Genesis 18-23 - Who is Sodom Today?
by Rabbi Jeremy Rosen
"And the men of Sodom were evil and wicked" (Genesis 13:13).
Can a whole society be corrupt? Surely some people must be able to see when things begin to go wrong, or peer pressure is just too powerful to resist. Or do they prefer to turn a blind eye and hope it will pass? Too often it is too late. Ignorance, appeasement, turning a blind eye, and not realizing that someone else’s problem can soon become ours, all contribute to the situation we now face. Huge tranches of society think it perfectly acceptable to chant in public mass demonstrations “Kill the Jews”. Or “from the Jordan to the sea” which implies eliminating the Jewish state and its people. To be fair we ourselves have shown division and antipathy that, of course on a quite different but still significant level, we too can be guilty of not seeing bad and counterproductive behavior for what it is.
In the Torah this week, we see how a society can become so corrupt that it cannot see its own decline. And the degrading effect this can have on otherwise good people.
Lot, Avraham’s nephew had grown up in Avraham’s house. He learned about hospitality and the importance of a moral way of life. But when he chose to live in Sodom, it was initially for purely material motives. He wanted to make a living at all costs. The trouble was that he did not realize how dangerous living amongst people who put money and selfishness above all else could be. When Avraham rescued Lot after Sodom was captured Lot will have seen how Avraham’s concern for others motivated him to rescue the city after its inhabitants had been captured and held hostage. Not only, but he should have learned from the company that Avraham kept, and the alliances he made with other good people. Not everyone was evil.
But Lot clearly did not mind his bad company and returned and stayed. When God revealed to Avraham the fate of Sodom, Avraham implored God to consider the good people there must have been amongst all the bad ones. But it soon became clear there were no people worth saving. Except for Lot who showed that he retained something of Avraham’s values, and he offered hospitality to the visitors who came to Sodom despite the hatred the people of Sodom had towards strangers. In this at least he indeed followed Avraham’s example.
When the men of Sodom tried to break into his home to rape the visitors, Lot tried to prevent them by offering his two unmarried daughters to the mob to protect his guests. He evidently had lost a comprehensive sense of what was right and what not. The influence of the society he was living in had destroyed his moral sense. And to make matters worse, after he and his daughters escaped the fire, he was a willing conspirator in his daughter’s determination to sleep with him when they had got him drunk.
Public opinion is fickle, illogical, and dangerous. Think of all those popular revolutions that turned into violence. If one lives in a society where there is no moral standard or fanaticism has persuaded them that anything is right to pursue their agenda, over time one loses perspective and what is right and what is wrong. Israel is not the Nazi, but those who succumb to mob rule are.
There are choices and good people can make them. The Ethics of the Fathers says, “In a place where no one is prepared to stand up and be a good person, you must be ready to stand up alone” (Pirkei Avot Chapter 2:6). Sadly, not enough of us are prepared to stand up to group pressure, whether in religious communities or political and collegiate institutions that seek to impose their authority on others.
In the world we are living in now there is no right or wrong, just arbitrary concepts of relativism and dogma. Whatever I say is good is good. And what I say is bad, is bad. You can rape torture, burn babies alive, and massacre if you are a Hamas Palestinian, and half the world will applaud you. And those same people will curse Israel if it defends itself. Or, like Hamas you continue to spend money, fuel, and resources, bombing Israel, while your people starve.
That is called being “a dog in the manger.” We call it Midat Sdom, “The Nature of Sodom” we read this week. How appropriate.
That is no way for any decent human being to live.
Shabbat Shalom
Jeremy
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Jeremy Rosen was born in Manchester, England, the eldest son of Rabbi Kopul Rosen and Bella Rosen. Rosen's thinking was strongly influenced by his father, who rejected fundamentalist and obscurantist approaches in favour of being open to the best the secular world has to offer while remaining committed to religious life. He was first educated at Carmel College, the school his father had founded based on this philosophical orientation. At his father's direction, Rosen also studied at Be'er Yaakov Yeshiva in Israel (1957–1958 and 1960). He then went on to Merkaz Harav Kook (1961), and Mir Yeshiva (1965–1968) in Jerusalem, where he received semicha from Rabbi Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz in addition to Rabbi Dovid Povarsky of Ponevezh and Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Yeshivat Be'er Ya'akov. In between Rosen attended Cambridge University (1962–1965), graduating with a degree in Moral Sciences.