November 13, 2022|י"ט חשון ה' אלפים תשפ"ג Avraham, Lot and How to Do Chumrot Right By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

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Imagine if everyone viewed chumrot like Avraham Avinu did instead of Lot. The problem is that there are too many Lot’s out there, and that discourages us from trying to be like Avraham Avinu. We think that Parshat Vayera is a parsha about hachnasat orchim, the hachnasat orchim of Avraham Avinu and the hachnasat orchim of Lot, but I think it’s much more than that. I think it’s about two different perspectives regarding how we take on new rituals and new religious practices in our lives.

On the surface, Lot seems like a good guy in this week’s parsha. He is very machmir, very strict, with the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim, with the mitzvah of hospitality. He takes two strangers into his home and even when all of the local townspeople of Sodom "mi’na’ar v’ad zaken," from young to old, want him to give up his guests, Lot refuses. Hachnasat orchim – that’s Lot’s chumra. But then he does something rather peculiar. Lot offers his two daughters to the mob that is waiting outside his door. This is a bizarre, vile counteroffer, and when I read this I wonder to myself, was Lot really being serious?

Some mefarshim, like Rabbenu Hananel, actually say that Lot wasn’t serious. He was metaphorically saying to the people of Sodom that whatever is in my house, even my children, is yours, but please don’t touch my guests. But Lot wasn’t seriously prepared to allow his daughters to be raped by the townspeople. Maybe he thought that the locals wouldn’t take his offer seriously because they were already engaged to men in the city, at least according to the midrash.

But some meforshim, like the Ramban, believe that Lot actually offered up his two daughters to the townspeople and what he did was horrible. And I wonder, why doesn’t the Ramban give Lot the benefit of the doubt and say that he wasn’t really serious? I can come up with three reasons.

First of all, there is no evidence to indicate at all that Lot wasn’t being serious. Second, there is another similar story in Sefer Shoftim when a Levite was traveling with his servant and concubine and needed shelter for the night and he sat in the town square in Givah and nobody offered him hospitality except for a foreigner who was living in that town, just like Lot. In this story, when they were all inside, the men of the town, like the people of Sodom, assaulted the house and demanded to have relations with the Levite, just like in our story. Just as Lot did, the host protested that they shouldn’t do this and the host offered his virgin daughter and the concubine to the townsmen, but they did not want to listen to this counteroffer, so the Levite pushed out his concubine, and she was raped all through the night. In the morning, she lay dead on the doorstep of the house.

Here we have a similar story with similar Biblical language of townspeople gathering at one house demanding that the homeowner give up the guest and the homeowner refusing and offering women instead. Now in our story, the townspeople were smitten with blindness and in Sefer Shoftim, they were not smitten with blindness. Therefore, the end result there was that a young woman was raped, which makes you speculate that this horrific act likely would have happened to Lot’s two daughters if the townspeople would not have been miraculously smitten with blindness.

Third, the conclusion of the Lot story may hint to the fact that Lot’s offer was indeed serious. What was the conclusion of the story? Lot was intimate with his daughters when he was drunk. According to the Midrash Tanhuma, the Rabbis observe that a man usually allows himself to be killed in order to save his wife and children, while Lot was willing to allow the townspeople to abuse his daughters. As such, in response to this, God said to Lot, “The improper act that you intended to be done to your daughters will indeed be committed, but to you.” Lot wanted to subject his daughters to an immoral sexual act, giving them over to the mob. In response, his daughters engaged in an immoral sexual act, by being intimate with their father. As such, the lack of any indication that Lot’s offer was not serious, the similarity of this story to the horrific story of rape in Sefer Shoftim and the end of the story of Lot being intimate with his daughters convince many meforshim like the Ramban that Lot seriously offered his two daughters to the townspeople.

Where does that leave us? What kind of person is Lot? What kind of person doesn’t see any contradictions between the vile act of giving up his daughters and his incredible sacrificial act of chesed by not turning his guests over to the mob? It’s the person who only sees one value and doesn’t know how to properly balance that against other values. Lot grew up in the house of Avraham, and he saw how much Avraham practiced the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim, so Lot wants to follow in his footsteps and he is very machmir about this mitzvah. However, Lot does not understand how to integrate this value into a religious worldview of kindness and sensitivity to all, especially his family, and the result is an immoral, vile offer by Lot that did not come to fruition only because the townspeople were miraculously stricken by blindness.

Unlike Lot, Avraham fully understood how each value, including hachnasat orchim, fit into an overall religious worldview. There is a somewhat peculiar midrash in next week’s parsha. In the Midrash Rabbah, our Sages comment that when Avraham decided to bury Sarah, God said “ani umanuti gomel chasadim tafasta umanuti” – or “my job is to do hesed, now you’ve grabbed hold of My job.” What does that mean? Only now, during the act of burying Sarah, does Avraham demonstrate that he’s a ba’al chesed? What about his kindness in this week’s parsha of inviting the three guests?

The Alter of Slobodka explains that this story teaches us that kindness first and foremost must come to our home and then spread outward. Yes, it’s wonderful to do chesed with the outside world when everyone is watching, while having your tent open on all sides to every passerby. However, chesed first and foremost must be done to members of our household. The basis of Avraham’s chesed is first and foremost for his family, when he buries Sarah. Avraham Avinu understood the balance of hachnasat orchim with his responsibility of chesed to members of his household, as well. Avraham Avinu did view his religious growth in one area in isolation with the rest of his religious personality. If we engage in chumrot, then we need to ask ourselves how those chumrot affect others. If we want to learn more Torah or go to minyan more often, we need to balance that against the impact it may have on our family. It does not mean that we should avoid learning more or going to minyan. It means that we find other ways and other times to help out the family so that we can continue to engage in more meaningful religious practices while at the same time balance these values with other important values.

And there’s something else that Avraham does with his chumra of hachnasat orchim. He involves his family. When three angels visit him in the beginning of this week’s parsha, his wife rushes to get the food, and the “na’ar,” the young man in the household is helping out. According to Rashi, this “na’ar” is his son Yishmael. If I’m inspired to do more and to grow and to take on new religious practices, it’s wonderful, but sometimes it can be isolating if I’m doing it all alone. Other family members may not appreciate what I’m doing and they may even resent the time that it is taking away from my other responsibilities. That’s why the best way to grow religiously is to share your religious experiences, when at all possible, with your family. If you go to a shiur and you learn something new, share with your family at the Shabbat table. If you are involved in a chesed project that’s taking a lot of your time, have your child join you in the project. Share your religious growth with your family. It can do wonders for you and wonders for your family!

Imagine if everyone viewed chumrot like Avraham Avinu did instead of Lot. Often what holds us back from growing religiously is that we see so many Lot’s out there, so many people who pride themselves in a new area of religious growth, whatever that is, we see hypocrisy and we say I don’t want to be like them. Look at those people. They dress like “frummies,” but look how they act. It is unfortunate that there are a lot of Lot’s out there, but there are many Avraham’s out there, as well. There are many people who are constantly striving to grow religiously, trying to take on new religious practices, but they do so in a way that is balanced, sensitive and they do so while encourage their entire family to grow with them. That is certainly something that we all can emulate.