Talmud Class: Lot is a Lot - What Do We Learn From the Life of Lot?

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

The biblical character Lot presents a unique challenge. He appears in three portions, Noach this week, Lekh L’kha next week, and Va-yera two weeks from now. He is a supporting actor in multiple chapters in Genesis: chapters 11, 12, 13, 14, and 19. And yet no one ever talks about him. We don’t mine his story. We avoid him. There is good reason why we stay away from Lot. The end of his story is gross, in fact doubly gross. Incomprehensibly, he offers his two virgin daughters to the rapists of Sodom in a bizarre attempt to protect the visitor/angels from being raped. After God destroys Sodom, and Lot and his daughters escape to a cave, those daughters get him drunk, sleep with him, get pregnant, and thereby create the nations of the Moabites and Ammonites. Yuck. The cringe factor of these two concluding Lot stories explains why we never talk about Lot. But Lot has a lot to teach us. What do we learn from the early and middle parts of his story that can help explain its unspeakable end? Lot’s story is a cautionary tale. What are its lessons? To answer these questions, we will consult an evocative and wise passage from Rambam's Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot De'ah, 6:1-2.