Sodom and Amoroh, worse than today?

yo'ma

Mon, Jun 22 2015, 6:09 pm

My ds is learning this now, so I was thinking about it. The people of those cities were so bad that they were destroyed. From what I remember they were terrible with each other. That's bad, but then I was watching this movie where something happened and the response was, it's the 21st century. The guy responded, what kind of answer is that? I agree 100%. My guess is the way they were bad is not the same as people are today, but the way some people are today I doubt is what hashem wanted with this world. Am I far off?

zaq

Mon, Jun 22 2015, 6:25 pm

I think people have been saying that "our society" is worse than or at least as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah since...probably immediately after the cities were destroyed.
It doesn't take all that much intelligence to conclude that there is much in human behavior that is contrary to G-d's wishes. However, we don't need to worry that G-d will destroy the world. Humankind is doing a superb job of doing so all by itself.

zaq

Mon, Jun 22 2015, 6:30 pm

OTOH...the cities were destroyed because the KBH was unable to find one single righteous person in the whole place. I don't know what the criteria are for people to be considered righteous, but there must be at least some around.

cbsp

Mon, Jun 22 2015, 6:35 pm

zaq wrote:

Ummm, don't we believe that the Torah defines such criteria?

zaq

Mon, Jun 22 2015, 6:54 pm

cbsp wrote:

Ummm, don't we believe that the Torah defines such criteria?

The criteria may not necessarily be universal. Noach ish tzadik tamim hayah bedorotav. Rashi explains the qualification of "Bedorotav"--on the one hand, it may be interpreted to Noach's credit, that he was able to be a tzaddik despite living in a terribly depraved age. OTOH, it may be interpreted as mildly discrediting him, in that Noach was considered a tzaddik in contrast to his evil contemporaries, but had he lived in a less decadent age he would have been considered nothing special.

Certainly WE haven't the ability to judge who is or is not a tzaddik. The Torah isn't exactly the SAT's, kwim? No interpretive scale that says "if you got this percentage of Part I and this percentage of Part II and that percentage of Part III, you qualify." That's for the Chief Judge to decide, and He doesn't necessarily view things the way we might. Yesh koneh et olamo beshaah achat.

Mrs Bissli

Mon, Jun 22 2015, 7:13 pm

zaq, thanks for the very interesting post, especially DH and I were discussing exactly Sodom and Amora and comparison to contemporary issues over the weekend. If I recall (one of aggadot or Midrash Rabba?), one of their averot was hostility to outsiders. They were so well off that they were afraid foreigners would come in hordes and end up having to share their wealth.

Queue forward, we have been reading press coverage on the issue of seaborne migrants from Africa and Near East arriving across Mediterranean to Italy, Greece etc. Or Mexican illegals crossing to US. So what do we do? Some rationally argue that providing humanitarian aid or maritine patrol would encourage the migration and people smugglers further. Would sending these economic migrants (I'm assuming not all are genuine asylum seekers) or barricading blocks akin to what residents of Sodom and Amora decided to treat sojourners?

PinkFridge

Mon, Jun 22 2015, 8:35 pm

Mrs Bissli wrote:

Did they fear for their physical safety?
And if illegals do get in, do we do to them and their abettors what was done in Sedom?
I don't think so.