- A legal system that benefits the natives and penalizes the foreigner (those who take boats pay less than those who cross water themselves, something no rationale person from the outside could have guessed)
- Hotel owners that cut off the legs of tall patrons and stretch those of short ones.
- Givers of charity who mark their coins, give them to the poor, but then refuse to sell them bread (after the newly "rich" beggar dies from hunger the residents take back their original coins).
What I love about these ideas are that they take the emphasis off the "sexual iniquities" of the Sodomites and emphasize something much more basic: the way we treat the stranger in our midst matters and can either lead to our punishment or our redemption.
The other thing I love about these interpretations is the they act as a foil to Abraham. We all know Abraham as the paradigm of hospitality (the rabbis even claim that Abraham would serve non-kosher food to his guests [Gen. 18] because he knows that is what they like to eat). I'm a sucker for literary illusions and thematic plays. By creating a culture who stand opposite Abraham, Sodom and it's residents take on a whole new (and complex) meaning.
The Tanakh itself already contains indications of a tradition that Sodom was remembered for other than sexual issues. See the reference to Sodom (and Gomorrah) in Isaiah 1:10, and especially Ezek. 16:49 (which comes up in later rabbinic exegesis). While Philo (in On Abraham) and Jubilees 16:5-6 were focused on the sexual angle, the rabbis seem to be more interested in Sodom's bad conduct toward strangers and its own poor. See for example T. San. 13:8 (not the best example of what I just wrote), T. Sotah 3:11-12, and Gen. Rab. 49:6, which of course has a parallel in Perek Helek. The topic of the history of interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah is an interesting one, and was the subject of an edited volume a few years ago (the title and editor escape me right now).
ReplyDeleteAbraham would serve non-kosher food to his guests - that would be a striking example, but what is the source? I thought first came milk, then meat, which would be fine?
ReplyDeleteHey Mark,
ReplyDeleteBshem omro, I heard it in a drash by Rabbi Andy Bachman of Brooklyn. However, I did some searching and found that this issue is discussed in Likutei Sichot, volume 5, page 148; ibid, page 193, footnote 63. This citation is found in:
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/766151/jewish/Did-Abraham-serve-his-guests-non-kosher.htm