AVROHOM AND SEDOM

Over the weekend whilst reviewing the sedra וירא, I was struck by a thought; ה' revealed to Avrohom that he was about to destroy, or at least, severely punish Sedom and its satellite towns because they were so evil.

Avrohom, who felt responsibility for the whole world, (after all, ה' had named him אברהם, אב המון גוים, father of a multitude of nations) felt the need to spring to their defence. We all know that Avrohom’s middoh was חסד, kindness, and he marshalled all the arguments he could find, חלילה לך You will surely not destroy a Tzaddik together with a Rosha etc. We all know how Avrohom commences with 50 Tzaddikim to save the five towns, he goes down to 45, 40, 30, 20 and finally 10 in the hope that at least one of the five cities will be saved, ה' assures him that if he could find these ten righteous people, He would indeed save them and all the city in their merit.

The posek then continues, אברהם שב למקומו, Avrohom returned to his previous place. The result was that the angels went to Sedom and destroyed all the cities and the surrounding area.

My question was, Why did not Avrohom take matters further, why did he not, instead of going back to a “place where he had been”, proceed to Sedom and try to persuade the populace that they should repent and improve their deeds, to do תשובה? After all, Avrohom had been trying to get people to improve for many years.

We find the classic example of the prophet Jonah. He was very reluctant to go to Nineveh but when he finally did go and announced that ה' was going to destroy the town in 40 days, the populace did repent and ה' relented. Why did not Avrohom do this?

I can think of reasons why and I will outline below further my thoughts on the matter, but what intrigues me most of all is that when I went to the Classic commentators (מפרשים) and for that matter, numerous other ones, I could not find anybody who touched on the question.

I found that the Zohar Hakodesh compares Noach, Avrohom and Moshe as follows. Noach, when told that the rest of the world was going to be destroyed did not pray and intercede on their behalf. Avrohom, when told what was going to happen to Sedom did intercede but stopped after he could not persuade ה'. Moshe, when praying for the Bnei Yisroel after the incident of the golden calf, not only prayed but stated that if ה' would not forgive them, מחני נא מספרך, blot me out from your Holy Book, and indeed ה' said סלחתי כדברך, I forgive them as you requested.

Furthermore, the Zohar also states that Avrohom must have been rather fool hardy, in that when he learned that Lot had been captured by the four kings, and taken away by them, he chased after them and in the middle of the night attacked them and recaptured Lot, as well as all the booty which had been stolen from the king of Sedom etc. However, as the Zohar tells us there, he was intent on trying to save Lot as he had undertaken to always come to his aid, after they had decided to part ways.

We know that Avrohom was no coward and had been in difficult situations from which ה' had saved him. These included אור כשדים the burning furnace into which he was thrown and miraculously was saved. The incident in Egypt when Pharoh took Soroh and she was returned to him. The story just mentioned above about the recapture of Lot. The further story with Avimelech and Soroh etc.

Avrohom knew that ה' stood with him at all times.

Why did he not go the one step further and go to Sedom, as I queried above?

You might very well ask why was it that he even prayed for the people of Sedom. I believe that that lies in the words mentioned to him by ה', ארדה נא ואראה please let me go down and see. The word נא, “please” is strange, as if somebody could stop ה'!! If we compare this with the story after the golden calf, where ה' said to Moshe הרף ממני stop troubling me. From this Moshe deduced that ה' expected him, Moshe, to intervene and intercede on behalf of the Bnei Yisroel. I think here also, Avrohom deduced that the נא was a plea, almost an invitation, by ה' that Avrohom had the right and power to intercede on behalf of the people of Sedom which he did. One might also object to my question and comparison with Nineveh, on the basis that Yonah was actually told to go and tell the king and people of Nineveh what was going to happen if they did not repent, whereas ה' had not told Avrohom this. However, Avrohom was not told that he should not go to Sedom. At least I can’t find anywhere that it says so.

I find it all very puzzling.

Perhaps somebody can help me out and, first let me know of at least one of the מפרשים, commentators, who actually asks the question. I would, then, of course, be delighted if there were any possible answers given.

Let me suggest a possible reason why Avrohom did not go into Sedom.

The Gomorra tells us in Sanhedrin ק''ט how wicked the people of Sedom were and gives various examples. One of them was concerning Eliezer the servant of Avrohom who once went to Sedom, was hit with a stone by a man and blood came out. That man then had the effrontery to demand money for having made הקזה, bloodletting. When Eliezer objected and was hauled before the magistrate, the magistrate confirmed the payment was due. Eliezer then took a stone himself and hit the judge on his face, so that blood ran there and remarked to the judge “You now go and settle the bloodletting money with the person who hit me” and Eliezer left Sedom.

This story and various other incidents are related in greater detail in the ספר הישר.

I believe that Avrohom would have heard about this story. After all, his chief of staff turned up looking very bruised, Avrohom decided that one does not go into a lion’s den even with the best intentions. Even if your name is Avrohom whom the people of the world accept as a righteous man and look up to. When it came to their own patch of land, the people of Sedom and the surrounding towns passed such draconian, beastly laws and carried out such horrible punishments on wayfarers that they would not only not listen to him, Avrohom, but were likely to not let him get out alive.

In all the other cases mentioned above, the ingredients were not the same. When Avrohom was thrown into the furnace by Nimrod, he could not defend himself and he was given no option. When he went to Egypt, he sidestepped problems by saying that his wife was his sister and felt that this would save him from being killed.

Likewise, when he went to Gerar and Avimelech took Soroh.

Even when he went to fight the kings in order to snatch back Lot, this was done on neutral ground, in the middle of the night, by surprise attack. It would have been completely different if he would have turned up in Sedom and been surrounded by the populace.

No doubt, the evil, כח הטומאה in Sedom also acted as a further deterrent.

To demonstrate how bad, thick and callous the people of Sedom were, let us look at what happened when the angels arrived. They went to Lot’s house and the house was surrounded by the whole populace. The angels ensured that everybody suddenly turned blind and, therefore, could not harm the inhabitants of the house. Nevertheless, when Lot went to speak to his sons-in-law and daughters to try and save them, they just laughed at him. The fact that there had been this great miracle and that they, among other people, had all gone blind a few hours before, had no effect at all on their behaviour.

As I have said at the beginning I was struck by this question out of the blue and am still groping for an adequate answer as well as, of course, somebody who could point to a commentator, anyone of the מפרשים who discusses this matter.

כ מרחשון תשס''ט