In complete contrast to Abraham, the man of kindness and faith, Sodom is presented in our parasha as the city of sins, so much so that its name has become a symbol of a corrupt, hedonistic, egoistic and cruel city. In the Torah, it is not specifically stated what the people of Sodom sinned and what was their wickedness that necessitated the overthrow of the city. The Torah is content with the general statement “And the people of Sodom are very bad and sin against God”, but what is narrated later in the passage illustrates a little of this wickedness.
The angels in the form of people arrive at Lot’s house, and the people of the city gather around the house and demand: “Bring her out to us and let us know you” – that is, a demand for the mass rape of the guests, whose whole sin was that they ended up in the city. The questioner will ask – and where were the police? the military? The king and his soldiers? He will answer this season, apparently there with the people of the city around the house demanding that they comply with the city’s laws, meaning cruelty towards guests, who will no longer dare to pass through the city.
The prophet gives additional information concerning the people of the city and its sins. When Ezekiel reproves the people of Israel for their sins, he tells the people that it is similar to Sodom and details what: “And this was the iniquity of Sodom your sister: the genius of seven bread and peace of peace was for her and her daughters, but a poor and despicable hand she did not hold, and she exalted herself and made her abominations before me.” The description of Sodom as a “genius of seven breads”, that is, a rich and proud city, corresponds to what we read in the previous verse regarding Lot looking for a place to live after his separation from Abraham: “And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the Jordan, that it was full of water, before God destroyed Sodom and Amrah is like the garden of God like the land of Egypt.” Despite its great wealth, the people of Sodom firmly refused to share their wealth with others – “a poor and destitute hand did not hold”.
This is how the Ramban explains the reason why the people of Sodom wanted to rape the guests: “Their intention was to destroy the habitation among them (that is, to prevent guests from coming to visit the city) as our rabbis said.” The Ramban refers to the words of the Gemara in the Sanhedrin: A favor that the Holy One, blessed be He, had on them… Why do we have passers-by who do not come to us except for our lack of money, let’s forget Torah Torah from our land.” Not only did the people of Sodom harm the guests, but also “hatred of the rich” was prevalent there according to the words of the same Gemara: “It teaches that they would set their eyes on those who have wealth and sit him by a leaning wall and pound him against it (that is, knock down the wall) and take his wealth.” The lack of respect for the right to property and private property also leads to a lack of respect for human life and organized murder by the state itself as we have seen happened in many countries that have chosen this path in the last hundred years.
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The Ramban continues and explains the reason for the desire of the sons of Sodom to “bride a leg from among them”:
“Because they felt that because of the good of their country, which is like God’s garden, many would come there and they would be afflicted with charity… their judgment ended (that is, the reason for which they were punished in the end) for that injustice, because they did not hold the hand of the poor and destitute, Because they were frequent in that iniquity more than all, and also because all nations do righteousness with their flocks and with their poor, there was not among all the nations like Sodom for cruelty“.
In other words, it is precisely from the great abundance that Sodom was awarded that the avarice stands out. Human nature is to help his friends and relatives as much as he can. People care about their families, the people of their city and the citizens of their country. There is a basic human solidarity beyond everyone’s personal concern for their livelihood. This is a trait common to all human beings and not unique to one nation or another. That is why the fact that the society in Sodom was corrupted to such an extent that its people were cruel and small-minded not only in relation to the guests but also in relation to the poor of the place itself – “the hand of the poor and destitute did not hold” stands out.
What is special about Sodom more than other bad societies that were not destroyed?
However, regarding the last point in the words of the Ramban – “There was not among all the nations like Sodom” one must ask because the prophet Ezekiel said earlier that the people of Israel sinned more than she: “As I live, O God, if your sister and her daughters did Sodom when you did you and your daughters.” , why was Sodom condemned to complete destruction while Israel was indeed punished in exile but continues to exist?
One of the ways to excuse this problem used by the commentators is that greater sins may have been committed in other places, but in the case of Sodom there is another dimension – the legal-state dimension. Sodom turned the matter of concern into personal interest at the expense of the measure of kindness into the law of the land and obliged all its citizens to be cruel and stingy, and outlawed the measure of kindness.
This is how Rabbi Yitzchak Arama (1420 – 1494) interprets the sin of Sodom in the book “Ekkad Yitzchak”: “It is true that the minor sin, when the opinion of the rabbis (that is, the leaders) agreed upon it and the religion gave in their laws that it should not be protested, it is fornication and a criminal misdemeanor and the sin of the whole congregation and is not given Forgiveness, if not in the disaster of the audience.” And also: “Established for them bad and indecent things to good and honest laws and judgments and set nails in them with fines and punishments that will never pass from them.” Even a small bad thing, says Rabbi Yitzhak Arama, when it becomes a state law is very bad. It is not the actual bad act but its normalization and turning it into a value to which we educate and work for its fulfillment. In a similar way, Rabbi Kook writes: “Sodom had a political method of hating kindness, and they established a political leadership based on that.”
It is possible to think that the legends of the Sages concerning the laws of Sodom are far-fetched and not something that should be relevant to us, since who would think of prohibiting hospitality in the law. But really, it is closer than we thought. Every society should be very careful of the evil tyranny in its system of laws and the accepted and binding norms. The normalization of evil is closer than one imagines. We have already seen countries that enact bad laws and make them a binding norm. We can name, among other things, laws that enable the nationalization of private property, the expulsion of citizens from their homes, restrict the freedom of occupation, impose values on citizens that are not acceptable to them, require them to be introduced into the education system Controversial contents according to which the children of the entire country will inevitably be educated and more, all in the name of an ideal of the common good according to the values accepted at that moment in power.
The state power is often necessary to maintain law and order, but it can be a corrupting and predatory power, so it should be used as little as possible, and certainly and certainly one should be careful not to turn the laws of the state into the laws of Sodom.
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