Ari Levisohn: Welcome to Into the Verse, where we share new and unexpected insights about the parsha … diving deep into the verses to uncover the Torah’s own commentary on itself.

Hi, this is Ari Levisohn. I recently discovered something amazing about Parshat Bo, and I can hardly wait to share it with you. But before I do, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. As excited as I am about this material, I debated whether or not I should share it with you at all. Why, you’re probably wondering? 

Well, it all comes down to something that we at Into the Verse talk about a lot among ourselves: the relationship between evidence and argument. If you listen to our podcasts, you can divide pretty much every one into two main parts, evidence and argument. Evidence is: “There are ten unusual words that show up in this story and in this other story in the Torah. These two stories are related.” And argument is: “Here’s what I think it means. When I read these stories as related, here is how I arrive at a new understanding of them. And here’s the message that I think God may be trying to convey.” 

Evidence – that’s more objective. It’s more of a science. Argument – more subjective. More of an art. It’s not a free-for-all; you can’t just say whatever you want. You have to be a responsible reader of the text, to be intellectually honest and try to follow the evidence to its organic, inevitable conclusion. But there’s definitely room for disagreement.

And this piece that I’m about to share with you… well, the evidence is really solid, at least in my estimation. But some parts of the argument are what I might call speculative. I find it to be persuasive, I’m really excited by it, but I’m not going to claim that I have an ironclad case. So I hesitated to share it. But my colleagues convinced me that the evidence is so cool that I’ve simply got to put it out there, and as for the argument, it’s pretty cool too, and as long as I’m honest with our listeners about which parts feel indisputable and which parts don’t, it would be a shame not to share it with others. 

So as you listen to this episode, I invite you to keep an ear out for when I’m presenting evidence and when I shift into argument mode. And once you’ve heard my take, I’m really hoping you’ll ask yourself: Do I buy this way of looking at the evidence? When I look at the text, do I see even more details that support Ari’s interpretation? Or… would I put the evidence together in some other way entirely?

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.

A Feast of Matzah

This week's parsha, Parshat Bo, tells the story of the exodus from Egypt, yetziat Mitzrayim. Well, okay, we have been reading this story for three weeks now, but this week is when it actually happens. The Israelites finally leave Egypt, and on the night they leave, they celebrate their first-ever Passover, replete with all the Passover staples: the korban Pesach, maror, and of course, matzah. If there’s one thing we probably associate with our Passover today more than anything else, it’s got to be that delicious matzah. What, you don’t look forward to matzah all year? 

Anyway, here’s the thing about that matzah: Yetziat Mitzrayim (the exodus from Egypt) is actually not the first time we hear about it. There’s an earlier story in which someone sits down for a meal of matzah on the night before leaving a land that’s described as Egypt-like. Do you know what I’m talking about? It was the story of yetziat S’dom (the departure from Sodom). 

Wait, yetziat S’dom? I’ve heard of yetziat Mitzrayim, the exodus from Egypt, but not yetziat S’dom! Okay, granted I just made that term up, but why am I calling it that?

Well, if you think about it, Lot’s story, too, is really a kind of exodus. In fact, the word יצא (yatza), “exit,” comes up over and over again in the Sodom story, eight times in just twelve verses.The truth is that yetziat Mitzrayim and yetziat S’dom have a lot more in common than just matzah. Together, I believe, they teach us a profound and deeply relevant lesson. All that is yet to come, but first, let’s actually explore these connections.

I’m going to start with a 30-second recap of the Sodom story. Ready? Go!

• Two angels visit the evil city of Sodom with the Godly mission to destroy it. 
• Abraham’s nephew Lot invites them to kick off their shoes and stay the night. 
• Later that night, after Lot serves them a feast of matzah, a mob comes to the door and demands to have their way with the guests. 
• Lot leaves his house to bargain with the mob, at which point the angels instruct Lot to flee in the middle of the night with his family before the city is destroyed. 
• Lot delays, the angels have to drag him and his family out, and the city is destroyed behind them. 
• Lot convinces the angels to let him stay in a close-by city. 
• And finally, after being warned not to, Lot’s wife turns around to look at the city and is transformed into a pillar of salt.

If you zoom out, what is this story really about? It’s about one family being taken out from an evil place in the middle of the night while that place is destroyed in their wake. If you think about it, it sounds a whole lot like a small version of the exodus from Egypt some four centuries later. This one family who escapes in the middle of the night becomes the family of Israel, and the single night of destruction turns into ten plagues, slowly dismantling Egypt. 

Okay, so it really sounds like these two stories are similar. But if you have been around the block with Aleph Beta, then you know that it rarely stops at thematic parallels. If the Torah really wants us to see these stories as connected, then it typically includes linguistic, textual connections between the stories as well. You know, the kinds of connections that are really hard to write off. We’ve already seen the matzah connection, but let’s see if we can find anything else. 

Moving Out

Okay, one problem. You see, if we were sitting down in person right now, here is the point where I would pull over a big whiteboard and start charting all the parallels I found. 

And you would react something like this:

Evan Weiner: Not only do you have one connection, you’ve got nine connections, and within those nine connections there are multiple words, so that in all you’ve got about sixteen, seventeen connections here.

Ari: And there are three or four connections that I didn’t even include in this list.

Evan: There you go! I’m getting the edited list. And not only that, not only that, not only do you have these nine chunks that each have a few connections within them, but they are all in the same order. They’re all in the same order! It’s unbelievable! It’s just – it is so clear that there is a connection here… 

That’s my colleague Evan Weiner describing a chart I showed him of the textual parallels that I found. But alas, we are not sitting in front of a whiteboard, nor is this an animated video. So I attached a link to the full chart of the parallels in the description, but for now I’ll share just a small handful of examples, the ones that really highlight what I think the yetziat Mitzrayim - yetziat S’dom connection really is meant to teach us. 

So the first textual parallel I want to share focuses on these two meals of matzah. We are in Genesis 19, and Lot is inviting the angels to stay with him overnight and feast: סוּרוּ נָא אֶל בֵּית עַבְדְּכֶם וְלִינוּ וְרַחֲצוּ רַגְלֵיכֶם – Come to my house, rest and wash your feet (Genesis 19:2). And in the very next verse Lot serves them a feast of matzah. 

Now pay attention to how the matzah feast (eaten with the korban Pesach) is described in the Book of Exodus: וְכָכָה תֹּאכְלוּ אֹתוֹ מׇתְנֵיכֶם חֲגֻרִים נַעֲלֵיכֶם בְּרַגְלֵיכֶם וּמַקֶּלְכֶם בְּיֶדְכֶם – This is how you should eat it: ready to go, with your shoes on your feet, staff in hand (Exodus 12:11).

Did you catch a common word there? It was actually the word “feet.” Lot is telling his guests to wash their feet – i.e. take off your shoes, stick around, get comfortable – whereas God instructs the Israelites to eat their matzah with their shoes on, ready to escape at any moment. Interestingly, God is instructing the Israelites to do the exact opposite as Lot did. Let’s hold on to that as we move to our next textual parallel. 

Back in the Sodom story, right after the meal is over, an angry mob is clamoring outside Lot’s house, וַיֵּצֵא אֲלֵהֶם לוֹט הַפֶּתְחָה – and Lot leaves through the doorway of his house towards the Sodomites (Genesis 19:6).

While in Egypt, the night the Israelites eat their matzah, God commands them: לֹא תֵצְאוּ אִישׁ מִפֶּתַח בֵּיתוֹ – No one is allowed to leave through the doorway of their house (Exodus 12:22). 

In both stories, we have “leaving” and we have “doorway.” The only difference is the word לֹא –  don’t. God is again instructing the Israelites to do the exact opposite as Lot did. Don’t take your shoes off. Don’t leave your house.

You might be wondering: Why is God so adamant that the Israelites do the exact opposite – keep your shoes on ready to go and seclude yourselves inside the doorway of your house? Well, I don’t think we are ready to answer this question yet, but the truth is, the next set of parallels we are going to see will drive this question in even harder.

Let’s go back to the Lot story again, picking up right after we left off. The angels tell Lot they are going to destroy the city, and that he should gather his family and leave. Lot then instructs his family: קוּמוּ צְּאוּ מִן הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה – Get up and leave (Genesis 19:14).

You know who else uses that exact same language of קוּמוּ צְּאוּ (Get up and leave)? It was the bereft Pharaoh right after God killed all the firstborn of Egypt. He frantically calls Moses and Aaron and demands they leave: קוּמוּ צְּאוּ מִתּוֹךְ עַמִּי (Exodus 12:31).

Let’s continue and see how Lot and the Israelites each respond to קוּמוּ צְּאוּ. Well, despite the urging of the angels, Lot doesn’t end up leaving so quickly. The Torah tells us that he delays: וַיִּתְמַהְמָהּ (Genesis 19:16).

But you know who doesn’t delay, who wasn’t even given a chance to hesitate? The Israelites! The Israelites were not able to delay: לֹא יָכְלוּ לְהִתְמַהְמֵהַּ (Exodus 12:39). And do you know why they didn’t have the chance to delay? וַתֶּחֱזַק מִצְרַיִם עַל הָעָם לְמַהֵר לְשַׁלְּחָם מִן הָאָרֶץ – Because Pharaoh and the Egyptians were forcing them out (12:32).

You know who else was forced out? Lot!  וַיַּחֲזִיקוּ הָאֲנָשִׁים בְּיָדוֹ…  וַיֹּצִאֻהוּ וַיַּנִּחֻהוּ מִחוּץ לָעִיר

That’s that same word again. The angels drag Lot out with the exact same word: וַיַּחֲזִיקוּ (Genesis 19:16).

Again, there are some really important differences within these parallels. Lot is given the opportunity to leave on his own, but he delays, so the angels have to force him out. But in Egypt, even before the Israelites have a chance to delay, Pharaoh and the Egyptians are banging down their doors to force them out. We’ll come back to these subtle differences later, but let’s store them away for now, because I think we have enough evidence to begin to build a theory.

Don’t Turn Around

Returning to the point we were wondering about before – why is God instructing the Israelites to prepare to leave precisely in the inverse of Lot’s story? – I think we can see that these parallels are starting to fit into a pattern. It looks like Lot is really attached to Sodom. He has a hard time leaving: וַיִּתְמַהְמָהּ. Why is he so attached? We don’t know yet. But the pattern is also suggesting that God doesn’t want yetziat Mitzrayim to play out like Lot’s story. When it comes time for leaving Egypt, the verses seem to highlight how God wants to make sure that the Israelites don’t get stuck, that their exit is swift and easy, a clean break.

Okay, that is just a hypothesis so far. We haven’t finished seeing all the evidence yet, and we still need to finish explaining those first parallels we saw, but let’s move on to our final set of parallels and see if this theme continues.

We are now almost at the end of the Sodom story. After the angels drag Lot and his family out of Sodom, they tell him to flee to the mountains, and Lot makes a strange counter: הָעִיר הַזֹּאת קְרֹבָה לָנוּס שָׁמָּה – Lot asks the angels to go to a city called Tzo’ar, because it is close by (Genesis 19:20). 

Everything that Lot does, God makes sure the Israelites do the opposite. So, can you guess the one thing the Israelites don’t do when they are fleeing Egypt? לֹא נָחָם אֱלֹקים דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּים כִּי קָרוֹב הוּא כִּי אָמַר אֱלֹקים פֶּן־יִנָּחֵם הָעָם בִּרְאֹתָם מִלְחָמָה וְשָׁבוּ מִצְרָיְמָה – God specifically avoided the Philistine land, precisely because it was close by and it ran the risk of the Israelites returning to Egypt (Exodus 13:17). 

Why would Lot want to stay in such a close city? Well, if our theory is correct, if Lot had reservations about leaving Sodom in the first place, wouldn’t it make sense for him to stay in the closest city possible? And if we are right that the Israelites may have had the same reservation, that they may have wanted to return to Egypt, and that God didn’t want to let that happen, wouldn’t it make sense for God to avoid taking them along a route that left any chance of returning? And the Torah says exactly this. God is trying to create as much distance as possible between the Israelites and their former home of Egypt, and He does this by leading them in the exact opposite path as Lot.

Okay, we have one more parallel to look at. Each one of the parallels we have seen has been in chronological order, both stories lining up perfectly. Now we come to the end of the Sodom story. The city has been destroyed. The angels warned Lot and his family not to look back, and yet, וַתַּבֵּט אִשְׁתּוֹ מֵאַחֲרָיו וַתְּהִי נְצִיב מֶלַח – Lot’s wife looks back at the burning city and is transformed into a נְצִיב, a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:26).

That same root נ.צ.ב. comes up at the very end of the Egypt story as well. The Israelites are camped at the bank of the Sea of Reeds, and they see the Egyptian army coming after them. The Israelites are trapped and begin to panic, but Moses reassures them: אַל תִּירָאוּ הִתְיַצְּבוּ וּרְאוּ אֶת יְשׁוּעַת יְקוָה אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂה לָכֶם הַיּוֹם (Exodus 14:13).

הִתְיַצְּבוּ, from that same root of נ.צ.ב. It means to stand or be pillar-like, just like Lot’s wife. Only, what is Moses saying now? Stand and watch what God is about to do for you. And unlike Lot and his family, who are warned against looking back at Sodom. Moses tells the Israelites,  כִּי אֲשֶׁר רְאִיתֶם אֶת מִצְרַיִם הַיּוֹם לֹא תֹסִפוּ לִרְאֹתָם עוֹד עַד עוֹלָם – Just as you are seeing Egypt today, you will never see them again. You will never step foot back in Egypt, and when the Egyptian army comes chasing after you, I will vanquish them under the water. Look back all you want. There will be nothing to see.

This idea of looking back – it’s such a vivid illustration of one’s attachment to the past, to where you’ve come from. For Lot’s family, it’s another example of the longing to be there and the struggle to detach. Lot’s family failed their test of looking back. But God doesn’t even give the Israelites the chance to fail. God wants to make sure that Egypt is not even in their rear-view mirror. 

Go Your Own Way

If we are right about this theory, which I believe we are, then I think we can go back and appreciate the first two parallels as well, and that will, in turn, help us understand why God wanted to change things the second time around.

Lot inviting his guests to take their shoes off may not have been a big deal on its own. He had no idea that he would need to flee his home momentarily. But it was symbolic of his desire to stay where he was. And when it came to the Israelites, God wanted to make sure they spent that night feeling like it was already time to go, like there was nothing left for them in Egypt. So He tells them to spend all night with their shoes on, staffs in hand, ready to leave at a moment's notice.

After the meal, Lot exited his house. But he wasn’t just going for a post-dinner stroll. He was going to engage with the evil mob who wanted to have their way with his guests. Lot was negotiating with terrorists. But for Lot these weren’t terrorists, they were his fellow citizens. They were the people he chose to live with. It may seem strange that Lot has such an affinity for these evil people, that he chooses to go out and engage with them when they are threatening to do unthinkable things. But Lot knew what he was getting into, and despite the horrific things happening right before his eyes, he had no intentions on leaving this city. Why is it so hard for Lot to pull himself away? Again, we don’t really know yet. But for some reason Lot is uncontrollably attached to Sodom. 

And of course, as we have seen over and over again, when God takes the Israelites out of Egypt, he instructs them to do the exact opposite. Whereas Lot spent that night outside mingling with the neighbors, the Israelites are instructed to isolate even before it is time to leave Egypt. Don’t leave your houses. Separate from your Egyptian neighbors.That doorway of the house is a threshold between Egypt on the outside and the new Israelite nation forming on the inside. Don’t cross it. 

So to recap, we have seen this pattern develop through a number of parallels. In each of these parallels God is modeling yetziat Mitzrayim based on yetziat S’dom, and, furthermore, at each step He makes sure that the Israelites act in the exact opposite way that Lot does. And there are actually a few different ways that God goes about doing this. I’ll explain what I mean. In the first two parallels we just saw, God directs through His word, instructing the Israelites how to conduct themselves: shoes on, door locked. In the next cluster of parallels we saw, God uses the Egyptians as His vehicle to create a clean break. Pharaoh says קוּמוּ צְּאוּ – get up and leave, and then וַיַּחֲזִיקוּ – the Egyptians forced them out. Finally, in the last two parallels we looked at, the ones after the Israelites leave Egypt, God doesn’t rely on any humans. God leads them the long way out and makes sure they have nothing to look back at. This time, God takes no chances. He Himself acts to ensure the Exodus turns out the way He wants. Whatever God’s methods, though, His motivations seem to be the same: Make sure the Israelites have a clean, easy, and swift break from Egypt.

So, what’s really got me scratching my head is… why in the world is God so concerned that the Israelites would want to stay in Egypt? They were slaves, for crying out loud! Wouldn’t they want to get away as fast as possible?

But as we’ve seen, this isn’t the first time God removed a family from a bad place. Lot's family just couldn’t extricate themselves from Sodom. So I think if we want to understand why the Israelites possibly wouldn’t want to leave, we have to explore why Lot didn’t want to leave.

All the Wrong Places

Okay, let’s just stop to think about the situation. Here’s this really wicked place. I mean, it’s so bad that God is wiping it off the map entirely, and Lot knows this. He knows that it’s about to be destroyed. He’s had hours and lots of encouragement to escape. He even had an angry mob try to attack him. What’s blinding Lot to the need to leave?

To help us answer this question, I want to go one more step backwards. If we want to understand why Lot didn’t want to leave, we need to start by looking at how he got there in the first place, because even before Lot moved there, the Torah describes it as an evil place, the kind of place that would make you think twice about settling in. וְאַנְשֵׁי סְדֹם רָעִים וְחַטָּאִים לַיקוָה מְאֹד – The people of Sodom were terribly wicked and sinning against God (Genesis 13:13). So why did Lot move there?

Let’s review what we know about Lot leading up to his move to Sodom. The very first thing we know about Lot was that he was an orphan. His father Haran died, and he had to be taken in by his uncle Abraham. Shortly thereafter, they leave their homeland and everything they know to travel to an uncertain location. Almost as soon as they get there, famine strikes, and they face a very real threat of starvation. So before they can even get comfortable, they are back on the road, this time winding up in Egypt. 

Let’s pause the story right here, and imagine you are Lot. What’s the one thing you want right now? What’s the one thing you crave more than anything else in the world? Now you’re not Lot, and neither am I, but I’ll tell you how I think I would feel if I was. I would be dying for a sense of security. I would be dying for the feeling of knowing where my next meal would come from, to know that I’m safe. 

Now let’s jump back into the story. When Abraham and Lot return from Egypt, things finally start to turn around for our poor friend Lot. Both he and Abraham return with considerable wealth. But here is the thing about going through the experience of not knowing where your next meal will come from: You never really forget that. No matter how much wealth you amass, no matter how much actual security you have, you are always left with that feeling of needing more, that any missed opportunity to grow your wealth is bread that’s not going into your mouth.

Eventually, Lot’s abundance of wealth becomes so great that Abraham realizes the two of them could no longer live together anymore, so Lot lifts his eyes and chooses a new home:  וַיִּשָּׂא לוֹט אֶת עֵינָיו וַיַּרְא אֶת כָּל כִּכַּר הַיַּרְדֵּן כִּי כֻלָּהּ מַשְׁקֶה … בֹּאֲכָה צֹעַר – Lot sets his sights on the fertile plains stretching to Tzo’ar (13:10).

Did Lot need to go there? No. He had plenty. The Torah tells us: הָיָה רְכוּשָׁם רָב – He had lots of property (13:6). Plain and simple. But that wasn’t enough for Lot. He needed to turn that wealth into more wealth. And listen to how the Torah describes this land that Lot is choosing. The Torah actually describes it as כְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם – It’s like Egypt (13:10). Egypt was the place where things turned around for Lot, where he finally started to gain some financial independence. He can’t forget about it. 

Again, I can’t say for sure why Lot did anything, but if we put all this evidence together, he'll do whatever it takes to grow his wealth, no matter how much he already has. He seems scarred by his past as an orphan, as a refugee from famine. It is almost as if Lot became a slave to his own wealth, following it wherever it took him. Remember, Abraham didn’t tell Lot to go to Sodom. In fact, he told Lot to go wherever he wanted: “The entire land is open to you. Go whichever direction you want. I will go the other way” (13:9). And yet Lot chooses the most evil city in the entire region. 

Lot wasn’t a bad guy. After all, he grew up in Abraham’s house. Sodom was no place for a guy like Lot. And yet, Lot seems totally blind to this. Even when it came time for yetziat S’dom, when Lot knew that the city was being destroyed, even after the angels made that explicitly clear, Lot’s insecurity still gets the better of him. וַיִּתְמַהְמָהּ – he delayed. 

Again, there is a degree of speculation to all of this, about Lot’s motivation, but if it’s true, I think it would help us explain what happens when the angels do eventually drag Lot out of Sodom. The angels instruct Lot and his family to flee to the mountains, but Lot bargains with them to stay in Tzo’ar. We have heard of this place before. Way back when Lot first sets his eyes on the Jordan plains, and the Torah describes the fertility of the land, it is described as בֹּאֲכָה צֹעַר – all the way to Tzo’ar –  meaning that Tzo’ar is still part of these fertile lands. But why is it important for us to know that? 

The Torah is setting the stage for later. When Lot eventually has to flee Sodom, he begs the angels not to have to leave the plains completely. Please, just let me stay at the edge of this fertile region. It is the same draw that brought him to Sodom in the first place. Even when his life is in danger, he can’t let go of this need for security. 

Now that we understand a little bit more about yetziat S’dom, let's return to our question about yetziat Mitzrayim. Why was God so afraid that the Israelites would fall into the same trap as Lot did? I think now we’re in a position to begin to understand this. And I think we need to ask the same question as we did for Lot: how did the Israelites end up in Egypt in the first place?

We Remember the Fish

The Israelite story also started with a famine. Jacob and his sons relocated to Egypt because it was the only place in the entire region that had food. We have already seen what that experience of famine and becoming a refugee could do to a person. We suggested before that Lot was deeply impacted by this sense of insecurity. And now, in the times of Jacob and his sons, there is a famine again, and it was in Egypt that they found a refuge from that famine and were able to enjoy a sense of food security. The seeds have been planted for a repeat of the same trauma. And this time, what if they actually passed that trauma, that desperate need for security, along to the generations that followed?

In Lot’s story, we suggested that the idea of Egypt represented a sense of prosperity, and that idea was so entrenched in his mind that when he needed to make a choice about where to move, his eyes were drawn to the land that is reminiscent of Egypt. Maybe here too, generations later, Egypt once again becomes identified with a sense of security and stability. 

But, wait! Egypt offered the Israelites security? They were slaves there! They were constantly being abused and suffered through backbreaking labor. 

Well, let’s think about what it means to be a slave. You see, the slave master, if he wants to get any work out of his slave, needs to give him food to eat and a roof over his head. So the slave always knows where his next meal is coming from. No matter how abusive his master is, he can count on him for these most basic needs. For the Israelites, Egypt provides this sense of security, and that is an extremely powerful thing. It’s not just something you easily forget, especially when faced with the possibility of venturing into the unknown.

We argued earlier that the story of yetziat Mitzrayim is modeled after yetziat S’dom. We found parallel after parallel between the two stories. But we also saw that there were some critical differences. At each step of the way, wherever Lot showed any hesitation about leaving Sodom, God intervened the next time around to make sure this wouldn’t be the case for the Israelites. So we asked the question of why, why was God afraid that the Israelites would have trouble leaving the land of their oppression? We suggested that for both Lot and the Israelites, Egypt represented security. Security is a powerful thing, particularly for those who once lacked it. It seduced Lot into choosing the most wicked city in the world and to want to stay there despite its imminent destruction, and it could even lead the Israelites to want to remain in Egypt, the land of their oppression.

So when it comes time for God to take the Israelites out of Egypt, God takes all these measures: He tells them to isolate in their houses, ready to leave at a moment's notice. He uses the Egyptians to force them out before they even had a chance to hesitate. He didn’t even take them the direct route out or give them the opportunity to look back. These interventions weren’t just about liberating the Israelites from the Egyptians, they were also about liberating them from themselves. God is trying to prevent the Israelites from being blinded by their desire for security.

You know, I can't help but think about how the story of the Israelites continues. Throughout their wandering in the desert, there is one sentiment that seems to recur over and over again: The people want to go back to Egypt! Just by way of example, in Parshat Beha’alotecha they complain: We remember the fish that we used to eat in Egypt for free, and the cucumbers, the watermelon, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic (Numbers 11:5). It seems so absurd! Did they forget about the terrible slavery? Don’t they remember their cries to God to save them? 

But after everything we have learned from the Sodom and Egypt stories, it’s not so absurd after all. It seems that Egypt really did represent a sense of security to the Israelites, and as irrational as it would seem, that feeling continues to pull them back to Egypt. Even with everything God did to help them make a clean break, it was still the struggle of the generation.

Freedom from Fear

As the Torah recalls the events of the Exodus, it drops these hints to the Sodom story, hints that help us unlock the messages God was trying to impart to the Exodus generation. But the Torah isn’t just telling us what happened to our ancestors or what God was trying to communicate to them. It’s trying to impart important lessons to us today.

So what is that lesson we’re meant to learn? Well, first let me say that I think there is more than one way to read these parallels. But we have seen just how easy it is to fool oneself into making absurd sacrifices in the name of chasing security. There are, of course, times when we really are insecure. Both Lot and the Israelites ended up in Egypt because they were facing very real threats of starvation. But recognizing when that sense of insecurity is blinding us requires some real, honest self-reflection.

I think we come face to face with this idea not just in those extreme situations – like deciding whether or not to take an immoral job, or moving to an evil city – but just think about how often we trick ourselves into thinking that we can’t spare a dollar, or we can’t spare a minute of our time? We tell ourselves that we have no choice.

I, personally, remember being a student, when I didn’t have much money to spare and every penny I had needed to be saved. And now that that’s no longer the case, I have really struggled to admit to myself that I can afford to give money to charity. That’s a totally natural feeling, as we’ve seen. But the stories of yetziat S’dom and yetziat Mitzrayim teach us to get over that fear, to make a clean break from the days of insecurity and to leave them behind us. These stories of the liberation of our forefathers continue to liberate us to this day.

Credits

This episode was written and recorded by me, Ari Levisohn, along with Evan Weiner. 

Editing was done by Sarah Penso.

Our senior editor is Beth Lesch.

Our audio editor is Hillary Guttman. 

Our editorial director is me. 

Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you next week.