Parshat VaYeira: Save Sodom Today Rabbi Tuvia Bolton, Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim, Kfar Chabad, Israel

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 Parshat Vayeira

In this week's action-packed Torah reading we continue to live with Abraham, the father of Judaism.

 One of the most bizarre episodes here is how G-d annihilates an evil cluster of cities called "Sodom and Amora" through an Angel. But equally as strange; beforehand He says that he must tell Abraham .... 

 "Can I conceal from Abraham what I am about to do?" (18:17) 

 The Torah then tells us at length how after G-d told him, he pleaded and bargained for mercy, but with no results. 

 This apparently makes no sense. 

 First of all, G-d is not a person that HAS to do anything why was He forced to tell Abraham?

Secondly, in the end G-d destroyed the cities anyway despite Abraham's arguments. And G-d certainly knew the future. So why was it important to tell him? 

And finally, what does this almost 4,000 year old story have to do with us today?

 To understand this here is a story that I experienced. 

 One Friday afternoon, less than one hour before Shabbat some fifteen years ago I was driving back home to Kfar Chabad from Tel Aviv after a successful hour of putting Tefillin on non-observant Jews in an popular outdoor artsy marketplace. 

 It was getting late and, with no time to waste, I took a bit of a short-cut that was definitely not a major move, would save ten precious minutes, involved absolutely NO danger to anyone, but was a minor traffic infraction; it involved driving over a solid white line. 

 Just as I completed my shortcut, a policeman, just waiting for someone following logic like mine, jumped out into the street from behind a bush fifty yards before me and motioned to me to pull over. 

 The spider caught the fly. 

 I opened the window, admitted my guilt, requested that he dispense with me as quickly as possible because of the approaching Shabbat and quietly said a Psalm hoping he'd let me go. 

 He took my driver's license, told me to follow him to his car and by the time I got there he had already checked his computer and was beginning to write the traffic ticket. 

 He looked at my driver's license, stopped writing for a second and said (in Hebrew), "You are from Chabad, huh? Your picture is familiar. Where do I know your name from?" 

 "Aha!! (I thought to myself A ray of hope!! He is a human being after all) and answered as jovially as possible, "Maybe from jail?" 

 "Jail!?" He looked at me in wonder. "Yes" I replied "Heh heh" I've been there to read Magilla and light Chanuka lights with the prisoners Heh heh." 

 Without even smiling he looked down, finished writing the ticket and, as he turned to get out of his car said. "You are from Chabad, right?" 

 'Yes, yes!" I said eagerly hoping he would change his mind. But he got out of his car, stood up and mechanically handed it to me and said, 

 "I had a big miracle from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. A big miracle." 

 "Nu" I said to him. "Let's hear it. At least give me something to take home for my money." 

 I knew it would take precious time but I figured that, 1) maybe it would be a good story and 2) while he was busy telling it he wouldn't be able to give tickets to anyone else and 3) Maybe, when he saw I was a good listener, he would cancel the ticket. 

 "It was twenty years ago, 1986" he began. "I was a motorcycle cop on my way to save someone trapped in an overturned car when suddenly an Arab from Gaza slammed into me from the side and flipped me and my bike over a guardrail into a 14-foot-deep ravine. 

 "It was a miracle there was an ambulance nearby that rushed me to the hospital. They saved my life but my spine and neck were broken and they thought I'd be paralyzed for life.

 "Well, the doctors operated and succeed in returning control to the left half of my body but my entire right side was dead. 

 "I mean dead, dead. My leg and arm dangled and eventually wilted until they were like sticks. The right side of my face with my eye and mouth drooped down like some monster. And everyone kept telling me how lucky I was to be alive and what a miracle it was etc. etc.

 "This went on for four years. The doctors all said there was nothing more that could be done so I went to all sorts of seers, fortune-tellers, healers and even Rabbis. I wasted a fortune but all I got was more depressed. 

 "Then, after four years of this, our family doctor called me and said that he had read about how there was a new type of surgery being developed in Germany that might help me. It was still experimental but because my situation was deteriorating and something had to be done fast he thought that I should try my luck. 

 "I contacted them, they faxed me information and after all the operation was scheduled in two weeks. 

 "The date approached. I was nervous but kept telling myself that anything would be better than being half-dead. anything. Maybe.

 "Then, about a week later on Friday a friend came to my house with this young Chabad rabbi. He said that he told him my story and this Rabbi suggested that I write a fax to the Rebbe of Lubavitch. 

 "I told my friend to do me a favor and get him out of my sight immediately. 

 "You see, I'm Jewish right, but I hated the religion and especially the Rabbis. I had already spent enough money on charlatans, I hated religious people, couldn't stand the sight of them and as far as I was concerned, he could jump in the lake. I wasn't wasting another penny. 

 "But he explained that he didn't take money and he would even fax it for free, I agreed. We talked for a few minutes, I got the general idea and finally I told my wife to write that I want health and livelihood, sign my name and fax it off from the fax in my house. 

 "That Saturday night, maybe 4 in the morning, some nine hours after Shabbat my fax rang and rattled, 

 My wife took it and read aloud word for word: it was an answer from the Rebbe's office.

 "Do not make the operation, it is not necessary. With G-d's help you will return to work as before" 

 "I grabbed the letter with my good hand, read it again and saw red! 'This is who they call a great man?' I yelled 'what a faker! I didn't say anything about any operation! You know how he knew about the operation?! It's simple! That young rabbi that was here on Friday must have called and told him! That's how!! 

 "It's so transparent! And, what?! He writes that I'll return to work?! It's a stupid, cheap trick!! He writes it to everyone and if it happens to come true once in a thousand, he squeezes you for money!!!' 

 "I crumpled the fax and threw it angrily in the trash. 

 "That was Saturday night. Two days later, early Monday morning at about six a.m. my phone rang. I rolled over, still three-quarters asleep and picked it up. "Nuuu, who is is?" I mumbled. 

 "The voice on the other end said.... 'this is Eddy from the traffic police in Beer Sheva, we're making a new group and we want you to be part of it." 

 "Just what I need" I said to myself, 'a practical joker first thing in the morning! I called him a few nasty names, slammed the phone down and rolled back over to try to get back to sleep. 

 "But suddenly I realized that something was wrong!! I had picked up the phone with my RIGHT hand - the one that was paralyzed!! 

 "I thought that maybe it was a dream, maybe I was going crazy, but after a few seconds I realized that.... there was my right hand! I was holding it up before my face and moving it!! 

 "The phone rang again and I picked it up but this time I watched my hand and couldn't believe what I was seeing. 

 "Hello! Did you just curse me and slam the phone down!" Said the angry voice on the other end. I started to tell him that I thought it was a joke or a bad dream but he cut me off and said that if I was interested I should appear in the station on Wednesday gave me address and hung up. 

 "That Wednesday was the first time I drove a car in four years. All the it was a different area where no one recognized me which explains the confusion of how they called me. 

 "Anyway, they checked me up, took blood samples and x-rays and, to make it short, the next day they called to say they accepted me. 

 "But when I returned and showed the doctor my old x-rays, he didn't believe they were mine. He said. "I see it but what I see is impossible - on this old x-ray picture there are broken bones and scars from your operations. But on these new pictures all this is gone!"

 It seems that the Rebbe gave me a new body! 

 "If anyone asks me" the policeman concluded his story, "I say the Lubavitcher Rebbe is alive today, this very moment! If he could give me a new body for sure he's here in his." We hugged each other in public. I stepped back and said, holding up the ticket. "My friend, I don't know how much this fine is but it's worth every penny to hear that story!!" and he replied with a smile, "Finet? It's a warning!! A warning!" 

 I read the ticket and saw he was right!! It was only a warning! I wanted to say something like, 'wow another miracle!' but when I looked up he was already back in the street with a furious look on his face pulling someone else over. 

 Now we can answer our questions about why G-d had to tell Abraham about destroying Sodom and Amora. 

 Abraham's purpose in the world was to 'open the channels' of Judaism. 

 By the time of this story he already had been the first to serve G-d with self-sacrifice, the first to do a G-d given commandment, the first to teach others that G-d creates, enlivens, provides and cares for each and all of His creations constantly and 'wants' and even reacts to our prayers, praises and service etc. 

 But here Abraham was opening an entirely new channel:

 He was enabling all the Tzadikim throughout coming the generations to save others with their own prayers and personal merits even in the most mundane matters (as we saw the Lubavitcher Rebbe did in our story.)

 But most importantly Abraham was preparing the world for Moshiach. Moshiach will bring blessing, meaning and joy to the entire world (Prov.10:28) to all mankind thus completing what Abraham began when G-d called him "The father of all mankind" (Gen. 17:5).  

 So the practical lesson here for us is; First, it's not so difficult to bring Moshiach and improve the entire world; Abraham, Moses, all the Tzadikim since have opened and paved the road. All we have to do is drive on it. And second: we can't fail G-d promised Moshiach to Abraham.

 In other words, today, after all the efforts and suffering of all the previous generations just one more good deed, word or even thought that we do say or think can tip the scales and reveal  .... 

 Moshiach NOW!

Rabbi Tuvia Bolton

Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim

Kfar Chabad, Israel

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