption shared in by all ["All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to be silent"]. Because of this communal effect, Avraham made his pleas in tens; that being the minimum for an EIDA as we learn from the 10 Spies called by Hashem EIDA (Bamidbar 14:27). Five cities, so he starts with 50, 10 tzadikim in each city, then 40 assuming the destruction of 1 city, and down to 10 assuming the salvation of only 1 city. " The number 45 [which departs from this pattern] is the sum of 9 tzadikim in the 5 towns and Hashem joins each city as the 10th to the minyan in each" (Rashi); a marvelous teaching of Hashem's mercy as is the use of the Name that symbolizes His Chesed throughout the story of Sedom.

Lot was definitely of an inferior moral and religious caliber than Avraham. His choice of living in Sedom knowing the evil and sins of its people, rather than remaining attached to Avraham, attests vehemently to this. Yet he risks his life when he welcomes guests in opposition to the laws of Sedom. That chesed was a family trait is shown by Rivke when Eliezer was at the well and even by the acceptance by Lavan of the penniless Yaakov when he fled there. Those sparks of divinity came back home to the Abrahamic nation and to Jewish Royalty with Ruth of Moav and Naamah of Ammon, descendants of Lot from Sedom.

This is the 106th installment in Dr. Tamari’s series on “Tanach and its messages for our times”

[The Parshat Vayeitzei Homepage]
[The TORAH tidbits Homepage] [How to use TORAH tidbits]
[About The OU/NCSY Israel Center] [About TORAH tidbits]
 [www.ou.org]