In celebration of my dear mother’s Yahrzeit, which falls shortly after Shabbat Veyera, I wish to share with the readers of the Divre Torah bulletins my novel interpretation of Avraham Avinu’s dialogue with G-d.

Many years ago, when Rabbi Yaakov Pollak was the Rabbi of Young Israel of Jackson Heights, he asked me to give the Shabbat lecture on the fifth chapter of Perke Avot. The following is what I said to the congregation that Shabbat afternoon:

The second Mishnah of the fifth chapter of Pirke Avot states: Asara dorot may’Adam ad Noach… shekall hadorot hoyu machisim uva’im ad shehayvee alayhem et may hamabul. There were ten generations from Adam to Noach… All of them increasingly antagonized G-d until He brought the Flood upon them. The next statement reads: Asara dorot may’Noach ad Avraham… shekall hadorot hoyu machisim uva ‘im ad sheba Avraham Avinu ve’keebayl s’char kulam. There were ten generations from Noach to Avraham… All of them increasingly antagonized G-d until Avraham came and received all their reward.
The question arises: Both sets of ten generations behaved similarly; they both increasingly antagonized G-d. Why, therefore, were the outcomes so different?
The answer lies in the difference between the personalities of Noach and Avraham. Noach was a tzaddik in Peltz; he himself was righteous, but he did not identify with people of his time, with people around him. Asvraham, on the other hand, identified with the people of his time. He mingled among them and took upon himself the mission of spreading G-dliness among them - Et hanefesh asher asu b’charan. And a world that contained an Avraham cannot, therefore, be totally unredeemable.

One might say that Avraham went to Egypt, not to mingle with the Egyptians, but simply to escape the famine that was in Eretz Yisrael. One cannot say the same about Avraham’s sojourn in the land of Gerar. Furthermore, Avraham was not naïve. He knew that the people of Gerar were not righteous; he knew they behaved differently. Witness the agreement he made with his wife Sarah, that she refer to him as her brother.

Avraham identified with the people of his time for two reasons. First, as the Kenesset Yisrael points out, Scripture testifies about Avraham: V’he’emin baHaShem vayachsh’veha lo tzedakah. Not that G-d took Avraham’s belief in G-d to be an act of righteousness on Avraham’s part, but rather that Avraham felt that his very own righteousness - his very own belief in G-d - was an act of charity, an act of grace on G-d’s part. In no way was he [Avraham] essentially better than others. Avraham felt that the intelligence, temperament and life circumstances that G-d had bestowed on him, and which were what prepared him to achieve full belief in G-d, were all acts of G-d’s grace. It was not the sheer kocho v’otzem mocho - his sheer brain power - that brought him to this lofty spiritual level.

Moreover, Avraham was the prototype of what the Gemara in the end of the first chapter of tractate Kiddushin exhorts us to be: Le’olam yehe adam atzmo k’-eelu chetzyo chayav ve’chetzyo zakai. (see also Mishnah Torah, hilchot teshuvah, 3:4). At any given moment in life, everyone is to view himself as 50 percent wicked and 50 percent righteous and that what he is about to do can tip the scales in either direction. Not only did Avraham view himself as a 50-50 individual, he also viewed everyone else as a 50-50 individual. For only G-d can be judgmental; only He is a true bochayn l’vavot; only G-d can accurately and fully probe the subconscious of each individual.

This is why Avraham approached G-d on behalf of the people of Sodom with “harsh words.” He did not begin with the number 51 for he knew that, were these individuals 51 percent righteous, they would be called tzaddikim, and as the Prophet Habakkuk says: tzaddik be’emunato yichye, the righteous person lives by his faith. G-d would not even have the intention of destroying them.
Avraham began his dialogue with G-d with the number 50. He instinctively looked upon the people of Sodom as 50-50 individuals - as being individually 50 percent righteous and 50 percent wicked. So he approached G-d with harsh words: Chalila l’cha mayasot kadavar hazeh, l’hamit tzaddik im rasha… ve’haya katzaddik karasha, chalila lach, hashophet kal ha’aretz lo ya’aseh mishpat! Far be it from You to do this, to kill the righteous with the wicked… Shall the Judge of the entire world not act justly? He figuratively took G-d by the lapel and exclaimed: “How can you destroy the 50 percent righteousness that is in each of these individuals together with the 50 percent wickedness that is in each of them!” For even the midat hadin,

G-d’s attribute of Justice, does not call for that.
G-d answered Avraham: “If I find them to be individually 50 percent righteous, I will not destroy them.” At that point, Avraham changed his pleadings. Now he knew that he must appeal to G-d’s attribute of Mercy, the midat harachamim. For he knew, if they knew they were less that 50 percent righteous, they would be called resha ‘im, wicked people. He now approached G-d with humility. The tone of his language changed: henay na ho’alti l’dabair el HaShem v’anochi afar va’eifer. “Behold I have dared to speak to G-d and I am mere dust and ashes. But would You still destroy them if they are individually 45 percent righteous?” G-d says: “No.” The dialogue proceeds. Avraham goes from 45 percent righteous, to 40, to 30, to 20 and finally to 10 percent righteous. G-d answers that He would not destroy them if they are even a mere 10 percent righteous. At that point, Avraham stops pleading before G-d. For should they be less than 10 percent righteous, it will be stretching the midat harachamim, G-d attribute of Mercy, too far - let the Nazi go to his just desserts.

Let the foregoing divrei Torah be lezeicher imi morati Alta Chaya Rudya bat Elyakim Chanoch HaMechunah.