Call Me Pelotit (The Real Sins of Sodom and Gemorrah)

Who was Pelotit?

In our biblical stories there are many individuals (many of them women) who are not named in the Torah, but are given names in the midrashic stories of the rabbis. One of them is Pelotit, a daughter of Lot.

In this week’s Torah portion we read of the infamous cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and how Abraham pleads with God to spare the cities if only enough righteous people live there. Now our fair state, Oklahoma, likes to think of itself as a righteous place. After all, our public leaders take firm stands against all forms of immorality that were practiced in those biblical cesspools of iniquity.

Or so we’d like to think. In reality, our Rabbis of old taught that the real sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were not sexual depravity, but lack of charity toward the strangers and less fortunate. In many different places, our sages stress that not only did the residents of Sodom not believe in charity towards strangers, but they sought to prohibit others from generosity. One Midrash from Pirkei D’Rabi Eliezer says it well:

R. Yehudah said: They announced in Sodom that anyone who gave bread to the poor, the sojourner or the destitute would be burned. Now, Pelotit was Lot’s daughter and she was married to one of the leaders of Sodom. She saw a poor man afflicted in the public square and she was grieved on his account. What did she do? Every day, when she went to draw water, she would take some food from her house and hide it in her pitcher, and so would feed the poor man. The people of Sodom wondered: how could this man stay alive? When they found out, they took Pelotit out to be burned.

On November 1, Oklahoma House Bill 1804 goes into effect. This bill makes it a crime employ, transport, offer housing to or otherwise help undocumented workers or their families. This law has the stench of sulfur to me. It is mean-spirited, racist, prejudiced and short-sighted. It is immoral. That our legislature passed this bill makes Oklahoma more like Sodom and Gemorrah than we would like to believe.

Now, I think we do need to address the question of legal and illegal immigration in our country in a meaningful way. It is equally immoral for us to continue with the situation we have had for a number of years, in which undocumented workers are officially prohibited but unofficially tolerated, forming an underclass with no minimum wage, no workplace safety, no security, and none of the rights we take for granted as Americans in a free and democratic society. Hopefully in some future age, when humanity has become morally more advanced, we will have no more need for nation-states, armies, passports, and borders. In the meantime, our country should exercise its right to control how non-citizens may stay within our borders. There is nothing intrinsically immoral about turning back people who wish to cross our border illegally. There should be nothing wrong with returning non-citizens who are here illegally and who have been here a short time to their home countries.

I actually think that President Bush’s proposal in the national debate on immigration made sense (Yes, I actually praised our president for something and lightning didn’t strike). His proposal was that undocumented workers who had been here longer than a certain period be given a path toward naturalization, those here an intermediate length of time would have to return to their home country and apply for a visa, and those here only a short while would have to leave. Needless to say, this did not become federal law.

Let’s not kid ourselves: This law is racist and promotes racist behavior. When I spoke about this last Shabbat, a man of Mexican heritage related how behavior toward him has changed in recent weeks, how prejudice has come to the surface. Two elders born in Germany reminded us how such laws deprive all of us of our humanity and make us partners in the dehumanization of people labeled ‘other’. The worst effects of the first Nuremberg laws were not what the government did, but how they gave license to average Germans to commit violence against German Jews without fear of retaliation. Need I say that the anniversary of Kristallnacht is only a week away?

Our silence constitutes consent. Our Jewish values compel us to take whatever action we can. Other religious communities have openly pledged to help those affected in any way, because it is the right thing to do. In our synagogue, and our larger Jewish community, I feel we can do no less. If you have an idea, or want to be involved, please email me.

In the meantime, you can just call me Pelotit.

B’Shalom,

Rabbi Russell Fox

(This essay was based on my sermon last Shabbat morning, October 27)