The Sodom Mentality
We read of the wicked city of Sodom, a city where giving charity was a capital crime, and we wonder how did its people become so evil? What caused them to be so opposed to even simple acts of kindness? What did they find so offensive about sharing one's possessions with someone less fortunate?
Sodom and its laws did not just spring out of a vacuum. Sodom, its philosophy and its way of life, was a direct reaction to the generation of the flood[1].
During the generation of the flood, the Torah tells us:
“The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth became full of robbery. And God saw the earth, and behold it had become corrupted, for all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth. And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth has become full of robbery because of them, and behold I am destroying them from the earth”[2].
The people of Sodom took the lesson of the flood to heart, they understood that the cause of the destruction of the generation of the flood was their robbery, their utter disrespect for private property. The people of the generation of the flood felt entitled to other people's possessions and rejected the notion that one person could own an object and exclude others from using it. The flood, the people of Sodom understood, was a Divine rebuke for robbery and theft.
As a result of the great flood the people of Sodom recommitted to the respect of property ownership and rights. They correctly understood that to violate someone else's ownership was a grave sin, one that would undermine a healthy and moral society.
The problem, however, was that they swung to the opposite extreme.
So strong was their commitment to the notion of private property, so powerful was their devotion to private ownership that they outlawed charity and pronounced it an illegitimate act. To them an act of charity was an immoral act because it transferred possessions from the “deserving” owner to the “undeserving” stranger.
The truth, however, is that both the generation of the flood and the people of Sodom were terribly mistaken. The people of the flood were wrong in denying property ownership, but the people of Sodom were just as wrong in outlawing charity. They missed the truth embodied by Abraham who performed “Charity and Law”[3]. Abraham understood the value of “law”, of private property, but he also understood that the purpose of the “law”, the philosophical underpinnings for the right to possess, is the “charity”. The purpose of private ownership is to allow for people to be charitable and give from what is legally theirs to the less fortunate.
How do we react to a society like Sodom? How do we respond when we see people who seek to outlaw compassion and legalize cruelty to the “other”?
Our Patriarch Abraham taught us just that.
When Abraham’s pleas to G-d were unable to save Sodom, after Sodom was overturned, the Torah tells us that Abraham migrated from that region as Rashi explains: “Abraham traveled from there: When he saw that the cities had been destroyed and that travelers had ceased to pass by, he migrated from there”[4]. Abraham wanted to bring his message of kindness based on the belief in one G-d to the people. Eventually, the Torah tells us that Abraham settled in Bear Sheva and planted an “Eshel”. What is an Eshel? Rashi offers two opinions:
An eishel: Heb. אֵשֶׁל [There is a dispute between] Rav and Samuel. One says that it was an orchard from which to bring fruits for the guests at the meal, and one says that it was an inn for lodging, in which there were all sorts of fruits. We find the expression of planting (נְטִיעָה) used in conjunction with tents, as it is written (Dan. 11:45):“And he will pitch (וְיִטַע) his palatial tents.”
What both the interpretations have in common is that Abraham was sharing with his guests not only necessities, bread and water necessary for survival, but rather Abraham was sharing luxury. He was in the habit of sharing fruit which were the delicacies of his time.
Abraham responded to the culture of Sodom not merely by sharing bread and water, but with treating the “other” with dignity and respect, reserving for them the delicacies of life that one reserves for one’s own family[5].
Abraham taught a simple, yet profound, lesson. In the face of the cruelty of Sodom we must respond not merely with kindness but with intense kindness. In the face of extreme cruelty we must, like Abraham in his day, respond not only with love but with extreme love.
[1] See Kehot Chumash page 112.
[2] Genesis 6:11-13.
[3] Ibid. 18:19.
[4] Ibid. 20:1.
[5] See Lekutey Sichos, Vayera Vol. 3.