Lot's Failures

Parshat Lekh Lekha 

 by Rabbi Avi Billet

 Lot looked up and saw that the entire Jordan Plain, all the way to Tzoar had plenty of water. (This was before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) It was like God's own garden, like the land of Egypt. Lot chose for himself the entire Jordan Plain. He headed eastward, and the two separated. Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot dwelt in the cities of the Plain, having migrated as far as Sodom. But the people of Sodom were very wicked, and they sinned against God. (13:10-13) 

From one general perspective, Avram’s nephew Lot is considered to be a positive, albeit tragic figure. We give credit to the trait of hakhnosas orchim (welcoming guests) that he learned from his uncle, and the Rabbis believed Lot was eventually a judge in Sodom. There were rules about how Ammon and Moav (Lot’s sons conceived through an incestual relationship) were to be treated by Moshe and the conquering Israelites on account of the familial relationship, which were only cancelled when Moav attacked Israel in Bamidbar 24, as described in Devarim 2:9, as well as the historical note of Sichon having conquered those lands (see Bamidbar 21:26), making them available to Israel to conquer from Sichon.

When In An Argument...

In the parsha, the forefather in question is named Avram until his name change at his circumcision. Following the adjudication of Berachot 13a, he is referred to as "Avraham" in this article.

Parshat Lekh Lekha

The King of Egypt discovers the woman he has brought into his chambers is married to a different man, and he makes all kinds of accusations. "What have you done to me? Why didn't you tell me she is your wife? Why did you say she is your sister, leading me to take her as a wife? Now – take your wife and go!" Paraoh then commanded and sent him and his wife out of the land. (12:18-20)

            

Avraham's response to this is silence. Either he is not given a chance to respond, or perhaps more likely, he recognized that responding, whether truthfully or in anger, would go nowhere. Avraham knew that having the last word was not only unnecessary, but were it be the wrong word, it may come back to bite him. After all, he did come to Egypt looking for help. He should be grateful he is going free (with many gifts!) with merely a tongue lashing.

            

The king of Sodom arrogantly tells Avraham, who has just saved him and his people at tremendous peril and self sacrifice, that Avraham should give him the POWs as he gives Avraham permission to keep the booty that is rightfully Avraham's.

Avraham does have the last word as he tells the king that he does not intend to keep anything beyond what his men have already eaten. Sometimes you need to give the swift kick and end the conversation. Especially since the gratitude should have come in the other direction – from King of Sodom towards Avraham. (14:17-24)

            

In both cases, Avraham does not have nor does he intend to pursue a longer term relationship with these kings. Though the reason for each encounter likely contributes to how Avraham chooses to deal with the person in question.

Let us look, however, at the two arguments Avraham has with people for whom he does care deeply.

          
When Avraham's shepherds argue with Lot's shepherds, Avraham is the one who intervenes saying, "Let there not be an argument between me and you, and between my shepherds and your shepherds, for we are brothers."

          
He gives Lot a very generous offer – You pick where you want to be. Stay here or pick a direction. Whatever you choose, I will go the other way. (13:8-9) That Lotchooses to go to Sodom is aseparate factor. But they part in peace and Avraham has achieved his objective.

          
After Sarah gives her maid to Avraham, demonstrating tremendous self-sacrifice and concern for her husband so he could have a son, Hagar denigrates her mistress who has been suffering with infertility for years. "I am angry at you," she says to Avraham, "because I gave you my maid, she has become pregnant, and I have become denigrated." (16:3-5)

          
It is ironic that Avraham is blamed for doing exactly what his wife told him to do. But note how he does not say, "Why are you yelling at me? It's YOUR fault! You asked for this! What do you expect of me? I did what you told me! I'm going to be the father I always wanted to be. I'm going to have a child – something you could never provide for me!"

He does say, "Here is your maid. Do to her what is best in your eyes." (16:6) Radak says Avraham did this for the sake of Shalom Bayis (to preserve peace in their home), so Sarah can feel good about herself again one day.

There is a much longer conversation to be had about how Hagar was treated in this incident. The commentaries are split over the choices made here - Ramban is critical of both Sarah and Avraham on account of her treatment of Hagar, the Riva defends them both. Radak says though we normally learn model behavior from the forefathers, here we learn how not to treat someone from the way Hagar is treated.

The question here is, do Avraham and Sarah respect one another in this exchange? It's not like with the kings where you either ignore the person or tell him off. Even more than he cared for Lot Avraham cared for his wife. And as his demonstration of compromise played out with Lot, it played out even moreso with his wife, with whom he intended to live for the rest of his life.

And it is completely in character for Avraham. Remember how he resolved the dispute with Lot. You choose. You decide. I don't need to have the last word. I don't need to be the one sitting on top, sitting on the gold mine, with the choice land or property. I want YOU to be happy. I want YOU to find peace.

It's hard to judge Sarah. She is a woman who has suffered terribly – with infertility, her maid's mistreating her, and her maid getting pregnant right away while Sarah remains barren.

But Avraham certainly teaches us a few things about the "rules of engagement" in an argument.

Ben Zoma concludes a listing of a few important rhetorical questions (Avot 4:1) by asking, "Who is honored? Who is honorable? One who gives honor to all of God's creatures." Certainly the first place to begin is with one's loved ones. Treat them with respect. Preserve their dignity at all times. Don't argue in front of other people.

A person must not say. "You were wrong and I was right. You always do this. You don't care about me. Nothing that matters to me matters to you. Your choices disgust me. I would never do the things you do, treat others the way you do, talk about myself the way you do, or think so highly of myself that I could never admit I might be wrong. But YOU. All the time – always the same. When will you ever learn?"

A person needs to think in the following way. "I am going to express my needs. What I have done, my reasoning, why I did it. I will explain where I am coming from. I will explain my choices. I will emphasize my commitment and dedication to this relationship. I care about you. I care about us. Above all, I want there to be peace between us. I want to hear your side, I want to hear your perspective, and really want us to come to a resolution."

As long as communication is done respectfully, resolution is attainable with dignity, honor, respect, and love. After all, "Who is most honored?" Those who want the best for one another, and demonstrate it through treating one another with the utmost respect.

Not a Moment Earlier

This can also be seen at the Jewish Star
Parshat Vayera

Avraham has three visitors. Two of them go on to Sodom to destroy the city and save Lot.

When their presence in Lot’s house is discovered, the townspeople come, per their Sodomite way, to “take pleasure” with the unwanted guests (19:5). Lot defends his visitors and even goes so far as to offer his daughters to the mob in order to save them.

Lot’s counteroffer is abhorrent, and the visitors grab Lot, bring him inside (19:10), while the mob outside is struck with blindness so they can do no harm (19:11).

Why were the people of Sodom struck with blindness? This is Sodom — a city that is going to be overturned in a short while, at which time, everyone, including the newly blind, will die.

Why not just kill them now? Get them out of the way, avoid the confusion and make the message clear to Lot’s family that the visitors are on a serious mission..

There are a number of reasons we can suggest why the provocateurs were not struck down at Lot’s doorstep.

Homiletically, we can quote the rabbinic dictum that “blind is considered dead” (Nedarim 64b). This can immediately be rejected, however, because when a person is to be punished with death, blindness is never another option to make it “as if the person is dead.” Tosafot says that the categories of people who are “like dead” are those who have more difficult lives, regarding whom the rest of us need to beseech G-d for mercy on their behalf.

The blindness the Sodomites received was what they were meant to receive  — which leads to our second suggestion. God’s modus operandi is “middah k’neged middah” — measure for measure. In this case, the people of Sodom looked at something they shouldn’t have: Lot’s guests. The people of Sodom then came to their abominable conclusion of how they’d treat Lot’s guests, and were punished by losing their sight, the sense that brought on their mob-mentality.

A third suggestion is that the blindness was incurred for a different reason of middah k’neged middah.

Sodomites were notorious for torturing those they considered “unwanted” before they died. The blindness the Sodomites suffered was torture before their death.

Perhaps the most suggestive perspective is that the Sodomites could not be killed because it was not yet their time to die. In other words, even in Sodom, even in a place that is doomed, every minute of life is precious.

The angels told Lot they could not overturn the city until Lot was safely out of it. Perhaps others might have had the opportunity to escape in this time, were they willing to contemplate the consequences of their staying put. Lot’s delay was a window for those on the fringes to be saved.

Perhaps for some people, teshuvah (repentance) was never taken off the table as a viable option, were they to merely consider it.

The people of Sodom, of course, could not change their ways. Their evil was too entrenched in their make up, too much a part of who they were, they could not imagine joining a normal society.

The blindness was indeed middah k’neged middah. A people who are so blind that they cannot see the evil of their ways will only merit blindness before the maelstrom hits.

At the same time, G-d’s ways are kindness. They were not meant to die yet. Because of this, their deaths did not come prematurely, at a moment when they were doing their final despicable act of immorality. It came the way it was meant to come, at the predetermined time, and not a moment earlier.

Lot's Daughters

This article appears in this week's Jewish Star

Parsha: What happens when we assume

Parshat Vayera

By Rabbi Avi Billet

Issue of November 6, 2009/ 19 Cheshvan 5770

I always thought the story of Lot’s daughters was not taught in grade school because the material is inappropriate for children.

Reading it again, the initial sentiment still holds true. But an even bigger problem exists: the story makes no logical sense. Zero.

Consider: two daughters escape the Armageddon of their time. According to Rashi (19:31) they thought the world had been destroyed and that they and their father were the only survivors.

Considering his age and that there seem to be no other men, they take matters into their own hands, quickly become pregnant through him and give birth to Moav and Ammon — the fathers of two nations who were so devastating to our people.

It would seem that because of his age they were concerned he would not father another child. So what? If they believed they were the only survivors in the world, their father’s inability to marry and have another child is irrelevant. Even if he could, the son their father might have would be their brother, making a future marriage to him impossible according to most rules of the world.

If they were right in assuming there were no other men in the world to whom they could be married, and that their father was the only option, their focus on his age indicates the necessity for expedience. But what was their long-term plan?

They both had boys. Were they planning to continue to reproduce with their offspring, assuming Daddy would kick the bucket before their children were old enough to become fathers? And what would they have done had they both had girls?

Ramban writes (19:32) that they hoped one would have a girl and the other would have a boy. This is sincere, almost admirable. What lovely intentions. Did they consider alternative possibilities should they not produce their desired gender outcome?

More likely they weren’t really thinking of different permutations. Considering the relationship that existed between Lot and these two daughters, along with the family history of living in Sodom, there were bigger problems than “what will happen to the children born from Daddy?”

Lot offered his daughters to a mob in Sodom in exchange for protecting his mysterious guests. Between them, there seems to have been no love lost over the demise of Lot’s wife. The city of Sodom seems to have been a breeding ground of sexual immorality in which about everything “went.” This is the background for our strange tale.

To their intellectual credit, the girls were pretty sure that in a sober state their father would never go along with their plan. Perhaps that is to Lot’s credit as well.

On the other hand, the Talmud (Nazir 23a) explains that the word “u’v’kumah” (“and when she arose”) — which appears in the context of Lot not knowing of his elders daughter’s deed neither when she went to sleep nor when she woke up — appears in the Torah with dots to indicate that he actually did discover her deed when she woke up. As such, he was at fault when he allowed them to get him drunk the following night, now having full understanding of their intentions.

Ramban records two points of note: a Talmudic opinion that a Noahide is permitted to marry his daughter (Sanhedrin 58b), and a Talmudic defense of Lot (Nazir 23).

But if the midrash is correct that the daughters of Lot felt the destruction was as devastating as the flood (Bereishit Rabba 51:8), making it their duty to repopulate the world, why did they not wait for Divine instruction? If they felt they had been chosen, and they modeled their story on that of Noach, wouldn’t they expect directions from G-d?

How Adam and Chava populated the world beginning with two sons is a topic of one discussion. That Noach had three married sons who could procreate after the flood is a different discussion.

Whether one looks at their intentions as honorable or otherwise, the outcome of their actions produced Ammon and Moav.

As much as we can, we are meant to seek Divine guidance through the Torah and the mesorah (heritage) available to us. When there is no guidance, or the script is not written, what do we do to move on with our lives?

Sometimes we need to do a lot of legwork to find an answer. Sometimes it requires leaving the cave, finding the right person who can help and guide us along the way. And sometimes it means really exploring to see if our assumptions were correct, or if the difficulty in our life was really limited to a small time and place, making it, in the scheme of things, much less of a big deal than we originally thought.

But if we jump to our own conclusions, even if we’re not literally guilty of bringing an Ammon and Moav into this world, we are at least guilty of the same kinds of behavior that lead to a devastation of our people.