Salt Vayerah 5783/2022

(15) As dawn broke, the messengers urged Lot on, saying, “Up, take your wife and your two remaining daughters, lest you be swept away because of the iniquity of the city.” (16) Still he delayed. So the agents seized his hand, and the hands of his wife and his two daughters—in יהוה’s mercy on him—and brought him out and left him outside the city. (17) When they had brought them outside, one said, “Flee for your life! Do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, lest you be swept away.”

(24) יהוה rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah sulfurous fire from יהוה out of heaven— (25) annihilating those cities and the entire Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation of the ground. (26) Lot’s wife looked back, and she thereupon turned into a pillar of salt. (27) Next morning, Abraham hurried to the place where he had stood before יהוה,

... for verily the Shekhinah of the Holy One, blessed be He, has descended in order to rain upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire. The pity of 'Edith the wife of Lot was stirred for her daughters, who were married in Sodom, and she looked back behind her to see if they were coming after her or not. And she saw behind the Shekhinah, and she became a pillar of salt, as it is said, "And his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt" (Gen. 19:26).

The Sages taught: The people of Sodom became haughty and sinned due only to the excessive goodness that the Holy One, Blessed be He, bestowed upon them. And what is written concerning them, indicating that goodness? “As for the earth, out of it comes bread, and underneath it is turned up as it were by fire. Its stones are the place of sapphires, and it has dust of gold. That path no bird of prey knows, neither has the falcon’s eye seen it. The proud beasts have not trodden it, nor has the lion passed thereby” (Job 28:5–8). The reference is to the city of Sodom, which was later overturned, as it is stated thereafter: “He puts forth His hand upon the flinty rock; He overturns the mountains by the roots” (Job 28:9). The people of Sodom said: Since we live in a land from which bread comes and has the dust of gold, we have everything that we need. Why do we need travelers, as they come only to divest us of our property? Come, let us cause the proper treatment of travelers to be forgotten from our land, as it is stated: “He breaks open a watercourse in a place far from inhabitants, forgotten by pedestrians, they are dried up, they have moved away from men” (Job 28:4).

Apropos the daughter of Nakdimon ben Guryon, the Gemara relates what later became of her: The Sages taught: There was an incident involving Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai. When he was riding on a donkey and leaving Jerusalem, and his students were walking after him to learn from him, he saw a certain young woman who was gathering barley from among the dung of the animals of Arabs. She was so poor that she subsisted on the undigested barley within the dung. When she saw him, she wrapped herself in her hair, as she had nothing else with which to cover herself, and stood before him. She said to him: My teacher, sustain me. He did not recognize her, so he said to her: My daughter, who are you? She said to him: I am the daughter of Nakdimon ben Guryon. He said to her: My daughter, the money of your father’s household, where did it go? How did you become so poor? She said to him: My teacher, is it not that they say such a proverb in Jerusalem: Salt for money is lacking [ḥaser]? There is nothing with which to preserve it and prevent it from being lost. And some say the proverb asserts that kindness [ḥesed] is salt for money, i.e., using money for acts of kindness preserves it. He continued to ask her: And the money of your father-in-law’s house, which was used properly, for benevolent acts, where is it? She said to him: This one came and destroyed that one; all the money was combined, and it was all lost together. She said to him: My teacher, do you remember when you signed on my marriage contract? He said to his students: I remember that when I signed on the marriage contract of this woman, and I read in it, it listed a thousand thousands, i.e., one million gold dinars as a dowry from her father’s house, aside from that which was promised her from her father-in-law. Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai cried and said: How fortunate are you, Israel, for when Israel performs the will of the Omnipresent, no nation or tongue can rule over them; and when Israel does not perform the will of the Omnipresent, He delivers them into the hand of a lowly nation. Not only are they delivered into the hand of a lowly nation, but even into the hand of the animals of a lowly nation, as in the pitiful instance of Nakdimon’s daughter.