Parashat Vayera
Genesis 18:1 – 22:24
“For what is the world without rescue, but a wasteland and a worthless peril?”
-Sebastian Barry
If you ask me why I did it, I really couldn’t tell you.
We were watching the storm. It was like nothing we had ever seen before. Like all hell had broken loose. Sin City, as we call it, was burning and melting away. And Gomorrah, too. Like two flaming torches in the midst of a sandstorm.
We saw the winds and the sulfur downpours moving right toward us. Screaming was all around us, man and beast alike. We did our best, some of us, to take everything inside. But my neighbor just crouched down and wailed that it was no use. It was all over. Couldn’t we see the great market of Sodom pulverized just a little ways from us? And we were next. What good would our locked doors and shutters be?
I don’t know. But we were closing up and crying when this fellow appears. He just stood there, propped up by two young girls, his daughters, it turns out. He can hardly stand and his face looks like it has seen the Devil. There was another guy, right behind him. But he didn’t come too close. The old man pleaded with me, “Please, let me in. I have run away from Sodom and I can’t go on any more.”
His two daughters just looked at him and looked at me with the look of death, empty of any feeling. Maybe that’s what did it. Anyway, I let them in. My wife glared at me real good. If looks could kill! He was trying to weep but he had no strength. His lips moved. He was whispering “Thank you, thank you.” We were pretty crowded in together, with the family and the animals all scrunched together, breathing our last, we knew. I wanted to close the door real quick and I looked out for the other fellow. But he wasn’t there. So we slammed the door against the wind and the heat and the blazing light.
No, I’ve never done anything like that before. Why would I? Nobody would in these parts. I didn’t think about it much. It seemed a little thing, what with all the world just exploding around us. We were all going to die. So what difference did it make that I took this man in with his two girls? Just so that he could die with us? But somehow he didn’t seem so terrified. He curled up against his two daughters and he fell asleep. So peaceful, he was, in the midst of the terror.
And we waited. But the storm didn’t come to us. The next morning the ground was white with ash. People were stirring in a daze and a frenzy. They took their weapons and were heading toward what used to be Sodom to see what they could scavenge from the ruins.
The man woke up and looked around. We had some water and I gave him a little. The missus looked at me real angry, the same look she had been shooting me since I let those three in. He slurped the water and spilled some. The missus practically jumped at him. The girls put their hands out onto the puddle and then wiped their faces. The wife stepped over onto the water and stared down at the man. His eyes were focused now. We needed to get out there before everything was grabbed up by the others. I asked him, Lot he said his name was, if he wanted to join us in our little hunting party. But he said no. I didn’t offer him anything. He just started heading into the mountains, pulling his two crying daughters along.
These plains used to be so dense with vegetation and animals. Now it’s a desert. It’s dog eat dog out there now. No one knows whether they’ll find enough to get them through the next day. Nobody’s thinking about anyone but themselves now. No one would think of going to the neighbors for anything. There is never a knock on the door. But, in the long silences, while we try to forget our hunger or our arguments about whether or not to stay here in this tiny hole in the ground called Tzo`ar, I think back to that guy. It’s no use mentioning it to the missus. I just keep it to myself. I tell myself it’s just a little thing, but I can’t shake it. Why did I let him in? I really couldn’t tell you.
“And Lot said to them, ‘Please don’t, my masters. If your servant has found such favor in your eyes that you have done such great kindness to me to keep me alive – I just cannot flee to the mountain. The evil will catch up with me and I will surely die! But there is this city here that is close enough to flee there. It’s just a little thing…’ And he said to him, ‘All right. I have given in to you for this thing, as well. I won’t destroy that city that you mentioned.’” (Gen. 19:18-21)
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Greenstein
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