The Politics of Sodom and Amalek

by Dr. Aryeh Cohen

In Rabbinic thinking, the negative model for the organization of a city or a society is Sodom. What is it that the Rabbis find objectionable there? It is the Sodomites' rejection of strangers and the poor, their utter lack of hospitality, that the Rabbis believe is at the heart of their city's corruption. In Pirkei Avot the rabbis said (5:10):

There are four [character] types:

One who says
"What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours," this is the character of Sodom.

"What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine," this is an ignorant person.

"What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours," this is a righteous person.

"What is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine," this is an evil person.

Why is the one who says "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours" a Sodomite? The Bible supplies the answer. The prophet Ezekiel (16:49) describes Sodom as follows: "Only this was the sin of your sister Sodom: arrogance! She and her daughters had plenty of bread and untroubled tranquility, yet she did not support the poor and the needy." Sodom was punished for hoarding rather than distributing her resources. For the Sages, the apparently legal justification that ownership is the ultimate basis for the distribution of resources was insidious. That is, according to the Rabbis, there is more to collective life than asserting that what is mine is mine.

This is highlighted in a midrash on Genesis 18:21 (Midrash Bereishit Rabbah 49:6). There God decides to investigate the happenings in Sodom. "I will go down to see whether they have acted according to the outcry that has reached me." In this midrash, God discovers that the outcry did, indeed, justify the destruction of the city. Why? Because it was the cry of a young woman who refused to assume that "What is mine is mine and what is yours is yours" had moral value. This woman had tried to share her food with another woman who was suffering from starvation. But the powers that be in Sodom were horrified by this undermining of the principle of private ownership, and they burned the culprit.

There is a very instructive description of Sodom and Sodomites in another midrashic collection Mekhilta deRabbi Ishmael:(Tractate Shirata: 2):
In the case of the people of Sodom, God punished them by means of the very thing with which they prided themselves before God. The people of Sodom said: "We do not need any man to come to [visit] us. Behold, food is taken from us [by strangers] and silver and gold and precious stones are taken away from us. We will let no strangers travel among us anymore."
The Holy One of Blessing said to them: "Fools that you are! You act so proudly with the good things which I lavished upon you, and you say, 'We will let no strangers travel among us anymore.' I will cause you to be forgotten from the world... So what is it that brought this [destruction] upon them? "She did not support the poor and the needy."

The Sodomites, according to this midrash, are those who voice a very familiar refrain. The resources that are within our boundaries are ours by right. Why whould we share them with others? Let us seal our borders so that "no strangers will travel among us anymore." The Sodomites' mistake was to see the blessing of abundant resources as an ultimate and exlusive right to those resources. The Holy One points out their mistake: their exclusive right to the resources is no more absolute than the fact of those resources being in their territory in the first place -- a fact determined only by God or by fate.

And if this message wasn't clear enough, the midrash reinforces it: So what is it that brought this [destruction] upon them? "She did not support the poor and the needy."

The other model for the evil in our society is Amalek. The Hassidic Master Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev teaches that Amalek is those who prey on the weakest amongst us as the original Amalekites attacked the stragglers and the weakest Israelites as they were leaving Egypt. Reb Levi Yitzhak further teaches that the sworn battle with Amalek is not over but is present in every generation, and that it is partly a struggle with ourselves. Amalek attacked Israel as they were leaving Refidim. Reb Levi Yitzhak reads this as rafu yedeihem/ their hands loosened. That is, it was only when we loose our grip or our stand in our ongoing battle with Amalek/those who prey on the weakest in our societies that Amalek can win.

[for more sources see: http://www.iwgonline.org/docs/sodom.html]