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Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Vayera Genesis 18:1-22:24
By Shlomo Riskin
Lot, the first Inverted Marrano
Efrat, Israel – One of the truly tragic figures of
the Bible is Lot, nephew and adopted son of Abraham. The first Jew had
himself discovered the new – found faith of ethical and compassionate
monotheism and had been elected by G-d to propagate this faith to the
nations of the world so that they might eventually be blessed through him
(Genesis 12:3). Understandably such an educational process could only take
place in historical time, so that Abraham and Sarah would be expected to
found a covenantal nation. Since their marriage had not been blessed with
progeny, logic would dictate that the heir apparent was to be Lot, who at
least shared in Abraham’s blood line and had been a part of Abraham’s
family and teachings since they all had left Ur Kasdim for Haran on the
way to the land of Canaan (Gen. 11:31).
But as we have previously written, Lot became negatively affected by the
materialism in Egypt when famine forced the family to sojourn there for a
brief period, and he forsook the Abrahamic vision and mission for the more
venal and verdant pastures of the wicked Sodom (Gen 13:5-13). We meet up
with Lot once again several decades later in this week’s Biblical
reading, when two of the angel-messengers – who had visited Abraham to
inform him that he and Sarah would give birth to a son – arrive now at
Sodom to destroy the wicked city and rescue Lot and his family.
Lot is here pictured as the prototype of the Jew who greatly compromises
the traditions of his forbears for the material comforts afforded him by a
foreign and corrupt society. He has forsaken his uncle –father the first
Jew, and has become an inverted marrano. A marrano was a Jew in fifteenth
and sixteenth century Spain during the Inquisition who publicly appeared
as a Christian while retaining Jewish commitments in his personal life and
in the cellars of his home. An inverted marrano is the Jew who is publicly
and outwardly known to be a Hebrew, but who has internalized the gentile
and corrupt mores of the society in his individual life-style and
outlooks.
Lot, like many inverted marranos, has “made it by” in Sodom. The
Biblical text finds him “seated at the gate of the city” (19:1), at
the very least as one of the wealthy and respected elders, and possibly
even as an esteemed Judge (Rashi, ad loc). He takes note of the arrival of
the two strangers, and is caught in a difficult bind: on the one hand, all
of his early training in Abraham and Sarah’s tent cries out to him to
welcome these men with embracing hospitality (as Abraham has so warmly
done in the opening segment of our portion) but on the other hand he has
become a stingy and ego-centric Sodomite, wherein welcoming strangers is
not only frowned upon culturally but it is also legally forbidden “Behold
now, my lords, swerve aside (suru, so that you will not be noticed as you
enter) into the house of your servant, spend the night and wash your feet
(so that your bath not be at all obvious to the other townspeople), and
then rise early and go on your way (so that no one will see you leave).”
No wonder that to such an invitation they respond, “No, we would rather
spend the night on the city thorough-fare” (19:2).
The profound inner perversion of Lot’s personality becomes clear in the
very next incident. He importunes them, the strangers to “swerve into”
his home, the Sodomites discover the transgression, surround the
habitation and demand that Lot give over the strangers to the homosexual
desires of the townsmen. Lot offers the Sodomites his two unmarried
daughters in their stead! He has certainly learned hospitality from
Abraham, his intentions may even be praiseworthy, but at the same time
giving over his daughters to be raped is at the very least a misguided
interpretation of the value of accepting strangers into your home.
(Indeed, Lot seems to be penalized for his suggestion which was never
accepted by the rowdies who, before they could get at the two “men”,
were felled with blindness – when his daughters who think the world has
come to an end when Sodom and Amora become covered with molten lava, make
their father drink, become impregnated by him, and thereby hope to
repopulate the world; he is at the same time paid back for his good
intentions by the fact that Moab (from father) is the son born to his
elder daughter, whose descendant Ruth will later become the grand-mother
of King David (Genesis 19: 31-38) ).
Moreover, Lot the inverted marrano is still viewed as an alien stranger by
the community for which he sacrificed his Hebraism. When he refuses their
demands, he is criticized as “one who came as sojourner and is now
making himself a judge” (19:5), and is viewed as a “joke” (19:14) by
his resident sons in law. And despite all of this, he hesitates to leave
the doomed Sodom, causing the angel –messengers to grab him and his
family by the hand to enable them to escape the burning sulphur which will
be the fate of his “adopted” nationality.
Indeed the Hebrew “and he hesitated” is punctuated by the lengthy
zig-zag cantillation shalshelet, which appears only three times in the
Book of Genesis (here in Gen 19:16, 24:12 and 39:8), each time expressing
doubt and lack of decisiveness; Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of
the British Empire, calls the cantillation shalshelet the music of
ambivalence. And in our context of Lot’s hesitation to leave Sodom and
its impending destruction, we see the terrible fate of the inverted
marrano, internally and hopelessly divided in half by a confused identity.
Rashi (ad loc) suggests that he hesitated to leave because of his concern
for his wealth in Sodom. I believe that is only part of his tragedy. Lot
has no real place to go. He is neither Sodomite nor Hebrew, he is a man
not only without a country but without a real identity. I believe the Jews
in the diaspora – and especially in Europe – ought to take heed of Lot’s
tragedy.
Shabbat Shalom
Shlomo Riskin
Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone
Chief Rabbi - Efrat Israel
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