Shabbat Shalom! Thank you for coming to my Bar Mitzvah. You’ve just heard me chant Torah and my Haftarah. And now, my Dvar Torah! What’s a Dvar Torah, you ask? It’s basically a lesson about my Torah portion and what we’ve read today. My Torah portion, Vayera, is about the wrong doings and the destruction of Sodom. The story of Sodom is infamous, but perhaps not truly understood. Many people think that God destroyed Sodom to punish the people for being evil, but it is much more complicated than that. Indeed, Jews don’t like to think of God as vindictive and as a punisher, but God did in fact destroy Sodom because the people who lived there were cruel and their behavior was not reflective of the values that God thought they should have. I’m going to focus my d’var today on what led God to take such drastic steps, and what behaviors were modeled elsewhere in the Torah that illustrate what God wanted and expected from the Jewish people. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities in ancient times that were located somewhere near the Dead Sea. The Torah describes them as rich “like the garden of the Lord.” The question is, if Sodom was so lush and prosperous, why did God destroy it? What did the people there do that was so bad that they were beyond redemption? The Torah does not explain what the people actually did, but what they did is imagined by the midrash. The Torah only says (Genesis 18:20-21) “the outrage of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave..the outcry has reached Me.” Avraham tried to come to the townspeople’s rescue as he could not believe that the entire populations of the Cities were bad. He tried to bargain with God to not engage in total destruction, but his pleas were unsuccessful as God was only willing to spare Sodom if Avraham could find 10 good people. And that was after a lot of negotiating! The Midrash says that the “streets were paved with gold,” and that the people of Sodom flooded the streets leading to Sodom so that strangers could not come in. It was basically the “build a wall” of biblical times. The people of Sodom did not want poor people or strangers to come to Sodom because they did not want to share their riches. The Rabbi asks: 2 what kind of people are so evil that they deserve to be destroyed? This wasn’t just a few individuals; it was the whole city. Perhaps it wasn’t just that the people were not welcoming, but they tried to keep the “undesirable” people out of Sodom, and were happy to let them starve to death. The Midrash describes people being cruel to other people just for their own enjoyment. The situation finally came to a head when the people of Sodom set out to execute Lot’s daughter for giving food to poor people at the well. Lot’s daughter cried out for God’s help so God sent two angels to Sodom to report back if her cries were as serious and dire as feared. Lot took in the angels to protect them from the townspeople and then offered the rioting people his daughters if they would spare the angels who Lot took pity on. The sages of the Babylonian Talmud associated Sodom with the sins of pride, envy, cruelty to orphans, theft, murder, perversion of justice, arrogance and disdain for the poor. It is hard to imagine an entire city filled with people who are so terrible - I mean, who could be so cruel as to turn a blind eye to people who are starving? Most of us here today probably take for granted the fact that we will always have a meal when we are hungry. But not everyone in the world has that luxury. Sadly, we don’t have to look too far to find examples today of the cruelty of man to those who are considered “lesser than”. Dr. Mengele, who performed medical experiments on Jews during the Holocaust, comes to mind as an example of how cruel the people of Sodom must have been to warrant such an extreme act by God. Another example would be that in Georgia it is illegal for anyone except poll workers to provide food or water to voters waiting in line - even though it can be very hot in Georgia and the lines can be very long. There are also reports of people routinely destroying and emptying containers of water and other supplies left in the Arizona desert for migrants, condemning people to die of thirst in extreme temperatures. Those behaviors are directly opposite of how Avraham behaved. He was hospitable and generous. Hospitality is the main quality that we associate with Avraham, and a central tenet in Judaism. What does it mean to be “hospitable” and a “good person”? Hachnasat orchim, The 3 mitzvah of welcoming guests, is not just about inviting people in, but also making them feel honored, relaxed, and at home. Avraham demonstrates this in the parasha. He went up to greet his guest as soon as he saw them, he ran in fact. He bowed to the ground, showing respect, He referred to himself as a servant to his guests. He treated them like kings, without even knowing who they were. Avraham didn’t treat his guests that way because they were rich and he wanted something from them. He did it because that was the right thing to do. He also bathed their feet when they were tired and hot, and he fed them bread and a whole calf too, it was to symbolize a meal. A gracious host serves guests a meal. The Midrash says that “the pious promise little but perform much.” Avraham doesn’t brag or promise, he just does. According to commentators, Avraham did all of this when he himself was recovering from his circumcision and in pain. It would have been easy for Avraham to do nothing under those circumstances, but that was not what he was all about. The contrast is stark between Avraham, and the people of sodom. Avraham goes out of his way to be welcoming; and the people of Sodom go out of their way to be malicious and evil, make strangers feel unwelcome, hurt them and make them regret coming. Even though Avraham was nothing like the people of Sodom, he still pleaded with God to spare them asking why innocent people should be punished along with the guilty? Perhaps God felt that no one in Sodom was truly innocent because no one really did anything to stop the cruel behavior other than Lot who was spared. It’s like when you see someone being bullied and you do nothing to stop it. Should the silent bystanders be punished the same way the bully is punished? In God’s eyes, it seems as though standing by and doing nothing to stop evil is the same as if you had done something evil yourself. When you see a homeless person asking for money, but you have nothing extra to spare, is it cruel to refuse to give them what you have? What if you do have extra to spare but you still don’t give any? Avraham displayed the behavior that God wanted. He was not just concerned for his family or his tribe, but he was a man for all people. What 4 would the world be like if everyone was like the people of Sodom? If everyone were just out for themselves and no one cared about the world as a whole. Well, for one thing, climate change would be even more extreme and the world might not even exist. We all need to take responsibility for the world as a whole, and not just worry about ourselves. You might be thinking, by this point, that I have paid a lot of lip service to hospitality and taking care of others. And that may be true, but I have also tried over the last few months especially, to be more like Avraham. For my bar mitzvah project I have been working with an 8th grader in Cambridge named Liam. Liam started a non-profit organization a few years ago to feed the homeless in his neighborhood. You could say that Liam embodies many of the values of Avraham. Together with the 7th and 8th graders at Schechter, we made close to 500 lunches for Liam to serve to homeless people. I am continuing to work with Liam and Schechter in implementing a program that will hopefully continue at Schechter long after I graduate, where the school community commits to providing lunches to Liam every month so that homeless people can have nutritious meals and feel that other people care about them. There's more information about Liam's lunches on the center pieces in the tent outside. I would like to thank Rabbi Barbara for helping me to get ready for today and supporting me along the way. Thank you to my friends for coming today and for always being there for me. I want to thank Oz for being the best big brother ever, for looking out for me and always having my back, for being a role model I look up to. And for being my best friend. Thank you Zadie for coming, I love you so much and I'm so glad you're here to celebrate with us. Thank you to all my family from Israel for coming from so far. סבא, סבתא, דודה לילך, דודה דלית, וינאי - תודה רבה שנסתם כל הדרך מישראל. קצת פחדתי שאתם לא תוכלו לבוא בבלל קרונה ואני כל כך שמח שאתם פה. אני מאוד אוהב אותחם וזה לא חגיגה בלדחם (Hebrew message for his grandparents) Last but not least I want to thank my Mom and Dad for also being role models in my life, and for always taking care of me. If my parents weren't 5 here to constantly remind me about practicing for this big day, who knows what you guys would have heard. Abba, thank you for getting me into soccer, and being a great dad I can count on. Mom, thank you for spending all this time planning and making my bar-mitzvah work out during covid, for being my tutor, for being the greatest mom i could have ever asked for, and for making me who I am today. I love you guys