Dvar Torah for Kollot on Shabbat Vayeira 5786 / 2025 – By Keith Maynard
Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 9 November 2025
Shabbat Shalom everyone. Today’s Sedra is Vayera. The Parashah is about Sodom and Gomorrah and its ultimate destruction.
I propose to refer to aspects of the story specifically and then to widen the discussion, to raise questions for us to consider as Jews today.
Chapter 19 of Genesis opens with 2 men who are messengers and angels arriving in Sodom one evening. They accept Lot’s invitation to stay in his house overnight. All the men of Sodom, young and old, gathered outside Lot’s house, demanding that the 2 guests be handed over to them for sexual assaults, abuse or worse. Lot goes out to them and tries to reason with them. He then horrifies us by the offer of his 2 daughters, in place of his guests, to satisfy the mob. The 1981 Plaut Chumash commentary, explains that it may seem fantastically disproportionate but Lot is a model host, Plaut says, who will go to extreme lengths to honour the then customary hospitality code. But shouldn’t we be asking why, even at these times, family loyalty and honour do not have overwhelming priority over hospitality mores. Sexual abuse has no place in any society.
Chillingly, in the light of the terrible events at the Manchester Heaton Park shul, verses 9 and 10, dealing with the struggle to get Lot to safety, behind his locked front door and the evil of the baying mob, resonate especially with us.
The purpose of the biblical tale, Plaut tells us, is not to report a presumed earthquake which may have occurred at the time of the destruction of Sodom, but to give religious insight. God destroyed Sodom because the people were evil. Similarities with the story of the Flood abound: in both tales the people lacked any morality. The Talmud in Sanhedrin 109 a and b recounts 20 stories of the cruelty and moral decay of the people of Sodom, the final one being the shameless murder of a young girl who showed kindness to a beggar. All this, we are told prompted divine intervention.
Rabbi Raphael Zarum, Dean of the London School of Jewish Studies, in his book “Questioning Belief” quotes Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch who observes that when a society loses its social conscience and compass, then its collective responsibility seals its fate.
As Progressive Jews, we may not believe in an interventionist God who wrecks havoc, destroying societies, whether Sodom or in the Flood. We are uncomfortable with for example the 2nd paragraph of the Sh’ma, with its message of reward for observance of God’s commandments and punishment for setting them aside to serve other gods.
We prefer to argue that while traditionalists would accept the Flood and Sodom stories literally, we see them as tales to teach morality and social conscience and the evils of mob rule. The unsophisticated people who heard these stories 2,3 or more thousand years ago understood the message, but we do not accept a God portrayed in this destructive, interfering light. After all, there may have been no greater evil than the Nazis but no divine intervention prevented the Holocaust or other massacres occurring at that time.
Today in the UK in 2025, after the Yom Kippur terrorism in Manchester, we can learn some important lessons as a society. Antisemitism is often the canary in the coalmine. It is a sign of a weak society, grappling with its moral compass and social obligations to all its citizens. If one part of the UK community can only function properly by hiding its religious symbols in public; by running its schools, shuls and community activities, behind fortress like buildings with high fences, locked gates and security guards, then something is seriously wrong with the very fabric of the nation. Equally, if a society’s laws are powerless seemingly to prevent intimidatory marches, excluding Jews from its city centres, restricting our movements, that is a very serious and intolerable situation. If professional authorities in the Health Service, the Law and universities are unsympathetic or hostile to victims of antisemitism, so that Jews feel marginalised and unwelcome in the UK, then a lot of serious action needs to be taken. If the media, including the public Broadcaster, is fixated on Israel and the Jews, to the exclusion of other topics, adding to our demonisation, that is the sign of a troubled society, greatly diminished from any earlier point in my lifetime.
We have our very own Sodom here, now and it needs to be addressed. May our country’s leaders have the courage to do so and quickly.
Shabbat Shalom to you all.