AND ABRAHAM TOOK THE WOOD FOR THE

BURNT OFFERING, AND HE PLACED [IT] UPON HIS SON ISAAC, AND HE TOOK INTO HIS

HAND THE FIRE AND THE KNIFE, AND THEY BOTH WENT TOGETHER.

(Bereishit 22:6)

AND ABRAHAM SAID, "GOD WILL

PROVIDE FOR HIMSELF THE LAMB FOR THE BURNT OFFERING, MY SON." AND THEY

BOTH WENT TOGETHER.

(Bereishit 22:8)

and

they both went together Abraham, who knew

that he was going to slaughter his son, was going as willingly and joyfully as

Isaac, who was unaware of the matter.

(Rashi Bereishit 22:6

Judaica Press Translation)

And our Rabbis of blessed memory said that Isaac was thirty-seven years

old when he was bound. If these are words of received tradition, we shall

accept them. This does not [however] make sense, since it would have been

appropriate for Isaac's righteousness to be revealed and for his reward to be

twice that of his father – he willingly gave himself over to be slaughtered,

and Scripture says nothing about Isaac! Others say that he was five years old,

but that it also incorrect, since he carried the wood for the sacrifice. It is

reasonable that he was around thirteen years old, and that his father forced him and bound him against his will. The evidence for this is that his father kept it secret from him, and

said God will provide for Himself the lamb, since if he

had said you are the offering, he might have fled.

(Ibn Ezra on Bereishit 22:4)

And

enter My mind.

(Jeremiah 19:5)

And it is written: Which I

did not command, neither did I speak nor did it enter My mind. Which I

did not command " – this refers to the son of Misha, King

of Moab, as is written – So he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed

him as king, and offered him up on the wall as a burnt offering (II Kings, Chap. 3); neither

did I speak – this refers to Yiftah; nor did it

enter My mind – this refers to Isaac, son of Abraham.

(Ta'anit 4a)

Sodom and Gomorrah: Five Stances before God and People

Dalia Marx

Sodom

and Gomorrah persist in our culture

as an instance of punishment following upon grave iniquities. Sodom

is stationed in the Jewish psyche as a sign giving dire warning of events that

must not be repeated.

Let us

consider five different stances taken by different characters in the story. Four

of them reflect social illness, while one of them embraces dialogue and tikkun

1. The people

of Sodom – And they said, this

one has come to dwell [here] and now he acts as a judge (Bereishit 19:9). Lot

wants to protect his guests, even at the bewildering price of his own daughters'

well-being. The people of Sodom

stand against him as the many and the established against the individual and

the different. They are the veteran establishment standing against the new and

unknown.

The Torah

referred to the Sodomites as wicked sinners (13:13); the Sages understood this as referring to

societal crimes. A late midrash has it that God's word haketza'akata [is

it as her outcry] (18:21) marks His decision to investigate what was

happening in Sodom and to

eventually overturn the city. This is said to have occurred after Lot's

daughter was sent to be burned to death for helping a pauper in his distress

and her cry reached the Throne of Glory.¹

Furthermore,

we read in Pirkei Avot (5:11): "One who says: 'Mine is mine and yours

is yours' – that is a middling trait; and some say – that is the trait of Sodom."

At first glance, this dictum seems strange. It appears to describe a normal

society in which individuals see to their own affairs, and that is indeed the

main opinion recorded by the Mishnah. However, a society in which individuals

remains isolated in their own private sphere, dismissing any obligations

towards their neighbors (not to speak of obligations towards strangers!) is a

negative and dangerous society. The disregard implied by this "middling" stance

bears an element of evil.²

2. Lot's

wife – And Lot's wife looked behind him

and became a pillar of salt (Bereishit 19:26). It is impossible not to feel some empathy

towards this woman who cannot leave her home behind her. Lot's

wife takes the stance of someone who cannot change and bring about a tikkun.

It is a nostalgic stance that pines for the past and which is incapable of

dealing with future difficulties. Her beloved past was no garden of roses. Sodom

was a threatening environment, and its social mechanisms had never accepted Lot's

family. Nevertheless, when the time came to leave, Lot's

wife was smitten with yearning and pity for the past she never had and from

which she could not disconnect. She remains in her stance to this very day.

We see many

such pillars of salt around us; people who cannot leave the clichés of

the past, even those clichés which have failed to prove themselves for

some time. These modern-day wives of Lot have assumed a

styptic stance.

3. Lot's

daughters – Our father is old and there is not a man on earth to consort

with us in the way of all the world (19:31). Lot's daughters sit

in the cave, exacerbating each other's terror until they finally rise up and

act. Despite the fact that the Sages praised their incestuous deed (see below)

and despite the fact that the older daughter's resulting son was Moav, the

ancestor of Ruth and of King David by way of Ruth (and, according to tradition,

the ancestor of the Messiah by way of David), their stance reflects a sick

society which has abolished the prohibition on incest,; this constitutes an

abolition of the past.

Lot's

wife could not divorce herself from the past and her daughters cannot look the

future in the face. They are possessed by such awful existential terror that

they decide to willfully transgress one of the most serious prohibition of our

culture and of the other cultures of the world.

This kind of

existential fear overturns all the rules, including categorical rules, and it

also poses a psychological and societal danger. Prophets of doom (whether from

within or without) rise up ever afresh, trying to sew fear and trying to keep

us from acting in a worthy and rational fashion; they would keep us from

actually dealing with our existential challenges.

4) Lot

– He was unaware of her lying down and her rising up (19:33).

Lot's stance is no stance at all. There he slouches

drunk on wine, choosing not to know what his daughters are doing to him. While

they are motivated towards drastic action by fear and concern for the

inhabitation of the world, it is difficult to show any understanding for Lot's

own choice. If this father failed to protect his daughter when he was not "as

drunk as Lot," he can be trusted not to display

responsibility when inebriated. While the Sages offer round-about praise for

the daughters' actions, they have nothing but harsh rebuke for Lot

– even though the daughters took the active role in the incestuous acts and Lot

himself appears to have been passive.³

Many choose

not to know. Many choose to dull their senses with wine, with chemical and

psychological means or with mass media, to dull their senses and not to know. What

significance is there to the existence of those who choose to be drunk and

sleepy and to wait until matters take care of themselves?

5) Abraham – And

Abraham remained standing before the Lord (18:22) – Abraham does not flinch, he does not lower

his eyes, he does not equivocate. Abraham is even prepared to behave in a

manner that appears disrespectful when he stands before his God. He is a

committed person, mit'hayev b'nafsho ["mortally committed"],

his stance is one of reverence, but also of dignity.

The Holy One

blessed be He is responsiveness to Abraham. He demonstrates His pleasure with

Abraham's assuming the stance of a subject standing in awe and faith, looking

his Creator "straight in the eye." The Talmud tells us in the name of

the Amora Rav: "One who prays – when he bows, he bows at the word barukh

(Berakhot 12a). We are to learn from this

that when we stand before our Creator, we must comport ourselves with holiness

and awe, but not with abnegation and servility. God Himself seeks a

relationship of dialogue rather than mere submission from His creatures.

R. Simon

presents an even more extreme proof of Abraham's steadfastness: "This is a

scribal emendation; the Divine Presence waited for Abraham [rather than

vice-versa, as described in our text of the Torah]."⁴ According

to this, it was not Abraham who stood before God, but rather God who stood

before Abraham. These strong words can teach us that God is not only willing to

sometimes "stand" before humans when they are deserving, but that He

is prepared to change His mind when faced with the correctness of their human

stance.

The story of Sodom

and Gomorrah shows us five postures

taken in the face of crisis – four and one more: there are those who refuse to

accept the other, the one who cannot leave the past behind, those who have

completely abandoned past restraints and act out of complete insecurity

regarding the future, and one who chooses not to know. Abraham's stance is

different and distinct – Abraham is the man of faith and the man of dialogue.

The story of Sodom

teaches us that the proper stance to take on the continuum between past and

future, facing both self and community – is itself the proper stance to take

before God.

Today the

children of Abraham are called upon to be prepared to assume the courageous

stance of Abraham of old. The stance has nothing to do with bent necks and

abnegation; it is all courage and faith. The proper stance of those towards

those, in steadfastness and dignity is also the proper stance of faith. May the

Holy One blessed be He look into our hearts and respond to that stance!

[1].

Yalkut Shimoni, VaYeira, 83; Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer [Heigger] Horev, 25.

2.

R. Yohanan said: "Jerusalem was

destroyed only because they judged there according to [the strict] law of the

Torah" (Bava Kama 30b). Meticulous adherence to the law that neglects

kindness, absorption with pure legalism that forgets the moral dimension – are

destructive.

3.

"Rava bar bar Hana said in the name of Rabbit Yohanan: Why is it written: For

stumble in them (Hosea 14)?….It is

like Lot and his two daughters. They intended to perform

a commandment – the righteous walk in them. His intention was to commit

transgression – and the sinners stumble in them. [The gemara asks

whether Lot may have also intended to perform a

commandment and brings R. Yohanan's explanation to counter that possibility:] Why

is there a dot on the [letter] vav of the word uvekuma [and

her rising up] [in the verse describing the deed] of the older daughter? [He

is referring to the large dot over the letter vav] It comes to say that

he was unaware when she lied down, but he was aware of it when she arose."

(Nazir 23a).

4.

Bereishit Rabbah 49:7, and See Rashi's commentary on the verse. R. Simon's

words invoke the question of whether this was his own opinion or whether he had

a different version of the verse.

Dr.

Dalia Marx teaches at the Hebrew Union College and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Readers Respond

Turning the Other Cheek – A Jewish Notion?

While relating to the question, "Is

there a Jewish morality?" – against the background of things heard in the

course of the past several weeks regarding a Jewish morality of revenge versus

a Christian morality of "turning the other cheek" – Shemuel Herr

writes that there is only one morality, neither Jewish nor Christian, and that,

"the idea of "turning the other cheek" is actually a distinctly

Jewish notion." The author even brings citations from Scripture and the

writings of the Sages to substantiate his thesis. He quotes the verse from

Isaiah (50:6): I offered my back to

face from insult and spittle and from Lamentations (3:29): He offers his cheek to those who strike

him, satiated with humiliation. The author sees the verse from Lamentations

as expressing the virtues befitting a man. He brings a number of sources from

the Sages, such as, "A person should always belong to the pursued and not

to the pursuers" (Bava Kama 93a),

and the Gemara in Gittin (36b), which

praises "those who suffer insult but do not insult."

In my humble opinion, the author

is mixing up things that do not belong together. The statements referring to

Jewish morality to which the author alludes in the beginning of his article and

that I have mentioned above refer to the Jewish morality of warfare. However,

the biblical and rabbinical sources which he cites in the continuation of his

article do not relate at all to the Jewish morality of warfare but rather to

the proper relations between man and God and between man and his fellow,

which has nothing to do with the morality of warfare.

Take, for example, the verse from

Isaiah mentioned above, in which the prophet, who has gone of on a mission from

God to preach to the People Israel, is not deterred by those who strike him,

spit at him, or humiliate him. Can we extrapolate from this the proper way to

relate to enemies in the midst of battle!? It is most important to

mention, that in prophesizing about God's war against Edom,

the prophet Isaiah speaks explicitly about vengeance: For a day of

vengeance was in My heart, and the year of My redemption has arrived (63:4). Here the prophet alludes to the verse

from Ha'azinu: Vengeance is poised with Me, and it will pay (Devarim 32:35).

As for the verse from

Lamentations: here the prophet is saying that a man must lovingly accept the

troubles that come from God and not complain against God. Is this a moral

instruction given to a soldier going off to battle, that when standing

before the enemy which is trying to destroy him, he should turn the other

cheek!?

The quotes that the author brings

from the Sages do not relate to the morality of warfare either. Rather, they

are lessons that one should apply to one's interactions with human beings: to

be humble, to be among those who are insulted but not among those who insult,

etc. Is this instruction directed to a soldier in battle!?

The Torah's instruction to

soldiers going off to battle is not "turn the other cheek," but

rather: "He who rises to kill you – rise up earlier to

kill him." As the midrash (Bamidbar

Rabbah, 21) puts it: "Assail the Midianites – Why? For

they assail you. From here the Sages said: 'He who rises to kill you – rise

up earlier to kill him.'" True, the Torah's command to fight is

accompanied by moral commandments, such as: the call for peace, the prohibition

against wanton destruction, etc. However, as for combat

to beat the enemy while suffering a minimum of casualties. As for one who

does not act in accordance with these criteria and instead takes pity on the

lives of our enemies who rise up to destroy us – even paying with the lives of

our fighters – of him it has been said, "Anyone who becomes merciful

towards the cruel shall eventually become cruel towards the merciful" (Tanhuma, Metzora 1), and as the RaMBaM put it:

"Mercy towards the wicked is cruelty towards people in general" (Guide of the Perplexed 3:39).

Eliav Shochetman, Jerusalem

A Response to the Response by the author of the article,

Shemuel Herr

My thanks to Prof.

Shochetman who points out to me that the way a person comports himself in his

home with his family and friends – or even with people who happens upon in the

marketplace – is unlike the way he comports himself towards his enemies who

rise up to kill him; even more so when he is a soldier protecting his people

and homeland in battle.

He is also correct in pointing

out that the context in which I made my statements could lead people to misunderstand

them, as if I meant to say that the Sages intended to be offering "instruction

directed to a soldier in battle." That, however, is not the case.

The above is also true regarding

the famous verses from Christian scripture. They too were never directed

towards soldiers in the battlefield or to enemies that rise up to kill you, but

rather towards the sonei [enemy] in the sense given that term in

the laws of returning lost property found in the book of Shemot.

The writer is also correct when

he states that "the Torah's command to fight is accompanied by moral

commandments," but I am not sure that I understand the sentence – "However,

as for combat itself – the goal is to destroy the enemy and the ultimate

consideration is how to beat the enemy while suffering a minimum of casualties."

It is well known that modern warfare gives rise to difficult and complicated

ethical questions. Who is enemy being referred to? Are civilians included? What

of women and children? What of civilians who serve as hostages in the hands of

the "terrorists"? Can the explication of the verse about the

Midianites supply us with answers to these difficult questions? I wonder.

Here is the place to state that

the Torah lacks any kind of tidy doctrine of "military ethics"; all

of these issues are treated by the Sages in widely dispersed bits of Scriptural

exegesis (of many passages containing few laws) – in contrast to what some

scholars of recent times have imagined.

To tell the truth, I did not

really intend my article to treat the war itself, but rather the discourse that

came in its wake. I think that I disagree with Prof. Shochetman's assessment of

the significance of that discourse. In my humble opinion, its significance is

much broader than just talk about war and the ethics of warfare.

The distinction between "Jewish"

and "Christian" morality finds its significance both in anti-Semitic

discourse, and, paradoxically, in certain rabbinical discourse which claims

that the God of Israel and the morality of Israel has no truck with human

morality; rather – allegedly – they have a special morality, as the wicked

Balaam said, a nation that dwells alone and pays no attention to the nations.

My words were directed solely against such notions.

In the end of the first section

of his Kuzari, R. Yehudah HaLevi mentions the New Testament verse about "turning

the other cheek" as proof of the praise deserved by Israel

for being the humblest of nations. The King of Khazar answers that this is no

reason for praise, because that condition is forced upon them; "When they

find themselves able, they [too] shall kill." The Scholar answers: "You

have found the place of my disgrace, O King of Khazar."

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