CU3-11

**Goal:** Students will use the myth of the destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah as a way to discuss when to question authority and our responsibility to take a stand against hurtful behavior. Students will review how this story illustrates the notions of speaking truth to power, and will evaluate the justness of God’s actions. **Materials:** daily national newspaper ** 1. **** Gain attention of the learner**: Ask students to describe anti-drug or anti-smoking advertisements. What are the goals of these ads? ** 2. **** Review relevant past learning**: The story of Abraham and the Idols describes how Abraham argues with his father about the belief in worshipping idols. ** 3. **** Present new material**: (Background: Genesis 18:16-19. The mythical history has Abraham traveling to Canaan from Ur with his nephew Lot. In the story, their possessions become large and they need to split up to maintain peace in their families before becoming jealous of one another. Abraham allows Lot to choose to go to Sodom. Later, Sodom became known for being a dangerous, hateful place.) In the story, God decides to destroy Sodom and a similarly bad neighboring city, Gemorah, because of its wickedness. Abraham then proceeds to argue with God saying that should the innocent be destroyed along with the wicked. God says if Abraham can find 100 good people, the city will be saved. Abraham bargains down the number to 10 people but that is still more than can be found. God allows Abraham to save Lot but says that anyone looking back will be killed. Lot is warned and leaves the city with his children and their children, but Lot’s wife turns back to look at the destruction and is turned into a pillar of salt. ** 4. **** Provide guided practice**: Archeologists cannot find evidence that Sodom ever existed. Students should discuss why this story was added to the Bible and what lesson was it supposed to teach. What examples of disobeying authority are found in the story (Abraham arguing with God about whether to destroy the city, Lot’s wife looking back) ** 5. **** Provide independent practice**: Some rabbis feel that this story was told because it is considered wrong to watch as others are wrongly harmed. Distribute copies of the newspaper to small student work groups. What current events can they find that depict events where others are harmed that some group is trying to help? What can we do to help when we see innocent people being hurt? ** 6. **** Close the lesson**: Students should share their findings. **Why Sodom was destroyed** ** (Humanist Readings in Jewish Folklore selected and edited by Bennett Muraskin) ** In Genesis 19, God appears to destroy Sodom because of the sexual depravity of its inhabitants. The rabbis gave a different explanation: it was due to equally depraved cruelty toward the poor. They offered these tales as examples. Our rabbis taught that the people of Sodom became cruel and arrogant because of the wealth of their land. They said, "Since we live in such luxury with unlimited produce, gold, silver and previous stones in the ground, let us see to it that we get no strangers here, because they will only take away some of our wealth." So they decided that whoever invites a stranger to dine will lose his garments. If a poor man passed through the city, everyone would give him a dinar coin on which the donor scratched his own name but they would refuse to give or sell him any bread. When the poor man died, each one would then come and take back his coin. Once, a young girl gave a poor man some bread which she had hidden in a pitcher. When after three days the poor man was still alive, they found out what had happened. So they took the girl, covered her with honey and tied her fast on a rooftop, where she was stung to death by bees. Their cruelty to the poor was equally savage. R. Judah said: an edict was passed in Sodom that whoever offers food to the poor shall be burned to death. Once two young girls went down to the well to fill their pails with water. One said to her friend, "Why do you look so pale today?" And the other answered: “We have no food and will soon die." What did the first girl do? She filled her pail with flour and they secretly exchanged pails. But as soon as the people found out that she had given away food to the poor, she was executed. Said God, "Even if I wanted to keep silent, I could not on account of the cries of this young girl."    Pelotit, Lot's daughter, was married to one of the important men of Sodom. She used to see a poor man groveling about in the street and she felt very sorry for him. So every day when she went down to the well for water she would secretly fill her pitcher with food and give it to the man. Soon enough, the people asked, "How does that poor man keep alive?" Then they found out what had happened and they brought her out for execution. The woman cried to God and asked for justice to be done to the people of Sodom.  //adapted from Bialik and Ravnitzky, Sefer Ha-Aggadah, selected by Chaim Pearl //
 * 3-11 Speaking truth to power - Sodom and Gemorrah **