פרשת וירא 5771

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us how God had sent angels to destroy the cities of  Sedom and Amorah due to their sins. The Torah further explains that God had told Avraham Avinu about the impending destruction of Sedom to give him a chance to ask God to have mercy on its inhabitants and not to destroy the cities.  We are told that Avraham Avinu began his request for mercy by saying if there were 50 righteous men who lived in the city, would God spare the city. To that God responded that there were not and Avraham Avinu continued by asking if there were 45 righteous people would God spare the city and continued downward from 40 to 30 to 20 until he reached 10 at which point seeing as there were not even 10 righteous people in the city he knew that there was no hope.

 The commentaries all try to explain what the logic was of Avraham Avinu that for all intense in purposes in his prayer to spare Sedom went down by 10 each time (except for the first time that he went down by 5 which Rashi explains). Rashi explains that there were five sections in the area called Sedom and each section could be saved if it had 10 righteous people living in it. Therefore when Avraham began, he asked if there were 50 righteous people which would save all 5 sections of the city. Each time Avraham Avinu asked for 10 less, he was basically saying that at least God would be able to save 4 sections of the city if there were 40 righteous people and 3 sections for thirty people, etc. 

 The Siforno basically agrees with Rashi’s explanation of why Avraham Avinu went down by 10 each time however he explains that even though there were only enough righteous people to save one or two sections of the city, God should still save the whole city as if God would destroy 3 sections there would be indirect damage to the other two sections which would prevent God from destroying any of the parts.

 If we look at this Siforno a little bit closer, we can ask the following question. There is no question that if God wanted to destroy just two or three sections of the city, there would not have to be any physical collateral damage to the other two sections of the city, then how do we understand the Siforno’s explanation that by just having enough righteous people to save one section will cause God to save the whole city due to collateral damage?

 The answer can be that what the Siforno is talking about is emotional collateral damage. When two or three sections of a city are destroyed many aspects of a person’s normal day to day life will be dramatically altered. The people they did business with will suddenly be gone, their doctors, and the stores they shop in will suddenly disappear. Certainly, in the long run God will keep them whole and they won’t lose any of their livelihood, nevertheless the comfort level of what the people had in their lives will be lost.

 We see from this Siforno an incredible idea. God cares about people to such an extent that He would not destroy 40% of a city of the most evil people who deserved to be destroyed if that would even in the smallest way impact negatively people who did not deserve to be harmed. In this case, God would not have destroyed the whole city even if in just one part there were 10 righteous people even if everyone else in that last section were also evil. If this is the case with people who are inherently evil then even more so with Bnei Yisroel will God only do what is truly good for us and will not let us be harmed even indirectly if it is not something that is for our benefit or we deserve.  

פרשת וירא 5770

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us what occurred when Avraham Avinu had to go down to the kingdom of Avimelech. When Avraham arrived, he told Avimelech that Sarah was his sister and on that basis Avimelech took Sarah. Due to the intervention of God Avimelech was not able to touch Sarah and Avimelech later confronted Avraham Avinu and demanded to know why he didn’t tell him that Sarah was his wife which would have prevented him from being involved in what could have been a huge sin. The response of Avraham Avinu was that there was no fear of God in this place and I was therefore afraid that the people in the country would kill me for my wife. The Torah continues and describes to us the rest of the response of Avraham Avinu which was that in truth Sarah is both my sister (meaning per Rashi the daughter of my brother which is called a sister) and my wife.

 The question that the commentaries ask is that this last bit of information that Avraham Avinu told to Avimelech seems not to answer the question Avimelech posed, so why did Avraham offer this additional piece of information to Avimelech?

 The answer given by most of the commentaries is that Avraham Avinu wanted to show Avimelech that his words were actually true. The Ohr Hachayim elaborates on this idea and explains that Avraham Avinu did not want Avimelech to suspect him of saying something false.

 If we look at this Ohr Hachayim a little more closely, it is a little bit difficult to understand. I can understand how under normal circumstances Avraham Avinu would not want people to ever suspect him of not saying the truth; however, there are certain circumstances where it would be understandable to lie. In this situation where Avraham Avinu was in danger of being killed it would be logical to lie and no one would think badly of him that he did lie since he had already explained that he felt his life was in danger.

 It would seem that the answer is twofold. Firstly, from the fact that Avraham Avinu was worried that Avimelech would suspect him of saying falsehoods shows us that he felt that there is a tendency in human nature even if it is on the small side to judge a person badly even if you already gave a logical explanation. The second part to the answer is that even if it is a very small chance that Avimelech would think badly of him, which could cause a Chilul Hashem, made it important to clarify himself to the umpteenth degree.

 We can learn from this Ohr Hachayim the importance of ensuring that we do not make a Chilul Hashem. Even in a situation where we are contemplating an action, if there is even a small chance that the action will be viewed by someone as something not 100% right then we should not do it. If we try to ensure that all our actions can be held to the highest standards we will merit to only sanctify the name of God in this world.

  5769 פרשת וירא

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the destruction of the cities of Sedom and Amorah by God due to their great sins. In Parshas Lech Lecha when telling us that Lot went to live with the people of Sedom, the Pasuk describes the sins of Sedom as follows:

The men of Sedom were evil and very great sinners to God.

 Rashi explains what the Pasuk means when it says they were “evil and sinners” that they were evil with their bodies and sinners with their money.

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah tells us the following about the actions of Sedom:

 The cries of Sedom and Amorah are great and their sins are very strong.

 On this Pasuk the Rabbeinu Bechai explains to us what sin finalized the decree of the destruction of Sedom and Amorah the following way:

Their decree was sealed because of the sin of not giving charity. They did not care about the poor of their cities and their friends who were starving. Since the people of Sedom were constantly involved in this sin their fate was decreed since there is no other nation in the world that does not take care of the poor in their community. The men of Sedom, however, were inherently cruel.

 If we look at this Rabbeinu Bechai a little more closely we can ask the following question?

 We see that not only were the wealthy people killed but the entire inhabitants of Sedom including the poor which implies that even they were included in this level of cruelty. This is actually implied from the words of Rabbeinu Bechai when describing the men of Sedom says they were inherently cruel, not that only the rich men were cruel.  How can it be that someone who is poor and seeing how the cruelty of those around him is affecting his life so negatively actually act cruelly to another person?

 In order to answer this question, we should try to understand another very interesting idea brought down in Mesechta Shabbos.

The Gemara tells us that one time a gentile came to Hillel and asked him to teach him Torah while he was standing on one leg. Hillel’s response was “What is hateful to you do not do to the other person” the rest of the Torah is just commentary.

 We can ask the following question. This idea would seem to any intelligent person, (even a gentile) to be something quite obvious. A person would never do to someone else something that he would hate being done to him, so how could Hillel say that this idea is the foundation of all the Torah?

 The answer can be that a person will never view the action that he would dislike being done to him as the same action that he is doing to someone else. This can be because we look at the other person as different than us. I am a Tzadik and he is a Rasha so of course I can do this action to him even though if done to me it would be an appalling action. It could be that we view the situations as different. In my situation it would be an awful thing but in his case it is deserving and proper for me to cause him anguish. These are just two of many rationalizations a person can have for why an action he would hate if done to him would be perfectly reasonable when done to someone else. This could be why when Hillel says this idea is a foundation of Torah it is not something so simple. If a person is able to understand that God gave us laws and told us how to act since only He is perfectly objective and has no Negios, he will be able to realize that a hurtful act is a hurtful act and understand that different situations do not make a hurtful act permitted.

 This was the situation with the people of Sedom. Even the poor people themselves, who felt the pain of other people’s cruelty, were able to be cruel because they considered their situation for whatever reason to be different than his friend’s and therefore people should not act cruelly to him but to the other guy it would be no problem.

 If we can take this lesson to heart and truly try to recognize what actions can be hurtful to our friends and neighbors and try to stay away from hurting them in any way, we should merit reaching the level of Ahavas Chinam and merit the coming of Mashiach in our day.

 5768 פרשת וירא

 In this weeks Parsha the Torah describes to us the events leading up to the destruction of Sedom and Amorah. The Torah tells us that the angels who were sent to destroy Sedom and to save Lot were invited by Lot to stay in his house. When the people of Sedom heard that Lot had guests, they charged his house to sin against the angels. When describing the gathering of the inhabitants of Sedom at the house of Lot the Torah says the following:

 Before they could lie down to sleep, the men of the city the men of Sedom surrounded the house all the people even from the ends of the city.

Rashi on the words “the entire people from all ends” says the following:

From one end of the city to the other, there was not even one Tzadik since no one protested.

 The Sifsei Chachamim explains Rashi the following way:

 Is it possible that in the small space around the house of Lot you could fit all the people in the city? So therefore Rashi explained that since no one protested it is considered that everyone, even the people who were not actively involved, are considered to have done this tremendous sin.

 What we see from here is that a person who does not protest against a sin being committed is considered to have done the sin themselves.

 The question that can be asked on this is why can’t a person be a Tzadik and sit in their corner of the world and not do any sins but also not be involved in what the other people are doing? Furthermore, in this case, where they would be the sole voice against the majority and no one would listen to them anyway, why should they even bother protesting?

 The answer can be that when a person views something that is so against anything moral then there is a requirement to protest even if it won’t have any impact at all on the people doing the action. The reason for this is that if a person is truly moral when they view something that is such an abomination there will be an automatic revulsion and need to speak out. Only when a person has no sensitivity to morality can they see something so immoral and not feel a need to protest. Therefore, since the people had no sensitivity to these issues of morality if it was convenient for them to get there, they would have been able to do the same sin. This is why they were considered to have done the sin also.

 5767 פרשת וירא

 In this week’s Parsha when discussing the rescue of Lot by the angels, the Pasuk  says the following:

The Pasuk when discussing what occurred when the people of Sedom wanted to get into the house of Lot for the purpose of sodomizing his guests (the angels), God punished them with blindness and never the less after they were blinded they continued to try and find the door to do  the sin.

 On this Pasuk the Sipurno says the following:

  Eventhough they were smote with blindness they struggled to find and break the door as Chazal say an evil person even at the door to Gehinom does not repent.

Let us examine this Sipurno a little more closely.

 First of all, why are we comparing being at the door to Gehinom which is something not tangible to this situation where they actually became blind and still went after the sin?

 Secondly, how can we even understand their actions, a normal reaction to a sudden drastic physical injury would be to stop whatever you are doing and concentrate on the injury?

 In order to answer this question, let us see if we can find in our life experiences anything that can help us relate to the situation in Sedom.

 We see that people can accomplish incredible feats like lifting a car to save a child. Where do these abilities come from? They come from the fact that a person can get so involved in a situation that they don’t think or realize what they are doing and just let the body run itself. This is what occurred to the people of Sedom. They were so caught up in their desires that they just couldn’t see what was happening to them. They totally lost track of the world they were in and couldn’t appreciate that they were blinded and consider why this happened. All they could do was try to fulfill this overriding desire.

With this we can also answer the first question. A person goes through life and has many things happen to them some good and some bad and then a person gets old and sick and can’t do many of the things that he was able to do in his youth. At the time when a person gets old, he should be able to stop, look back and take inventory of their life and to do Teshuvah for the things he did wrong. However, someone who was a Rasha and threw their whole lives after their desires and other evil things, even when they are old are so caught up in the evil that was, they can’t see the light and look back to do Teshuvah.

This is why we can compare the two cases one of physical trauma and one of spiritual trauma since they are caused by the same thing.

This is very important for our every day lives. Sometimes we can get caught up in our lives and the things we do whether it would be work related or people related and due to our leanings or desires we may do things that are wrong. It is very important to step back once in a while and look with a totally unbiased view at the decisions we make so that we don’t end up missing out on the opportunity to change ourselves always for the better.