This week's parasha, Vayera, features the famous story of Abraham bargaining with God. Noting the outrage and sin of the city of Sodom, God expresses determination to wipe out the city altogether. Abraham intercedes, pleading with God to spare Sodom from destruction if even a modest number of righteous people can be found living there. (If you're not familiar or want to take a closer look at the Hebrew and/or English text of this story, I invite you to click here to read Gen.18:16-33 in its entirety.)
The tension at the heart of this narrative revolves around the moment when Abraham confronts God, asking, "Will You sweep away the innocent together with the guilty?" (as the JPS translation renders it into English, or, translating even more literally from the Hebrew: "Will You sweep away the righteous along with the wicked?"). In challenging God in this way, Abraham is really giving voice to a thorny set of moral questions around the "appropriate" degree of tolerance for "collateral damage."
Backing up a step, it's important to note that the Genesis text's underlying assumption is that most of the people of Sodom were so wicked that they deserved to die. At the outset, God indeed seems perfectly prepared to impose collective punishment upon the entire city; in fact, the destruction of Sodom could rightly be understood as an act of justice -- either for punitive reasons (as punishment for the evil deeds already committed by the city's residents) or prophylactically (to guard against their future harmful acts). Abraham's charge, though, is not about the fate that awaits true evil-doers; he is concerned about how many incidental deaths it is fair to inflict upon the innocent or righteous residents of the city. As he offers God real numbers -- first 50, and then bargaining down to 45, 40, 30, 20, and finally 10 -- Abraham seeks to quantify a cap for the tolerable level of collateral damage, and in doing so, to curb the level of destruction.
This whole episode could be read as overly audacious and brazen on Abraham's part. After all, his tone sounds accusatory as he says to God: "Is it possible that the Judge of all the earth would not deal justly?!" Abraham's challenge could, in theory, have been thought of as hubris or as a faulty moral calculation (for example, if the elimination of evil were considered to trump the preservation of innocent lives).
And yet, according to most rabbinic commentaries, Abraham is not criticized but rather lauded and celebrated for having the audacity to challenge God in this way! For example, when he poses his question of dispute for the first time in verse 23, the text introduces him using the verb "vayiggash," as in:
וַיִּגַּ֥שׁ אַבְרָהָ֖ם וַיֹּאמַ֑ר הַאַ֣ף תִּסְפֶּ֔ה צַדִּ֖יק עִם־רָשָֽׁע׃
Abraham came forward and said, “Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?
According to the preeminent medieval Torah commentator Rashi, vayiggash ("came forward") can be used in three different senses in biblical Hebrew: 1) to draw near in battle, 2) of coming close to persuade by entreaty, and 3) of coming near to pray. Here in this verse, Rashi argues, the word conveys all three of these meanings. This means that Rashi understands Abraham's question not only as a challenge to God and an attempt to protest and persuade, but also as an act of drawing closer, as one might do through prayer. To Rashi (and to the greater rabbinic tradition that he's drawing on), this is evidence that this episode should be read as a positive example. Abraham's faith does not prevent him from giving voice to the most difficult questions he wants to ask God; on the contrary, it is because he wants to achieve closeness with God that he is willing and capable of offering such a sharp challenge. Today we might call Abraham's sharp challenges to God a demonstration of his "holy audacity" or "moral courage."
This story -- Abraham's impulse to save Sodom and his willingness to articulate the thorniest of moral questions -- has had me thinking again this week about the documentary film Naza, which I saw several weeks ago at SIFF Cinema Uptown. The film's subject, as you may know, is the destruction of life and property in Gaza. Its title comes from the Hebrew military acronym for the words "nezek agavi," which literally means "collateral damage." Its central question is not dissimilar to Abraham's; the film asks: when the IDF targeted members of Hamas in the aftermath of October 7, 2023, what was an appropriate maximum number of "naza" (collateral deaths of innocents) to allow for each militant targeted? In the film, Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham conducts interviews with anonymous military and intelligence whistleblowers, who claim that the IDF's targeting calculus allowed for 10, 15, or sometimes 20 civilian deaths to be authorized for a strike on a single low-ranking militant during the initial weeks of fighting, and many more -- sometimes hundreds of civilian deaths -- for a single high-value target. Was it appropriate to take out entire households or, in some cases, whole apartment buildings in pursuit of a single Hamas target? Where should the line be drawn?
Watching the film was incredibly uncomfortable (in a number of ways, actually). I know that this documentary has been a lightning rod -- acclaimed by some, and the subject of attack by others -- and I actually don't want to weigh in on its merits as a film here, although I would be quite happy to have conversations about it in person with anyone else who has seen it. What I do want to say here is that I walked away feeling grateful that the filmmakers had made this film. Like the Abraham story, Naza did not offer clear or objective answers about what level of collateral damage should be tolerable to us. However, it did raise a hard set of questions that I think we have a moral imperative to be asking (uncomfortable though it may be to do so), and it put them squarely onto the table for communal consideration.
At the end of Genesis 18, not even ten righteous people can be found within the city of Sodom. Abraham's nephew Lot is permitted to leave with his family, but beyond that, Sodom is razed, with no survivors. Today, Gaza too lies in ruins, but it is not without a population: over 2 million Palestinians continue to reside there. Some are undoubtedly part of the evil Hamas infrastructure that carried out the brutal October 7th attacks in Southern Israel and continued to hold hostages for two years, but many others are not: they are simply civilians who aspire to live with access to food, water, medicine, dignity, and human rights.
The kinds of questions that Abraham asks in this week's parasha -- about the degree to which collateral damage is tolerable, and how to balance between competing concerns to achieve maximal justice -- have been swirling in the backdrop of election season for both Israelis and Americans. There is no objective answer to some of these questions -- not in the text about Sodom, not in the film, and not in real life today.
And yet, this week's Torah portion, Vayera, emboldens us to continue asking the hard questions, even when it's uncomfortable to do so -- and to discuss and debate them together, in pursuit of justice. Although Abraham was not able to save the residents of Sodom, by voicing the questions he did to God, he demonstrated moral courage and showed himself to be a person of great character. So too may we follow in his footsteps, demonstrating care for others and living lives of integrity. Even with our limited power to curb all the collateral damage we see in the world around us, let us continue giving voice to the challenging questions that need to be asked aloud.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rachel Nussbuam
