5786/2025
In this week’s Parashah, Lech Lecha, there are many great stories about Avraham. One of those stories is the fight between Avraham and Lot regarding letting their animals eat from the grass that wasn’t theirs. Lot argued that it is justified because Avraham was promised this land and since he has no son yet, Lot would inherit it all. Nevertheless, Avraham and Lot split up and Lot went to live in Sedom in the east while Avrahm went to the west. The Torah describes the people that live in Sedom, the town that Lot settles in, as ”וְאַנְשֵׁ֣י סְדֹ֔ם רָעִ֖ים וְחַטָּאִ֑ים לַיקוָ֖ק מְאֹֽד”, “Now the inhabitants of Sodom were very wicked sinners against Hashem” (13:13). This Pasuk seems relatively simple at first, the people of Sedom were bad and sinned. The people of Sedom are the blueprint for what a sinner person is. As Rabbi Meir says: You do not have among the cities any as evil as Sodom, as when a person is wicked, they refer to him as a person of Sedom. You want to call someone a bad person, you compare them to Sedom. But what does that actually mean? There are countless interpretations that are known about what their sins were. However, maybe their sins can teach us something about how to be better Ovdei Hashem.
In the Pasuk describing Sedom, there is a puzzling use of double language, that they were wicked sinners. What does wicked sinners mean? The mepharshim take many approaches to what this could mean. Rashi explains that they knew about Hashem but specifically rebelled against him by sinning with immoral relations as wickedness and not giving their wealth as sinning. This is supported by the Ibin Ezra and Chizkuni who say that the people of Sedom had money but left the poor hungry and unsupported. They quote a Pasuk from יחזקאל that the people of Sedom didn’t give any charity: “הִנֵּה־זֶ֣ה הָיָ֔ה עֲון סְדֹ֣ם אֲחוֹתֵ֑ךְ גָּא֨וֹן שִׂבְעַת־לֶ֜חֶם וְשַׁלְוַ֣ת הַשְׁקֵ֗ט הָ֤יָה לָהּ֙ וְלִבְנוֹתֶ֔יהָ וְיַד־עָנִ֥י וְאֶבְי֖וֹן לֹ֥א הֶחֱזִֽיקָה”, “Only this was the sin of your sister Sodom: arrogance! She and her daughters had plenty of bread and untroubled tranquility; yet she did not support the poor and the needy” (16:49). Okay, so they had immoral relations and didn’t give Tzedakah, but does that make them such unholy people that Hashem wouldn’t even speak to Avraham while he was with Lot because he lived in Sedom?! The Radak follows the previous interpretations, but broadens the categories to include that they sinned against Hashem and they sinned against travelers that passed through their city. He explains that they ignored all 7 Mitzvot of Bnei Noach including idolatry and immoral relations, and the people sinned so severely that the Pasuk adds מאד to show that they sinned out in the open. Whatever interpretation you like, the Torah goes out of its way to tell us how bad these people were so that we can learn from them.
What can we learn from the people of Sedom besides don’t sin, that seems pretty obvious regardless of Sedom. The Torah wants to emphasize their sins, because as the gemara says in Sanhedrin, (107b) “the people of Sedom were so evil that they didn’t have a share in the world to come”. A couple Dapim later, the Gemara gives a story about a specific sin that they did. When someone had a big row of bricks laid out, one by one people would come by and take a single brick. The owner of the bricks would ask each person why they were taking his brick. The thief would reply that it is just one brick and not so consequential, so they shouldn’t make such a big deal. However, one by one the entire pile of bricks disappeared and were scattered all across town. The lesson we can learn from their wickedness is to undue their evil actions and earn our place in Olam HaBah.
As we entered the month of Cheshvan last Thursday, we began the real test of the Yamim Noraim. From here on out all the momentum is gone, there are no more Yamim Tovim or Selichot to give you motivation. It is up to you to keep up with your commitments that you made on Yom Kippur even when all the spiritual elevation is missing. Every action you take towards bettering yourself and doing Avodah hashem might not seem significant, but it is. Just like every time a brick was stolen from the pile it didn’t seem like a big deal, but it actually had a meaningful contribution, so too every time we push a little harder it has a small but significant impact. We add a brick back to the pile of mitzvot, one brick at a time, and every brick that we add gives us a more solid foundation to keep doing mitzvot and adding more bricks. And with enough time and enough bricks, we should be Zocheh to see the building of the Beit HaMikdash with all of our bricks and Mitzvot BeMeheira BeYameinu.