Thinking Torah Blog

Given that we read the same Torah each year, it’s inevitable that rabbis sometimes repeat themselves. Occasionally, it’s out of forgetfulness, but more often it’s because certain teachings continue to speak powerfully to our present moment. I’m sure I’ve spoken or written before about why the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed in this week’s Torah portion, Vayera, and it’s not for the reason most people assume, unless you remember what I’ve said in the past.

Our sages teach that the great sin of Sodom was not of a sexual nature, but of moral failure, namely their cruelty toward the stranger and the needy. In the Talmud and Midrash, we read chilling stories of kind people in Sodom being tortured simply for offering help to the poor. Those who insist that Sodom’s sin was sexual in nature miss the deeper truth of our tradition.

The heart of this story, and of our entire tradition, is a question of how we treat the most vulnerable among us. That, more than anything else, reveals our values and defines who we are as a society.

May this enduring lesson guide us in every encounter and every act of compassion, to see the divine image in one another and to build a world worthy of that vision.