ויבאו שני המלאכים סדומה “When the two angels arrived at Sodom, etc.” At this point the Torah calls the men “angels.” In order to understand why the Torah switches between the terms “men” and the term “angels” according to the plain meaning of the text, we would have to say that whenever these messengers performed a mission involving mundane matters, matters which are the exclusive domain of terrestrial beings, the Torah refers to them as “men.” After they had completed their respective tasks on earth involving earthly creatures, the Torah reverts to calling them “angels.” They then assumed their original lofty stature. As far as a kabbalistic approach is concerned I have already dealt with this on 18,8.

וירא לוט ויקם לקראתם, “Lot saw and rose to meet them.” Avraham had beheld these “men” already from afar as it was full daylight, i.e. “during the heat of the day,” and this is why the Torah had underlined “he ran towards them.” Lot, however, did not see them until they were close by as they arrived in the evening. This is why the Torah merely mentions that “he arose (from his seat) to welcome them.”

ומצות אפה ויאכלו, “and he had baked unleavened bread, and they ate.” The reason the Torah mentions the kind of bread being served was to contrast it with the fact that Avraham never did serve bread to the angels. Here the Torah wanted to alert us to this. Here the angels did eat the bread as opposed to the meat which disappeared when it was served by Avraham to the angels. The “meal” when the angels were at Avraham’s resembled a sacrifice on the altar (compare our comments on 18,8).

ואנשי העיר אנשי סדום, ”and the men of the town, the men of Sodom, etc.” The Torah wanted to hint that the men of Sodom and the men of “the city and the Tower” (in Genesis 11,4) had a great deal in common. Both were absolutely wicked. The men here described as “the men of the city,” were survivors of that episode [less than 100 years earlier]. (According to another view, these men were re-incarnates of the people who had died at the time of the Tower and they resurfaced a third time as re-incarnates and formed the rebels who joined Korach in his uprising. (Compare our author’s comment on Numbers 27,29)

הנה נא לי שתי בנות וגו'...רק לאנשים האל וגו, “See here, I have two daughters, etc;...only to these men, etc.” Lot went to great lengths to protect the people who were his guests from any harm. Nonetheless his attempt to assuage the illegitimate demands of the townspeople to save these men at the expense of the chastity of his daughters revealed that his heart was not in the right place. He could not have performed a greater act of abandoning his own flesh and blood to the perverted lust of his compatriots than by his offer to let them do whatever “was good in their eyes” to his daughters. This is why our sages (Tanchuma Vayera 12) said: “according to standard civilized conduct a father risks his life in order to protect the innocence of his daughters. Lot, by contrast, tried to buy his own safety at the expense of the honor of his daughters.” This is why G’d said to him: “you are only preserving them from the men of Sodom in order to violate them yourself.” [a reference to the end of our chapter where Lot sired two sons who were mothered by his daughters. Ed.]

You should know that what happened here was similar to the incident known as Pilegesh be-Givah” (Judges chapter 19), which triggered a civil war. In fact, Lot’s conduct was even worse than that of the aged host in that chapter. In that instance the local inhabitants were satisfied with violating the guests’ concubine, not molesting the host’s daughter who was a virgin. (Judges 19,23-25). In our instance the men of Sodom could not even be appeased when they were offered Lot’s two daughters to make sport with. Furthermore, in the incident at Givah “only” the men in their prime participated in that outrage, whereas here all the men “from young to old” participated in the attempt to commit this foul deed. Thus far the commentary of Nachmanides. Bereshit Rabbah 50,6 understands the words לאנשים האל to mean “these ‘men’ are messengers of G’d.”

כי משחיתים אנחנו, “for we are about to destroy, etc.” They should have said: “G’d is about to destroy this place.” Instead they made it appear as if they had a free hand in the matter. This is why G’d did not allow them to move from the town until they had made an admission that they themselves were unable to do anything by themselves, but that they merely carried out a mission from G’d. This is the meaning of the line (verse 13) “and G’d has dispatched us to destroy it.“ What happened in this instance with the angels lends support to what we read in Job 4,18 הן בעבדיו לא יאמין ובמלאכיו ישים תהלה, “If He cannot trust His own servants, and casts reproach on His angels.” Another verse along similar lines is found in Job 15,15: הן בקדושיו לא יאמין ושמים לא זכו בעיניו, “He puts no trust in His holy ones; the heavens are not guiltless in His sight.” We find that even Moses was guilty of a similar slip of the tongue when — concerning the appointment of the chiefs of tens, fifty, hundred and thousands in Deut. 1,17 — he said: ”any matter which is too difficult for you, bring it to me so that I can hear it;” He was punished for this arrogant-sounding comment by being unable to resolve the problem posed by the daughters of Tzelofchod without first inquiring from G’d about their status as potential heirs. The prophet Samuel also once became guilty of such arrogance when he described himself to King Saul as “I am the Seer” (Samuel I 9,19). G’d showed him that he had been arrogant when he was unable to pick the son of Yishai who was to replace Saul as King. He had picked Eliav (Samuel I 16,6). G’d had to tell him that whereas he, Samuel, was only able to judge exteriors it was reserved for G’d to judge a person’s interior (Samuel I 16,7). David too was once guilty of such arrogance when he said ותורתך בתוך מעי , “and your Torah is in my entrails.” [He meant I can divine Your law as a gut-feeling. Ed.] (Psalms 40,9). David was punished in that he forgot the kind of commandment which even children in elementary school are familiar with. [I presume that the author refers to David having forgotten that the Holy Ark must be carried only on the shoulders of the Levites and not in a carriage. This law is clearly spelled out in Numbers 7,9. Had he not forgotten, Uzzah might not have died. compare Samuel II 6,7. Ed.] The prophetess Devorah who complimented herself even in the song of thanksgiving when she said עד שקמתי אם בישראל “until I arose to function as a mother for Israel,” (Judges 5,7). According to our sages the moment she said these words the Holy Spirit departed from her and she regained it only in verse 12 of the same chapter when she said: עורי עורי דבורה דברי שיר, “awake, awake Deborah utter a song.” As to the verse in Job 4,18 in which we heard that G’d even has occasion to rebuke the angels, this was a reference to the incident here where the angels arrogated to themselves the right to say: “we are going to destroy the place.” According to Bereshit Rabbah 50,9 the angels who were guilty of this statement were not allowed to return to their celestial habitat nor to perform another function on earth for 138 years, i.e. not until “and here angels of the Lord were ascending and descending on it,” (the ladder in Yaakov’s dream in Genesis 28,12). This vision is taken as proof that only at that time were these angels allowed back to earth to perform a function there. From all the above we learn that if someone makes use of G’d’s glory to enhance his own reputation he will face a major punishment.

אל תביט אחריך, ”do not look behind you!” Rashi comments on these words: “you have been an accessory to their evil deeds and you have only been saved by the merit of Avraham. Hence you are not entitled to watch them die.

Nachmanides claims that the reason the angel forbade Lot and his family to look behind them was that the air behind them was potentially lethal, and when they would turn around to look they would themselves become victims of the poisoned atmosphere. He argues that even looking at any other diseases, i.e. the microbes which bring them about, are in themselves a danger to those who look at them. Nachmanides singles out rabies, claiming that looking at the urine of a person bitten by a rabid animal is liable to infect the person who has looked. He claims that the mere thinking of this is liable to produce such an infection.

Apparently, in those days, when someone had been bitten by a rabid dog he was not allowed to drink any liquids at all. Also, if people had been bitten and were desperate to have something to drink they would see a reflection of the dog that bit them in the liquid.

A Midrashic interpretation: The reason the angels forbade Lot to look back was that he would see the presence of G’d as it was pouring sulphur and brimstone on the valley. Such a vision would prove fatal for him. Irith, Lot’s wife, had feelings of compassion for her married daughters whom she had left behind, and this is what caused her to turn around. She wanted to see if these daughters now followed them. She beheld the שכינה instead and turned into a pillar of salt.

וה' המטיר, “and G’d had made it rain, etc.” We find three divergent opinions amongst our sages as to the meaning of the words in this verse. [The basic difficulty is the repeated mention of the name of G’d, i.e. the attribute of Mercy in this verse.] Rabbi Yehudah bar Seymon in Bereshit Rabbah 51,2 understands the angel Gavriel as being the subject of the words וה' המטיר, “and G’d made it rain.” The second expression: מאת ה' מן השמים, he understands as referring to G’d personally; Rabbi Eliezer said that wherever the name of ה' is introduced with the prefix ו, it refers to “G’d with His celestial court.” Rabbi Yitzchak said we find in both the Torah, the Books of the Prophets, as well as in the Hagiographa that ordinary individuals are apt to repeat their own names. He quotes the following verse as example Genesis 4,23: “Lemech said to his wives: ‘wives of Lemech, etc.’” Thus far the quotation from the above Midrash. So you see that there are three interpretations of this verse. Rabbi Yehudah considers Gavriel as the messenger of destruction and he feels that this angel was so described by the words וה' המטיר על סדום ועמורה גפרית ואש, “G’d (His messenger) had made it rain sulphur and brimstone on the city.” Rabbi Eliezer feels that the verse testifies that both G’d Himself and His celestial court agreed to this form of punishment, but that it emanated from G’d directly. Rabbi Yitzchak sees no need to read between the lines of the text but considers the syntax as perfectly normal.

A kabbalistic approach: The opinion of Rabbi Eliezer is the correct one. Shemot Rabbah 12,1 postulates as an important rule that every place we encounter the word וה', this is a reference to “G’d plus His celestial court of advisors.”

You need to appreciate that the “so-called celestial court,” is referred to by G’d as אנכי האל בית א-ל, I am the G’d of Bet El” (31,13). Yonathan ben Uziel translates the words קדוש קדוש... קדוש Isaiah 6,3 as קדיש בשמי מרומא עלאה בית שכינתה, “the Holy One in the lofty heavens in the house of His residence.” Yonathan ben Uziel distinguishes there between the expression “house” and “residence.” Concerning such a “house” G’d had said of Moses (Numbers 12,7) “He is at home in My entire ‘house.’” This is the בת which has been emanated from the יסוד העולם as mentioned by Nachmanides in his commentary on Genesis 24,1 וה' ברך את אברהם בכל, “and the Lord had blessed Avraham with “something called בכל.” This is also what the Torah had in mind when it writes in Exodus 13,21 וה' הולך לפניהם יומם “and G’d was walking ahead of them by day,” and this is followed a short while later by ויסע מלאך האלו-הים “and the angel of the Lord traveled, etc.” (Exodus 14,19). According to Nachmanides the words מלאך האלוקים in that verse are not to be understood as a possessive clause, but the meaning is similar to 18,17 where G’d had spoken of “Himself” in the third person, i.e. the words המכסה אני מאברהם “shall I hide from Avraham, etc., followed by: “seeing that they will observe the path of the Lord, etc.” (instead of My path), as you would have expected if G’d personally had said the words “shall I hide from Avraham, etc.” did not really refer to Himself but to an agent, a מלאך, who because he spoke in the name of the Lord is described as if it were the Lord Himself speaking. The verse there goes on to speak about למען הביא ה', “in order that G’d may make come true all that He said to Avraham.” Had G’d’ personally been the speaker in that verse, the Torah would have written אביא, “in order that I may bring upon Avraham all that I said concerning him.” As pointed out previously, every time the prefix ו appears before the name of G’d it is an allusion to the angel who at that particular time acts on behalf of G’d. You are already aware that the angel who runs G’d’s universe on His behalf is called מטטרן so that it is easy to recognise an allusion to him in the very word המטיר.

מאת ה' מן השמים, “from G’d from heaven.” This is a reference to the “great” name of G’d. We find something similar in Kings I 8,32 when Solomon offered a prayer to G’d on the occasion of dedicating the Temple he had built. He appealed to the G’d in heaven to listen to his prayer by saying ואתה תשמע השמים, “You, the heaven, will hear,” instead of saying ואתה תשמע בשמים, “You will hear in heaven.” Clearly, Solomon did not pray to “heaven,” he prayed to G’d. The wording of Solomon’s prayer indicates that he expected an agent of G’d whom he referred to as “heaven,” to hear his prayer. The reason the Torah referred to the agent of G’d who carries out G’d’s judgment as G’d is because for the moment he acts in lieu of G’d Himself. We have encountered the expression “I will go down,” or “we will descend,” both in Genesis 18,21 and Genesis 11,4 prior to such judgment being carried out. In each such instance the reference is to the agent of G’d carrying out the punishment.

.ויהפך את הערים האל , “He overturned these towns.” The choice of the word האל to describe “these” instead of the more common ההם, is somewhat puzzling. The reason the Torah chose this expression may be that two of the names of the towns had been named before. By using the prefix ה before the word האל the Torah may hint that actually five towns were being overturned by the angel in charge of this destruction. The reason that Avraham at the time had commenced his plea by mentioning the number fifty was also because he was aware that each of five towns required a minimum quorum of ten good people each in order for the whole town to have any hope to escape immediate judgment.

ותבט אשתו מאחריו ותהי נציב מלח, ”his wife looked behind him and was turned into a pillar of salt.” It is possible to understand the word “behind him” as referring to the angel who overturned these towns, seeing the angel has already been credited with this activity in verse 25 where the Torah mentioned sulfur and fire being rained on the towns. The reason Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt may have had to do with the power of the fire [which dehydrated all fluids and left only solids which endure like salt? Ed.] When we find Moses refer to this event in Deut. 29,22 where he credits “G’d” with having turned that area into uninhabitable sulfur and salt, something completely burned, he refers to the agent of G’d who performed this as אפו וחמתו. The fact that he first mentioned “G’d,” and then “אף and חמה,” indicates that these were the names of the respective angels who had carried out this destruction.

ותהי נציב מלח, “she became a pillar of salt.” Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra wrote that the word ותהי in our verse refers to the “earth.” In other words, the earth beneath her turned into a pillar of salt, not she herself. Our sages interpret vatehi that Lot’s wife turned into salt herself. The Midrash relates that a poor person came to her door to borrow salt and she refused to give any, and was therefore punished measure for measure: by salt she has sinned and with a pillar of salt she was punished.

ויהי בשחת אלוקים, ”it was when G’d destroyed, etc.” The word אלוקים here refers to the angel of G’d who performed this task. ויזכור אלוקים את אברהם, “G’d remembered Avraham.” Here the word אלוקים refers to G’d Himself. וישלח את לוט, “He sent away Lot, etc.” As soon as the name of Avraham is mentioned G’d saves those who cleave to him. The meaning of the verse is that had it not been for Avraham, Lot would still have been in Charan, his land and his birthplace. He left his birthplace only for the sake of Avraham and in his honour. This is what the Torah testified in Genesis 12,4 “Avraham went as G’d had told him, and Lot went with him.” Having this in mind, the Torah says here that G’d remembered Avraham and that as a consequence He saved Lot. The Torah is careful not to say that Lot was saved because G’d remembered Avraham. This what our sages meant when they said (Tanchuma Vayera 9) “one may save the cover of a book together with the book itself just as one may save the bag containing the phylacteries together with the phylacteries contained therein even if there was also money inside that container at the same time” (in case of a fire on the Sabbath). The reason for this is that the container or cover respectively lend additional distinction to the phylacteries or the sacred text inside the cover. From these words of the Tanchuma we learn “hail to the righteous as well as to those who support them.” We can support this from Genesis 8,1: “G’d remembered Noach and all the creatures that were with him inside the Ark.”

בהפוך את הערים אשר ישב בהן לוט, “when He overturned the towns in which Lot used to reside.” The question arises why G’d chose such a drastic means of punishing the people of Sodom. It is likely that other nations or the inhabitants of people in other times throughout history have been guilty of similar or even worse conduct and neither they nor the earth they lived on have been wiped out. Besides, seeing that Avraham the most successful exponent of the efficacy of repentance was alive, why was he not encouraged to try and influence the lifestyle of the Sodomites? If he would have achieved a measure of success this would have prevented this human disaster! The principal reason that the judgment of the Sodomites was so harsh was the fact that they lived in the Holy Land. This land cannot tolerate sinful people for long and has always expelled them as one vomits indigestible food.

What happened to the Sodomites was an illustration of how the very earth of ארץ ישראל responds to the perversion of all human and religious values such as practiced by the people who live on it. Sodom’s destruction was to serve as a warning to the Israelites in the future not to become guilty of similar acts. Before the Israelites conquered the land they themselves became witnesses to the manner in which the land vomited the Canaanites. Even the spies had described the land as “consuming its inhabitants,” (Numbers 13,32) but they had misinterpreted the cause for this. For all these reasons Moses recalled what happened to Sodom and the Sodomites in his parting address to the Jewish people in Deut. 29,22. He warned his people of what would happen to them if they failed to adhere to the Torah and would forsake its laws.

וישב בהר ושתי בנותיו עמו , “he settled in the mountains and his two daughters with him.” The action which the daughters of Lot took in order to receive semen from their father was something novel. They were chaste and were too shy to ask their father outright to impregnate them, something which was perfectly permissible in their time. It had never been forbidden for a father to have a child from his daughter (Sanhedrin 58).

Our sages in Bereshit Rabbah 51,10 give these daughters credit for having wanted to preserve the human species as they thought they and their father were the sole survivors during that generation. Seeing that their mother had died during the flight from Sodom, their father was left without a mate and had no other chance of perpetuating the human species unless his daughters would give birth to a male child by being impregnated by him. This is why they went on record with the words: “there is no other man on earth to have intercourse with us” (verse 31) in order to justify what would otherwise appear as frivolous conduct. This is why the Torah refrained from using any expression criticising their conduct as incestuous or licentious. Their intentions were absolutely pure. This is also why the older daughter was granted the distinction of becoming the ancestor of Ruth, eventual great-grandmother of King David who accepted the 606 commandments of the Torah which Gentiles are not obligated to observe. The younger daughter’s offspring included Naamah from the kingdom of Ammon who became a daughter-in-law of King Solomon when she married his only son Rechavam (Kings I 14,31). In this manner both of Lot’s daughters acquired a share in the Kingdom of David. This is also why our sages in Baba Kama 38 have said that the reason G’d commanded the Israelites not to harass either the Moabites or the Ammonites when they were traveling through the desert (Deut. 2,19) was the conduct of these peoples’ founding mothers, i.e. Lot’s daughters. Our sages go so far as to quote G’d as saying that it had only been these two פרידות טובות, “good seeds,” which emerged from these two nations which justified Him in keeping these people alive in history. This particular portion of the Torah is one of a small number concerning which the sages said that it may be read both in the original Hebrew and may be translated into the language the readers are familiar with. To the question why this is not obvious, the sages answered that there was a contrary consideration, namely that out of concern for the honor of the family purity of Avraham this passage should not be read in translation for unlearned people. The Talmud decided that such a consideration was not sufficient to withhold the information in our portion from wider audiences.

לכה נשקה, ”let us give a drink of wine.” The daughter should have said לכי (feminine form) instead of לכה (masculine form), as the older daughter urged her sister to do something which is the prerogative of the male who initiates such an activity. Our sages in Yevamot 65 interpreted the words וכבשוה in Genesis 1,28 as meaning not only that the human species is to subjugate nature and the animals, but as reference to the fact that “conquering” is the prerogative of the male rather than that of the female. This is why the word is spelled defectively, the letter ו being missing. This is a hint that the male also “conquers” the female. The words “for there is no man on earth, etc.” were the older daughter’s way of saying that since it is impossible to proceed in the way civilization and nature had decreed, they, the daughters, had to initiate the act of procreation in this instance. The Torah reflects what had happened by writing לכה instead of לכי when describing the introductory remark by the older daughter to her younger sister.

I believe that the letter ה in the word לכה is justified as it is a reference to the attribute of Justice. We find other examples of such usage of the letter ה such as in Exodus 3,10 when G’d sends Moses on his mission to Pharaoh and says to him: לכה ואשלחך אל פרעה, “go on and I will send you to Pharaoh.” This was a hint that the attribute of Justice would be invoked against Pharaoh. When the Torah continued in that instance with the words וזה לך האות, “and this will be the sign for you,” a better translation would be: “this extra letter ה which I, G’d, have added to the word לך, ”go!” is your sign that I will invoke the attribute of Justice against Pharaoh.” The wine which the daughters gave Lot to drink is an allusion to the attribute of Justice (see our commentary on Genesis 9,20). This is why the Kabbalists have said that we are not to recite a benediction over wine unless water had first been added to it. [They meant that undiluted red wine represents an undiluted attribute of Justice, not a symbol we want to raise to our lips. Ed.] Actually, in doing what they did, the daughters of Lot copied what the first woman Chavah had done when she seduced her husband Adam. According to the Midrash (Bereshit Rabbah 19,5) she had squeezed the juice from the grapes of the tree of knowledge and thus made Adam drink from the fruit of the forbidden tree. The blood of menstruation which women suffer from was the punishment for that particular sin. The appearance of blood is so similar to the colour of red wine that it serves as a reminder of the sin. This is also the mystical dimension of the verses in which blood and wine are linked linguistically such as in Deut. 32,14 ודם ענב תשתה חמר, “and foaming grape-blood was your drink.” Another verse demonstrating a similar affinity between grapes (wine) and blood is Genesis 49,11 כבס ביין לבושו ובדם ענבים סותה, “he washes his garments in wine, his robe in blood of grapes.” The additional letters ה in this verse are not gratuitous; this is what our sages meant when they said in Niddah 31: “man fertilises the white part of the ovum whereas woman fertilises the red part.”

In this instance the sin committed by the mother (Chavah) and the daughters (Lot’s) was identical in that it was committed by means of wine which has brought much tragedy on mankind. Possibly, the additional word אבינו, “our father,” in this verse is even an allusion to the father of mankind, Adam. It reminds us that he too had been given wine to drink by his wife.

ותשקין את אביהן יין בלילה הוא, “they gave their father wine to drink in that night.” Actually, the Torah should have written בלילה ההוא instead of בלילה הוא. The absence of the prefix ה suggests that the word הוא is a reference to G’d, i.e. that it is one of G’d’s names. This is why the sages said that Lot’s daughters enjoyed a divine assist in their undertaking. The wine itself was found in their cave. They had not brought it with them. G’d had provided it to make their undertaking easier. [G’d’s interest was to commence the process which would ultimately result in the birth of King David.]

ותלד הבכירה בן ותקרא שמו מואב, “the older one gave birth to a son whom she called Moav (from the father).” Our sages say: “do not read this name as מואב, but as מאב, “from the father.” The naming of the baby was certainly not a chaste thing to do. The younger daughter, by contrast, displayed more discretion when she named her son בן עמי, “a member of my people.” Our sages in Horiot 10 taught that G’d does not withhold a reward even for such minor things as appropriate conversational expressions. When G’d told Moses not to harass either Moav or Ammon, He used different terms for the type of harassment the Israelites were not allowed to employ. In the case of Moav (Deut. 2,9), G’d said אל תצר את מואב ואל תתגר בם מלחמה “do not harass Moav and do not provoke them into war,” whereas in the case of the בני עמון G’d said: אל תצורם ואל תתגר בם “do not harass them or start a fight with them (Deut. 2,19).” The latter were not to be harassed in any shape or form by the Israelites. This added prohibition was the way G’d rewarded their ancestral mother for employing discreet language when naming her son.