"Let's get together and be evil" - said no evil regime in history. No, oh no. They always had a terrific reason for what they were doing, and an explanation for why they could not have done it any other way. It's "national security", you know. Important. Alternatively, they sought to combat internal enemies, real or imagined. The "enemies of the people". With the appropriate graphics, of course. If you'd ask them, they would express heartfelt indignation about how those enemies make them behave, about how hard they are working to protect the national values, for the benefit of... bla bla. Most criminals also defend their actions, saying they had a very valid reason to do what they did. "She provoked me" type of talk. While from the side, their actions appear unquestioningly evil. How does this happen?
This week we are reading in the Torah about Sodom and Gomorrah. They were so evil, that God poured fire and brimstone on them from the sky, and they were no longer. Swingers parties aside, our sources say God was angry because... they didn't invite guests. Really, God? My home is my castle, or is it not?
I could so imagine the rules of Sodom getting together to address the burning issue of the citizens of the city being endangered by "Ostenjuden" / illegal migrants/ newcomers. Perhaps they discussed building a Great Wall of Sodom. They voiced the need to defend their food supply, the cleanliness of thier water, and the purity of thier daughters. Perhaps they even drew appropriate plackards, with spider-looking agressive newcomers. A surging wave of patriotism swept the undesired elements and restored the purity of thier town. And then - ooops, what's this brimstone? And why, weren't they in the right?
Basically, you may transgress half of all commandments that regulate the relationships between people, at a drop of a hat. With one little argument on the bus. Or chasing away the kids who are being noisy in your parking lot. While thinking correct patriotic clean thoughts. And even defending the Torah itself, as you see it. There will be no brimstone. And that scares me even more. You feel ever so right, and you may be ever so wrong. This is not sodomy, but it's definitely Gomorr-y.
The Torah talks about the widow, the orphan, the "ger" - the newcomer. Halacha purists may stone me, but those categories are symbolic. Maybe there used to be more widows in the past, and now thank God there aren't. But in general, it refers to a person who has nobody to stand up for them. A person who will beseach God, and not thier rich uncle, because that's what they have.
Think big. Think about the kid whose mother has cancer. Or the one whose father was in a car accident, and now he needs a wheelchair. The woman whose husband beats her in the darkness of thier bedroom. Think about the teenager whose parents threw her out, because she had a boyfriend. A girl whose seminary did not allow her to attend her mother's funeral, because the mother was secular. Think single mother whose ex refuses to pay alimony, and she steals from the kibbutz field to feed her kids. Think about the Holocaust survivor who has no alive soul to say hello to. Think about a 12 year old boy who realizes he is gay and wants to hang himself rather than be thrown out of school. Think about the addicts, who struggle to maintain any semblance of a life, and are terrified of people finiding out. People who struggle with mental illness, poverty, loneliness. A woman who's had a miscarriage, and she is too depressed to function. A man who lost his faith, and hides in his toilet every Shabbat to smoke and use his phone, so the kids won't see. A man who covers his shame and inability with crude jokes. I did not make any of this up. Unfortunately.
You know what, think even bigger. Think everybody. Because everybody has thier own personal hell. I am seeing it again and again. In today's world, everybody, EVERYBODY you meet is an orphan, a widow and a convert in one way or another.
And that is why - if you can't open your home, at least close your mouth. Dixie.
