[Avodah] s&amora

[Lisa Liel]

On 2/1/2012 4:39 PM, Harvey Benton wrote:
> why was sdom and  amora
> destroyed????

What kind of question is that?


On 2/1/2012 4:47 PM, Harvey Benton wrote:
> what specific mitzvah did sdom commit to deserve the punishment
> they got??
> eg, were they not oiver any of the 7Mbnoach, but were cruel, and there-
> fore.......were destroyed???

In Pirkei Avot, it talks about 4 types of people:
    * One who says, "What is mine is yours and what is yours is yours"
      is a /hassid/.
    * One who says, "What is mine is mine and what is yours is yours" is
      a regular person. Others say that this is the behavior of Sodom.
    * One who says, "What is mine is mine and what is yours is mine" is
      an evil person.
    * One who says, "What is mine is yours and what is yours is mine" is
      a fool.

And that's the answer to your question. How can there be such a disparity
between the two views of the second type of person? I can't see how, if
they're talking about the same thing. But there are two ways of reading
"what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours." One is that we are
allowed to do what we want with our own property/money, and the other is
that we aren't. That what's yours *must* remain yours. And what's mine
*must* remain mine. And that neither of us has a choice in the matter.

The Midrash says that they used to mark the coins in Sdom so that if you
gave tzedaka, you could be found out and punished. What the people of
Sdom did was the flip side of what the Dor ha-Palga did. They simply
abolished personal ownership entirely. Everything belonged to the king,
or society, or what have you. In both cases, the very essence of being a
human being, with personal autonomy and the corresponding responsibility,
was eliminated. And without that, physical destruction is pretty much
just an afterthought.

Lisa