Vayera 5772

Rabbi Rami Pavolotzky
B’nei Israel Congregation, Costa Rica

No one is indispensable

This week’s parashah, Vayera, tells us the well-known story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  The only survivors are Lot, Abraham’s nephew, his wife and his daughters.  Lot’s wife reaches the end of her days when she looks back as they escape the city, disobeying God’s orders, and turns into a pillar of salt.  Therefore, Lot and his two daughters are the only ones left, hiding inside a cave, perhaps fearing that the destruction will reach them as well.

Lot’s oldest daughter believes her most important mission at the time is to bear children.  An objective reading of the text seems to indicate that she wanted to ensure the continuity of the descendants of the house of her father Lot, so that the memory of her family would not disappear.  However, most commentators understand that she believed they were the only survivors left on the face of the earth, thus holding the future of humanity.

Lot’s eldest daughter tells her younger sister:  “Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth” (Gen. 19:31).  As I said, several interpreters maintain that the purpose of this verse is to make us understand that Lot’s daughters really believed there were no men left on the entire earth, apart from their father.  Nevertheless, the commentator Radak explains that they thought they could not find a man willing to take them, since all men would despise the survivors of the destroyed cities, due to their evilness and depravity.

 

Although we do not know the details of the story, we do know the end:  Lot’s daughters get their father drunk and lay with him, on consecutive nights.  They both get pregnant and have sons, Moab and Ben-Ammi, fathers of the Moabites and Ammonites.
 

My purpose here is not to discuss whether the act of Lot’s daughters was lawful or not:  some would say that it was justified, for they thought they were perpetuating their father’s name, or even saving the future of humankind.  Others would strongly condemn it, for having committed incest.  What I want to discuss is Lot’s daughters’ feeling that they were the only ones who could fulfill their mission.  Why didn’t they try to see whether there were any other men outside their cave?  Were they absolutely sure that the men who lived far away would not take them as their wives?  Why didn’t they look or search a little bit more?
 

For me, one of Lot’s daughters’ biggest mistakes was their own arrogance, which blinded them and made them believe they were the only ones with the power to save humanity.  They didn’t even look around, to confirm that they were not alone.
 

Few things in life can be done by just one person, very few.  Nevertheless, sometimes our own arrogance deceives us and makes us think that we are the only ones who can do something, preventing us from giving others the chance to grow and develop.  At other times the opposite happens, and we feel that just one specific person is capable of doing this or that thing; due to cowardice or laziness, we delegate our entire responsibility on this person.  This can happen in our families, in our working environments, with our group of friends, and even within our congregation.
 

As a congregation (and this message is valid for each one of the congregations of any of my kind readers), each one of us must break away, on the one hand, of our pride and arrogance of thinking that we are the only ones who can do a specific action, and on the other hand, of the laziness and/or cowardice that makes us think that just a specific person has the ability to do something.  Very few things can be done by just a specific person.
 

As a congregation, we have the duty to open up spaces, to invite others to participate, to involve ourselves so that we may be a part of it.  Most of us have the ability to perform different roles; it is just a question of being patient and willing to learn.
 

If we think ourselves alone in the world, we will end up alone; if we think that others are alone in the world, we will end up abandoning them.  As a congregation, we are not alone, we are together.

 

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rami Pavolotzky
B’nei Israel Congregation, Costa Rica