Abraham’s Warning to America: Speak Now, or Become Sodom - Ari Abramowitz: Land of Israel Fellowship

Shalom, friends. Uh, I have a a full day of army training today. We're out at the range. We're doing various exercises. Uh, but I I wanted to pre-record this message to you because we are in such critical times right now. And really, even every single fellowship matters so much. And um you know so many people have been turning to me in in this fellowship even groups who come out to the farm, people I meet on my journeys and they're asking the same sincere question like what can we do? How can we truly stand with Israel and the Jewish people during this pivotal moment in world history in Israel's history? And uh and I really believe that this Torah portion gives us a powerful insight into the answer because there are moments in history when society begins to lose its way. When truth becomes dangerous. When morality becomes negotiable, right? When people who once spoke openly now whisper, right? Or they hesitate or they stay silent or they moderate themselves. Many of us are watching America right now. Now, I know we're from all over the world, but America tends to be a uh a gauge of some sort of what's really happening in the world at large. And we're seeing what's happening in America. And we're asking, how can this be happening? How can the most free and prosperous nation on earth suddenly become a place where simply defending Israel, defending the most basic moral truths, can make you a target. The Torah has seen this before. We've seen this before in history and and and the Torah really gives us language for understanding what is unfolding now for what's happening. So the there's a in the Torah portion this past week I read an idea shared by Rabbi Winreb. It was called either utopia or dystopia. He was saying the first dystopia in history was not Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union or Iran or North Korea. The first dystopia was Sodom. It was the first nightmare society. We uh we first encounter it when Lot leaves the home of home of Abraham and pitches his tents near Sodom and the Torah uh interrupts to warn us. The people of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful unto God. But what exactly did they do that made them so wicked? or Rashi tells us they sinned with their bodies. They sinned with their wealth and they consciously rebelled against God. The Midrash and the the Talmud, the sages, they describe a society that outlawed kindness, criminalized hospitality, and punished generosity. Me and Dvash and Sheila were telling stories at night. And all the stories lately have been around this crazy society of Sodom and how if you were too tall for the bed, they would cut off your feet and if you're too short, they would stretch you out. I see the children just imagining this because it's the opposite of the Abrahamic hospitality that we seek to uh to engender them with and and to manifest for them. Anyways, Ezekiel the prophet uh reveals the root of their sin. He said this was the sin of Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and tranquil ease. And she did not support the poor and the needy. They were wealthy, they were secure, they were prosperous, but they shut their gates to the suffering of others. They created laws to protect cruelty and to suppress compassion. Laws to protect cruelty. Sudom was not chaotic. I think when I was a kid, I just pictured random chaos and violence and murder, people running the streets. It wasn't chaotic. It was organized. It had judges. It had courts. It had a functioning legal structure. The problem was that its laws themselves were evil. The sages say that that they had a mishp inverted justice, a society where good became evil and evil became good. But here's the the essential point here. Sodom was not destroyed only because it was evil. Sodom was destroyed because nobody protested the evil. When God tells Abraham that he's going to destroy the city, Abraham stands before the creator of heaven and earth and argues that it should be saved if there are 50 righteous people or even 10 righteous people among among these people of Sodom. But the Torah uses a very unusual phrase. Let's look inside. He says, "Perhaps there are only 50 righteous in the midst of the city. Will you also destroy and not spare the place for 50 righteous who are in it?" Aram asks whether the city can be spared if there are 50 righteous people, right? In the midst of the city. In the midst of the city. Why does he emphasize that? Why not righteous people anywhere in the city? Why in the midst of the city? And to the Iban Ezra Rav Aram Ibanz Ezra, he explains that righteous people only have a society if they are righteous publicly. If their values are lived in the public square, not hidden under the table. Virtue that goes underground has no power to transform. A righteous person who's afraid to speak, afraid to be seen is righteous only in theory. Rabbi Shimshon Rafal Hersh, he goes even further. He writes that a person in the midst of the city is someone in constant connection with the community. Someone who teaches, who warns, who corrects and fights for what is good even if success seems unlikely. He never despares of humanity. He never gives up on his society. He never withdraws into silence. It's not enough to be good. One must be good out loud. This is where the fate of Sodom becomes very relevant to our moment. Right? The the sages ask, "Were there no righteous people in Sodom? Was there not even one good person?" And Rabbi Isaiah Yung, who actually perished in the Holocaust, interestingly enough, he suggested that maybe there were people who knew the society was evil, but they were afraid to protest. people whose consciences were troubled but whose courage failed them. Perhaps Aram argued that these silent, fearful, decent people should still be considered righteous. But the midash implies a different divine answer, which is that silence in the face of evil is not true righteousness. Had even one person in SOMO stood up, broken the conspiracy of silence, protested injustice, God would have rushed to support him. But no one did. Evil didn't destroy Stone. Silence destroyed Stone. And now with with heavy hearts, we look at America, a place where Jews and Christians felt safe to speak. A country that for generations stood with Israel, celebrated moral clarity and were global champions for the freedom of of speech, for freedom in general. And today in universities, on social media, in workplaces, speaking truth has become dangerous. Professors lose their jobs for supporting Israel. Students are threatened. Journalists are silenced. People, you know, people whisper their convictions privately, but they're terrified to say them publicly. And my friends, I have my ear to the ground here. I'm asking people in America. This is true throughout the entire country. America is not Yes, but it is in a somike test. The midash says that one of the defining features of Saddam was that they made laws against justice and persecuted anyone who practiced kindness. And in America today, the moral inversion is very clear, right? Terror groups are celebrated and Israel is vilified. Jewish identity itself is turned into a crime and those who defend moral clarity as are treated like extremists. But the greater danger is not the slander. The greater danger is the silence. Only a minority of people in SOM were truly wicked. But everyone was silent. And therefore, everyone was destroyed. I don't know if it was a minority. Maybe it was half. Maybe it was the m majority, but it doesn't really matter because silence in moral crisis is complicity. And the Torah does not ask us to be prophets. It doesn't ask us to be perfect. It asks us to be courageous. Hashem didn't need thousands of righteous people to save Saddam. He asked for 10. Just 10 who would speak. 10 who would stand publicly for what is right. 10 who would not bow to intimidation or mockery or fear. And if those 10 existed, the entire civilization would have been saved. And uh and my friends, I think that's our role right now. If we believe in truth, but we refuse to speak it, what good is our belief? And I'm not speaking to you as one from the outside. I have my own fears about saying the things that I see need to be said, knowing the people in my family, people that are beloved to me, dear friends who would be infuriated and enraged by this. I've lost friends already. So, you know, but what we need to speak, if we love Israel, if we if we only whisper it in safe rooms, what does that love accomplish? We were born into a generation that is being tested. Not with fire or sword at this very moment. Maybe for me here in Israel, there's a lot of sword involved, too. But but really with social pressure, with humiliation, with public shame, with relationships being held over our heads if we dare to deviate from what is accepted, that the Torah tells us that silence is not humility. Silence is not diplomacy and it's not compassion. It's surrender. We must be in the midst of the city, unafraid to speak moral truth in a world that wants to bury it. We speak not with hatred or anger but we speak with conviction and clarity and love and if we speak God will stand with us. Uh pure ethics of our fathers it teaches where there are no men strive to be a man. When society collapses the righteous are the ones who refuse to collapse with it. So let us be those 10 my friends. Let us be those who break that silence. Who Let us be voices of truth. Truth for Israel and for America and for whatever country we may be in. Let us be voices of truth for a world that desperately needs moral courage again. And may Hashem give us the strength to speak what is right, even when it's hard, even when it's dangerous, and even when others fall silent. Because if we speak, the world can still be redeemed. And if we're silent, well, we know how that story ends. Love you, my friends. Thank you so much. Shalom. Shalom.