Our erev Rosh Hashanah sermon, while 100% non-partisan, was about what was so evil about the people of Sodom. And it wasn’t homosexuality.

Our Rabbi’s sermon isn’t online yet, but here’s the gist of it, from a similar discussion on the Orthodox site “torah.org”

torah.org

There’s a fascinating passage in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 109a) which describes the mentality of the Sodomites. (In fact we see parallels to it in some of the strict immigration laws of more recent times.) What brought the Sodomites to such repugnant evil? The answer in a word was that they saw the lushness of their own land and desired it for themselves. And so, they banned all travelers and visitors. (Today, after its destruction (Genesis 19), it is the area of the Dead Sea, one of the most barren and uninhabitable places in the world.) Why share our richness with anyone else? As soon as you “make it,” the shnorers (more respectfully: “fund-raisers”) line up at your door. Who needs it? Not of course that they intended anyone else *harm* to be sure. They just wanted the comfortable life for themselves. “No Solicitors” figured prominently at the gates of their city (a rather common sight nowadays — although most of the time the newly-arrived Israeli “solicitor” has no idea what the word means…). We wish you all the best, but keep your suffering and misery to yourselves!

Step two, continues the Talmud, the Sodomites enacted all sorts of cruel as well as absurd laws banning hospitality and charity, and doing away with all semblance of fair play. No one had any form of obligation towards others or was required to pay for any infraction. The Talmud lists such laws as that if one would hit his fellow, his fellow would owe *him* medical expenses for the service of blood-letting. Other choice rulings were that if A would cut off the ear of B’s donkey, A would keep the donkey till it grew back, or if A would injure B’s wife causing her to miscarry, A would take her till she again became pregnant.

The people of Sodom likewise decreed punishments for acts of charity. The Talmud records that when a young girl gave some bread to a poor person, they punished her by smearing her flesh with honey and tying her up on a roof, leaving her to die a horrific death at the hands of the bees. (The Sages state that it was this final breach of humanity which sealed the fate of these G-dless and despicable people.)

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And the lesson for us is that there is simply no such thing as a person who focuses wholly on himself yet is still an “average” individual. If we accept that all humans are created in G-d’s image, we will naturally feel obligated to help them and will share in their suffering. We might even see our wealth and talents as a responsibility: as gifts from G-d to be used in the manner He wishes. Once humans are in G-d’s image, they are all equal, significant, and deserving of our love and respect.

According to the Bible that Mitt Romney professes to believe in, he’s a Sodomite.