[Avodah] The Delet Hakodesh and Lot

Brent Kaufman cbkaufman at gmail.com
Thu Nov 5 20:24:03 PST 2020


>>The Torah is pretty explicit. The door is closed, Lot is outside, and
they begin abusing him, perhaps violently so.

I disagree. They aren’t abusing him. Their concerned with what’s inside the
house. They aren’t concerned with Lot and tell him to “Step aside” (‘Gash
hal’ah’).

The crowd is pushing its way forward, like Europeans at a football/soccer
game, by shear force of the crowd. Nothing here implies abuse towards Lot,
himself.

>>open the door, obviously fighting off anyone who's right there,

Then the Malachim stick their hands outside the door; only their hands
(vayishlachu... their hands...). Again, there is no implication of them
fighting with anyone. They grabbed Lot and pulled him inside.

But this doesn’t address my question. I often express myself poorly. I
apologize. I meant that this is not just your average door. It is mentioned
3 times. The narrative could have been told without drawing any attention
to the logistics of goin to speak to, and calm, the mob.

The first few psukim in the parsha mention the words “Avraham saw” twice,
and a lot of Torah is learned, and taught, based on the repetition of these
two words. This door is mentioned 3 times, so I think it’s clearly telling
us something special.

I did find what I was looking for in the name of the Arizal; unfortunately
it’s difficult to break it down into a simple idea.

>> famous enlightenment thinkers struggled with the question of whether one
> is morally obligated to family more than to strangers, .......His
> daughters, as citizens of Sedom, would not have that additional claim
> against Lot, unless one posits, as you do and to which Torah would agree,
> but which isn't the only or most obvious enlightened position,
>

However, no; just no.  There was no apparent moral dilemma before Lot
brought up the idea of substituting his daughters. Before that it was
either giving over the men, or not.

A parent protects his family, young women, girls, his wife. This isn’t a
moral dilemma. The Torah tells us to prioritize how we give tzedaka; those
who are closest come first. This is human nature and decency. Regardless of
how Xian Enlightenment philosophers discuss the issue. I am not, in the
slightest bit, obligated to take their opinions into consideration when it
comes to any moral decision, nor to refer to their ideas as enlightened
when compared to the Torah and basic human instinctual decency. Every
parent knows what not to do when given the option to hand his daughters to
be raped and killed.

>
> >>The opposite claim is that parenthood is accidental and thus does not
> give rise to any special moral claims.
>
> It is only accidental for people who are promiscuous or that live in
> promiscuous cultures.
>
> >>, but the argument should suffice not to make into a rasha someone who
> calmly considers competing moral arguments, seeking to do the right thing.
>

 The Torah’s teachings are certainly not competing with the moral arguments
outside of Torah. But, I don’t even think that the Torah weighs in on this
issue explicitly.

I have no qualms about calling Lot’s actions here cartoonishly over the top
evil; not in this specific case.

Seriously, knowingly offering your daughters to a mob of barbarians to
raped and killed is is not a moral dilemma in any situation.

I hate having to be so black and white on a moral issue in any situation
that I’ve ever encountered. But this one is so absurd in its extreme, that
it would be far more absurd to even ponder the morality of offering girls
to be raped and brutalized, especially when Lot himself raised the issue.


-- 
*- "When life gives you lemons, shut up and eat your lemons."*
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