From: Netvort@aol.com Sent: Friday, November 18, 2005 1:52 AM To: JoshHoff@aol.com Subject: Netvort : parshas Vayeira, 5766 Don't Look Back By Rabbi Joshua (fixatedly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman In this week's parsha, we learn of the destruction of Sodom and its neighboring cities, and the escape of Lot and members of his immediate family, through the help of the angels who visited him. As Lot departs the scene of destruction, his angel of salvation tells him not to look back while the cities are being given their divine punishment. Most of Lot's entourage follow this order, but Lot's wife turns back to look, and, we are told, 'vatehi netziv melach,' which is usually translated as meaning that she became a pillar of salt. There is another explanation, however, offered by the commentator Chizkiyahu ben Manoach, known as Chizkuni, maintaining that the land turned into a mass of salt. Rabbi Levi ben Gershom, known as Ralbag, also explains the phrase in this way, arguing that it could not mean that Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt, because that would constitute a miracle, and God only performs miracles if people will witness them and as a result come to fear Him. Here, however, there was no one, other than the small group fleeing with Lot, who would have seen what happened. Still, Ralbag does say that Lot's wife died in the process, since by turning back she didn't have time to flee with the requisite speed needed to avoid being smitten by the salt-sulfur downfall. As Rabbi Ya'akov ben Asher, author of the halachic compendium Arbaah Turim, points out in his longer commentary to the Torah, it was because Lot's wife died that his daughters later seduced him, reasoning that no one else was left in the word, and that it therefore had to be re-populated through their efforts. Ralbag's contention that God would not perform a miracle to convert Lot's wife into a pillar of salt is in contradiction to a Talmudic passage (Berachos, 54a) which says that someone who sees Lot's wife should make a blessing, just as he is required to make a blessing on other sites at which God performed miracles. The Talmud goes on to say that since the conversion of Lot's wife to a pillar of salt was a punishment, one should make the blessing of ' the truthful Judge', upon seeing it, but also make the blessing of ' Who performed miracles,' because Lot was saved at the same location. Interestingly, Rav Avrohom Yitzchok Kook, in his commentary to that Talmudic passage, notes that this dual blessing is expressive of the fact that, in combating evil, which is here personified by Lot's wife, who, as the midrash tells us, tried to prevent her husband from doing acts of kindness, or chesed, to guests, we must not only negate the evil, but also emphasize the good, namely, the acts of kindness that Lot did perform. In any case, the Talmud clearly states that Lot's wife was miraculously turned into a pillar of salt. Rabbi Eli Munk, in his commentary The Call of the Torah, mentions that Josephus reported having seen the pillar. How, then, can we counter the argument of the Ralbag, that God only performs miracles if they will bring people to fear Him, or, if we may extrapolate, if it will teach an important message ? What message does the pillar of salt carry for us? The midrash says that Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt because, when guests came to her house, she went from house to house in Sodom asking to borrow salt for the guests, as a way of alerting the people that her husband had brought in guests, and that they needed to stop him. Thus, her punishment of being turned into a pillar of salt was an instance of 'measure for measure,' which is an important principle of divine punishment. Still, this does not explain why turning back was such a terrible action that it merited the punishment of death. My teacher, Rav Aharon Soloveichik, zt"l, explained that the message the angel was conveying in telling Lot and his entourage not to look back was that one should not engage in retrospective thinking, thereby becoming trapped in the past. Lot and his family were being saved, the rabbis tell us, through the merit of Avrohom. Hopefully, they would learn from the fate of the five towns, and dedicate themselves, in the future, to performing chesed, as Avrohom did. Keli Yakar writes that Lot's wife turned back because she was still worried about her possessions that were left behind in Sodom. Thus, she became fixated in the past, and was unable to change her ways. I believe that this is why she was turned into a pillar of salt, to symbolize this kind of fixation, which salt, in its role as a preservative, generates. It is interesting to note that Richard Nixon, in his memoirs as well as in an interview with David Frost, mentioned Lot's wife as a symbol of somebody who rehashed the past and as a result was not able to move on in life. Perhaps, then, the miracle performed in turning Lot's wife into a pillar of salt serves as a warning to future generations, not to trap oneself into thinking that what he did in the past prevents him from repenting and changing his ways. Rav Mordechai Gifter, zt"l, in his Pirkei Torah, adds a fascinating dimension to the fate of Lot's wife. He notes that according to the Pirkei D' Rabbi Eliezer, Lot's wife looked back because she was worried about the fate of her father's house, since she was from Sodom, and many family members had stayed behind. Therefore, says the midrash, she turned into a pillar of salt, and would remain in that condition until the resurrection of the dead. Rav Gifter points out that, although Lot's wife disobeyed the commandment of the angel of God by looking back, and was punished for it, she also displayed a certain measure of love and compassion, expressing her inner concern for her family. This show of concern was rewarded by being turned into a pillar of salt, that would be preserved until the time when she would again see her family. I believe that this observation of Rav Gfter is reminiscent of our practice on Rosh Hashanah to increase the number of shofar sounds that are blown to one hundred, in memory of the one hundred cries that the mother of Sisera, a mortal enemy of the Jewish people, let out when she realized that her son had been killed in battle. Despite anything a child does, and how old he has grown, a mother still views him as the person she gave birth to. By invoking the cries of Sisera's mother, then, perhaps we are asking God to have compassion on us, as well, since we are His nation, whom He created to relate His praises, as the prophet Yeshaya (43:21) tells us. On this level of interpretation, we can view the symbolism of the pillar of salt that Lot's wife was turned into as the image of a child that is fixated in the mind of a parent, since, as the midrash points out (see Rashi to Bereishis, 19:15, and Mizrachi there), some of her daughters remained behind as the city was destroyed. By extension, the image of the Jewish nation as fixated in God's 'mind' as His creation is also evoked. This symbolism is completed by the rabbinic requirement to make a dual blessing upon seeing the pillar of salt, thereby recalling the merit of Avrohom, the pillar of chesed and the role model for the nation he would generate. Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com. To subscribe to Netvort, send a message with subject line subscribe, to Netvort@aol.com. To unsubscribe, send message with subject line unsubscribe, to the same address.