Vayera - Descending

“Once upon a time there (in Sodom) was a poor man and he was dying of hunger. Came Lot’s daughter, her name was Kala, who used to go and draw water. Every time she would hide a piece of bread in her water jar and give it to the poor man. The people of Sodom said: How come this man is still alive? They checked and realized that it was Lot’s daughter who was sustaining him. So what did they do? They stripped her and covered her with honey and the bees and the flies would bite her until she died.”

This story is found in Midrash Aggadah to our Torah portion Vayera. Among other famous storylines, Vayera brings us the story of Sodom and Gemorah, two cities where sin was so great that one would be brutally murdered, like in the Midrash above, for attempting to do good.

Torah commentator, journalist and politician Avraham Burg writes in his commentary for Vayera, that there aren’t many times in the Torah when God is described to “come down” or “descend” to our world, but when He does, something really bad happens.  

Once in the case of the Tower of Babel: “יהוה came down to look at the city and tower that humanity had built” and then again, “Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there, so that they shall not understand one another’s speech.”

In our portion as well: “I will go down to see whether they have acted altogether according to the outcry that has reached Me; if not, I will take note.”

In the case of the Tower of Babel, when God “came down” he mixed human languages up and created an eternal division between people, the second time he “came down” he destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah; both times, God broke his promise to Noah, to no longer attempt to destroy humanity.

Burg asks, what prompted God to break his promise in these cases?

The exploration of the term ארד (I’ll go down) by Burg, reminded me of chapter 10 in volume 1 of Guide for the Perplexed. Here in this chapter, the Rambam explains the use of the terms ascend and descend as referring to God.

First the Rambam explains that the terms Allah and Yarad (ascended and descended) don’t refer to physical movement in space. Rather, they are used to describe a higher or a lower state of mind or a form of being. “When a man falls from his high position, we say “he has come down,” The Rambam writes.

He continues: “The two words are also applied to intellectual processes, namely, when we reflect on something beneath ourselves we are said to go down, and when our attention is raised to a subject above us we are said to rise.”

Now the Rambam comes with a surprise: When the two words refer to humans, the explanations above fit. When the terms “ascend” and “descent” refer to God, it should be understood in the complete opposite way.

When God descends - it is a positive occurrence because this is when prophecy occurs. When God descends,  it means that those with the ability to do so can tap into the essence of life itself, to true wisdom. But when God ascends it is negative - because this means that our ability to connect or understand the divine essence is slipping away, moving away from us.

According to the Rambam - Intervention in the form of punishment, could also be considered care. To answer Burg’s question - the people of Sodom have sinned so greatly that the divine essence had to descend and be present, even in the form of punishment. 

The Rambam’s philosophy perceived the relationship between God and humans as reciprocal, but not because God is some grumpy old man in the sky who punishes and rewards human deeds, but rather because God created the law of nature in such a way that made us responsible for the outcomes of our actions, and that the decisions we make determine the type of world we will be living in.

Last week’s election results left many people disheartened and worried, while leaving other people feeling quite the opposite. One way or another, the people of the country have made a choice, one which will have real consequences. 

Let us never forget that our path to better our lives depends on our everyday decisions to side with good, with compassion and with care. Let us all pray and hope that no “descent” will have to occur upon us, so we would have to be reminded of our divine essence.