Drash for Saturday Morning, Parashat Vayeira

The Real Sin of Sodom

Some 13 years ago, Edward Norton directed a cute little movie starring himself as a Catholic Priest, Ben Stiller as a Rabbi, and Jenna Elfman as their mutual friend who becomes each man’s love interest.  The movie was called Keeping the Faith.

          There were messages in the movie to criticise, but overall it was a fun flick with a number of memorable scenes.  In one scene, Stiller’s character was strolling through the congregation giving an interactive sermon on the 19^th chapter of Genesis.

          “What is the Story of Sodom and Gomorrah really about?” Stiller, as Rabbi Jake Schram, asks.  “Steve Posner?”

          “Sexual perversion,” responds a man in the congregation.

          “Steve Posner has been watching a little too much Spice Channel,” Stiller quips.

          I never had a choice called Spice Channel in my cable TV subscription, but I’m guessing Stiller was referring to a channel that plays Adult-Themed movies and other programming.  Nowadays, 13 years after Keeping the Faith, it is difficult to find movies, or Prime Time network TV shows for that matter, that don’t include Adult Themes.  We are assaulted at almost every minute that we’re wired into the world of electronic entertainment, by Adult Themes.  Adult Themes, of course, is a euphemism for sexual content.  There was plenty of that in the movie Keeping the Faith, and there’s more than enough to go around today.  And mind you, this is not a complaint about Adult Themes.  I enjoy a little sexual innuendo as much as the next guy.  But it’s hard to argue against the view that there’s an excessive amount of it out there.  And there’s a very good reason for there being an excessive amount of it out there.  Sex sells.

          Because sex sells, and because the sellers of every sort of product know it, they are willing to sex up any and every product for sale in our world.

          And this is not a complaint about the sellers’ tendency to sex up every product.  My complaint rather, is that we consistently buy sex.  We choose the product that is sexed up, over the one that is not.  So we, as consumers, and we alone are responsible for the over sexing of just about everything in life today.  Don’t blame the sellers for selling us exactly what it is we wish to buy.  Blame us consumers for having our minds on sex all the time, and responding most positively to products which are marketed specifically to appeal for our desire for sexiness in all things.

          So of course the Steve Posners of the world hear the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and see it as being about sexual perversion.  Specifically, that it’s about homosexuality.  The sense that the Sodom and Gomorrah story is about homosexuality is so complete, that Sodom and Gomorrah are many people’s first thought when presented with an image of a place where homosexual behaviour is conspicuously common.  San Francisco?  Sodom and Gomorrah.  Earthquake in San Francisco?  Fire and brimstone for Sodom and Gomorrah – they had it coming.  New Orleans?  Sodom and Gomorrah.  Hurricane and flooding in New Orleans?  Fire and brimstone for Sodom and Gomorrah – they had it coming.  For those who are focused on homosexuality as a sexual perversion, Sodom and Gomorrah is precisely about homosexuality, God’s punishment for homosexuality, and little or nothing else.

          And of course, if I were to stand here and tell you that Sodom and Gomorrah is not about homosexuality, and that homosexuality is not the sin that merited their destruction, then I would be taking the risk of being accused of being “politically correct.”  Because the story is, at least superficially, about homosexuality.  If not in total, at least in some measure.

          But I am going to take the risk of being considered “PC,” because all who know me and love me, know that I’m not.  So I am going to stand here and tell you that Sodom and Gomorrah is not about homosexuality.

          It’s like in the movie, The Shawshank Redemption.  Remember that one?  A gang in the prison has taken to regularly raping inmate Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins. 

Red, another inmate played by Morgan Freeman, says to Andy:  “Word gets around.  The sisters have taken a liking to you.  Especially Boggs.” 

Andy responds: “I don’t suppose it would help if I told them I’m not homosexual.”

Red tells him:  “Neither are they.  You have to be human first.  They don’t qualify.”

This exchange comes to mind when considering this week’s Torah reading, because it is clear that although the Sodomites do practice a coercive homosexuality, it’s the coercion that is the real sin.  It’s their inhumanity.  It’s their driving away the poor, as opposed to offering them some relief from their poverty.  Their xenophobia, their exploitation of strangers, as opposed to the giving them hospitality.  And since these views were expressed by giants of Jewish scholarship, centuries ago, they cannot be written off to “PC” on the current thinking about homosexuality.

          In Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer, a collection of aggadic midrash that probably originated in the Eighth Century, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is clearly pronounced to be an utter contempt for the poor.  The two cities had great wealth, thanks to their location amidst extremely fertile and productive lands.  So the poor of other places were naturally attracted to the cities, thinking they would find a generous handout there.  Instead, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah outlawed the giving of alms to the poor, under the penalty of death to the one who would show generosity.

So the Sodomites’ and Amorites’ sin was that they perverted the very law that, from the Noahide Code, is intended to make the world a just and fairer place.  It wasn’t so much the preponderance of wicked men in the place.  Rather, it was the co-opting of the very structure that should have been used to ameliorate man’s wickedness, to perpetuate wickedness instead.  This complaint against Sodom and Gomorrah was already pronounced by the Prophet Ezekiel, in chapter 16.

  Ibn Ezra, the great Spanish commentator of the 12^th century, saw the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah as the total rebellion against the rule of God.  In other words, that the culture of the cities was not unlike that of Nazi Germany.  It wasn’t just one particular sin or another.  Rather, that the overall culture and framework of laws was used to bring exploitation and death.  Frankly, when I read the chilling narrative in this week’s reading, I find it easy to see the parallel.  In this chapter we read of how the entire male population of the city came to demand that Lot give his guests to them in order to sexually assault them, and then…who knows?  It’s easy, when reading this, to think of Nazi Germany and the countries that the Nazis occupied, where people of humanity were put to death for hiding, and assisting Jews.

Perhaps a few words about Lot.  The Tradition is not kind to Lot, and perhaps rightfully so.  While it was praiseworthy for him to protect his guests against the mob, did he have to offer them his daughters??!  Even if he thought he knew that the mob would have no interest in raping the two girls, why would he even chance it?  Is it so important to protect strangers that he would sacrifice his own daughters?

If Lot’s morality seems more than a bit twisted, I think that’s because it is.  Perhaps the deepest lesson in this is that a righteous man cannot live in a place of utter wickedness without that wickedness skewing his morality.  The midrash tells us that Lot chose to dwell among the Sodomites, to become a townsman although he was a herdsman by nature, manifesting the absolute hospitality that is the law of the nomad.  If so, then he was in a place where his sense of morality was against that of the entire population.  This speaks volumes about the importance of being in a community which shares our values.  If everybody around us does not, then who supports us in our quest to live morally?  So it is important to seek out others whose values reflect our own.

The sad chapter of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, teaches us volumes about the nature of wickedness.  Homosexuality is, to be sure, a sin in the Torah’s universe.  The 18^th chapter of Leviticus famously proclaims the practice of male homosexuality as a ‘toevah,’ often translated ‘abomination.’  But note that the 14^th chapter of Deuteronomy proclaims the practice of Jews eating forbidden species as ‘toevah.’  Even the most traditionalist Jew, who believes that – imagine! – God doesn’t think we Jews should eat swine, would not imagine that fire and brimstone would befall a city of Jews for insisting on eating pork chops.

So homosexual acts are proscribed by the Torah to be sure.  In the same way that eating pork is.  To think then, that this sexual behaviour was at the root of the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, is clearly a mistake.  A mistake that our interpretive tradition pointed out centuries before the current age.

Last night, I spoke about how the act of Abraham in rushing to provide gracious hospitality, serves as a proof of his merit.  In the same way, the failure of the Sodomites to allow Lot to similarly provide hospitality, serves as a proof of their wickedness.  How we as a society greet, and shelter the stranger, or fail to, serves as an important measure of who and what we are.

So let’s get our minds out of the gutter, or out of the Spice Channel, and understand what really caused the downfall of Sodom and Gomorrah.  And then let’s avoid it, and thus not merit such cataclysmic destruction ourselves.  Shabbat shalom.