[Avodah] Vayera "We have to teach empathy as we do literacy." (Bill Drayton)

[Cantor Wolberg]

1) The following is a beautiful reflection of Jewish sensitivity. The original source of the story is not known. See Bamberger, Proselytism in the Talmudic Period (Cincinnati, Ohio: Hebrew Union College Press, 1939), p. 209, note 17/
"Once, Abraham's love of strangers clashed with his zeal for God. He invited a wayfarer to his home and, finding the wayfarer praying to his idol, chased him away.  God reprimanded Abraham severely: 'I have borne with him these many years although he rebelled against Me, and you cannot bear with him one night?!' Abraham had realized his sin and did not rest until he had brought the stranger back.”
(Benjamin Franklin composed his "Parable against Persecution" on this very theme).
 
2) The Sidrah opens by saying that God appeared to Abraham [Gen. 18:1], but when Abraham applies the vision to his own world he suddenly sees three men standing before him [Gen. 18:2].  Abraham is the religious man par excellence 
for he sees God in the human situation.  
Franz Rosenzweig  Based on the puotation in On Jewish Learning, ed. Nahum Glatzer (New York: Schocken, 1955), p. 124
 
3) 18:2 "And he lifted up his eyes and he saw, and, behold, three people....."
Who were these three people? Michael, Gabriel, and Rafael.  Michael came to inform Sarah that she would bear a child;  Rafael, to heal Abraham; and Gabriel, to overturn Sodom.  
(Bava Metzia 86b)
 
4) The sin of Sodom consisted not only in what the people did but in what they failed to do.  Thus, no one raised a voice in protest when the crowd molested Lot's guests. 
Failure to protest is to participate in the sins of a community.  
(Gen. R. 50:9) 
 
This is reminiscent many years ago of Kitty Genovese, a woman in Queens, N.Y., who was screaming for help at the top of her lungs in a major apartment complex, and not one person lifted a finger or even phoned the police.  This woman was killed due to the negligence of every person aware of her screams.  Are we raising our voice in protest when we witness people being hurt?


"The dew of compassion is a tear."
Lord Byron (1788-1824) One of the greatest British poets
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