Sodom, Gomorrah, Gaza

J’Accuse…!

When people discuss what content might be appropriate for school libraries or social media, they almost always fail to discuss a book that prominently features plenty of graphic violence and aberrant sexuality. Not only that, the book often combines them, resulting in some astoundingly extreme scenes. That book is, of course, the Hebrew Bible, which counts as a foundational text for Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. Consider Genesis 19: The chapter includes all male inhabitants of Sodom (save Lot) clamoring to gang-rape יהוה’s messengers, יהוה destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, their population, and the surrounding plain (including two more cities but sparing a fifth one) by raining fire and brimstone, יהוה turning Lot’s wife into a salt pillar for the audacity of copping a glance at Their orgy of destruction, and Lot’s surviving two virgin daughters successfully conspiring to get daddy drunk so that he successfully knocks them up. Amazingly, the Book of Genesis manages to cram all that violence and perversion into a single thousand word chapter with 38 verses.

All that would be deeply disturbing by itself, but the events leading up to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah turn this story into one ginormous outrage that can shatter the faith of the most ardent believer. Four issues stand out. First, יהוה appears to be at least partially motivated by vague rumors. Genesis 13:13 starts setting the stage by mentioning, in passing, that the inhabitants of Sodom are “wicked” (NIV). Ignoring the fact that being wicked can get you a 22-year and counting run on Broadway, that’s hearsay, not a credible indictment. יהוה acknowledges as much in Genesis 18, when after considerable hesitation, They admit to Abraham that They heard rumors about the cities on the plain and were on Their way to investigate. In response, Abraham expresses grave concern about innocent people dying as a result of יהוה’s punishment. He then proceeds to haggle יהוה down to a maximum of 9 instead of 49 innocent lives being acceptable as collateral damage.

Second, given that יהוה was all worked up by fake news in Genesis 18, it is not unreasonable to wonder whether יהוה’s messengers revealing their supernatural origin to the local yokels of Sodom was a planned provocation intended to elicit a violent response worthy of even more violent suppression. But even if we accept that יהוה and Their messengers were on a good-faith fact-finding mission, the messengers revealing themselves to the entire population of Sodom was grossly negligent. יהוה usually is far more circumspect in revealing Themselves or sending messengers, typically limiting Themselves to select individuals such as Abraham. That makes eminent sense because none of us can possibly predict how we would react to actual, concrete divine revelation combined with bodily manifestation. Turning catatonic, loosing control of our bladders, laughing hysterically, or acting out violently all seem like eminently reasonable reactions to me.

Third, the only people ever implicated in, admittedly severe, wrongdoing are the male inhabitants (save Lot) of Sodom. The women of Sodom, the inhabitants of Gomorrah, and the population of the other three city kingdoms on the plain did not participate in the ruckus outside Lot’s home. Meanwhile, the drive-by smear in Genesis 13:13 only mentions Sodom, Genesis 18 only mentions Sodom and Gomorrah, and neither passage delivers concrete accusations, let alone evidence. In other words, the women of Sodom and the inhabitants of the other plain cities are innocent! The obvious implication is that יהוה snuffed out a large number of innocent lives that day. We lack a census of the plain population at the time. But since we are talking about cities, the number of innocent people exterminated by יהוה that day surely surpasses not only Abraham’s but also יהוה’s original standard for acceptable civilian deaths during a punishment campaign.

As if that wasn’t disturbing enough by itself, it also raises significant doubt about trusting יהוה’s word in general and the covenant with Abraham in particular. As introduced in Genesis 12 and elaborated upon in Genesis 15 and 17, יהוה promises Abraham and his descendants a fortuitous future on blessed land in return for their exclusive worship—and the ritualistic mutilation of male penises. But with יהוה casually ignoring an admittedly much lesser agreement within days, we cannot but wonder whether יהוה can be trusted with Their commitment to the far more substantial promise of long-term favored nation status.

Finally, the Book of Genesis tries to spin the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as a more or less justified punishment for more or less particularized depravity. But the one thing everyone remembers who ever heard the story is the extent, strike that, is the totality of the destruction. יהוה does not limit Themselves to the population of Sodom nor to the population of Sodom and Gomorrah. By raining fire and brimstone across the entire plain, יהוה destroys all structures, whether natural or man-made, and exterminates all life, whether plant, animal, or human. It gets worse still: This is not the outcome of a battle between two more or less equally matched powers. This isn’t the aftermath of an insurgency against an overwhelming force. Out of all the difference-making factors in warfare—number of soldiers, weaponry, training, logistics, intelligence, what have you—none of them had even cursory impact. In fact, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah never had a fighting chance.

יהוה obviously is more powerful, all-powerful. As Creator, They can always undo the day and night, the heavens, the earth and seas, the grass, plants, and trees, the stars, sun, and moon, the sea monsters and flying fowl, the wild beasts, cattle, and crawling things, and, yes, also us humans. As described in the very beginning of just the book we are discussing right now, Genesis, יהוה created all. And in the case of the two cities on the plain, They also undid all. Human language fails at such devastation. Because of horrendous historical precedent, Jews and Palestinians do have words that come close, שואה (Shoah) and النَّكْبَة (Nakba), respectively. But their precedent also is specific, so neither word is appropriate here. Instead, I am falling back onto a more generic term that also emerged from the horrors of WWII and its aftermath. The devastating truth of Genesis 19 is this: יהוה committed genocide!

Manifest Uncertainty

As I write those last three words, my body is shaking and I am sobbing. It is one thing to make an observation, do the background reading, write a draft, circle back to re-read, gain more insight, develop additional material, integrate it with the existing draft, and slowly flesh out the four points above. It is quite another thing to spell out the conclusion in three pithy words, one of them so holy we must not read it, let alone speak it out loud. The very accusation, or as I prefer, realization based on critical reading of scripture, is so bleak, so devastating, it cannot but induce a crisis of faith. It also feels deeply wrong, and more than a little hubristic, to accuse יהוה not merely of being fickle, irascible, or callous but of the intentional and total extermination of life on the plain. But here we are. Or more precisely, Genesis 19 brought us here.

I am sure that you too need a breather. As so happens, I have a few more things to say about the chapter right before all that mayhem. Thankfully, Genesis 18 also is quite different. To begin with, יהוה’s interactions with humans remain civil at all times. Notably, when Sarah, Abraham’s wife, denies having laughed about יהוה’s foretelling of her bearing a son long after menopause, They simply call out her lie and otherwise leave it at that. No hard feelings, no long term grudge. As told in Genesis 21, a ninety-year-old Sarah does indeed give birth to her only child, a son named Isaac. Despite the fact that disaster is never far from the potagonists, as chronicled through the rest of Genesis, Abraham, Isaac, and his son Jacob, also known as Israel, indeed become the patriarchs of the Israelites, their progeny and יהוה’s chosen people. The covenant holds—at least for that age.

Back in Genesis 18, we are afforded the privilege of listening in on יהוה’s inner monologue—or at least some semblance thereof we humans can grasp. When we tune in, יהוה wonders about disclosing Their plans for the cities on the plain to Abraham. Principally because of the covenant, They do decide to share. Secondarily, They also seek to impress Their way “to do righteousness and justice” onto Abraham and his household. Whether it is that desire to indoctrinate or the fact that Abraham had just wined and dined potential manifestations of יהוה in a display of exceedingly generous and altogether outstanding hospitality, יהוה affords Abraham substantial leeway in the subsequent discussion, with Abraham rejecting יהוה’s approach to doing justice and extracting substantial concessions.

The just mentioned manifestations easily are the most mysterious, simultaneously beautiful, and ultimately rewarding aspect of Genesis 18. It all starts with the first two verses. 18:1 declares: “And יהוה appeared to him,” that is, Abraham. 18:2 continues, still from the perspective of Abraham: “And he raised his eyes and saw, and, look, three men were standing before him.” The rest of the chapter seamlessly switches between the two or four, depending on how you count, at times within the same sentence. All along, Genesis 18 never quite resolves whether the three men are יהוה or Their messengers or mere humans. 18:22 comes closest by stating: “And the men turned from there and went on toward Sodom while יהוה was still standing before Abraham.” While suggestive of distinct entities, in the context of Genesis 18 that description isn’t sufficiently definitive to establish phenomenological independence.

Now, יהוה has a future of manifesting in unexpected ways. They may just be a burning bush (Exodus 3), a pillar of cloud during day, or a pillar of fire at night (both Exodus 13). In Genesis 32:20, Jacob is even afforded the immense privilege of getting face to face with (some) manifestation of יהוה and living to tell the tale. But the manifest uncertainty of Genesis 18 feels different. After all, it cannot be pinned down. Unlike bush and pillars, and as far as special effects go, it isn’t particularly impressive. It also has no divine purpose or narrative agenda. Notably, it is neither sign nor portent. It just is, flickering into and out of existence. That pushes us to the threshold of revelation, and we fixate on the idea that יהוה and Their creation might just be the same.

As much as we’d like to bask in the revelatory clarity of that moment, storm clouds, they do gather. The first forwarning of future trouble is יהוה’s hesitation before sharing Their plans with Abraham. The (unstated) implication is that They aren’t quite sure how those plans will be received. The second forwarning is Abraham’s immediate reaction to יהוה announcing their fact-finding mission. Without missing a beat, Abraham inquires: “Will You really wipe out the innocent with the guilty?” Whoa, nobody mentioned that before. Sure, יהוה gets worked up whenever the topic of Sodom comes up. But wiping out humans? Uhm, what the fuck?

Whitewashing Genocide

The question before us is: How can we cope with יהוה committing genocide in Genesis 19?

That one question begats three more: How can we go on believing in יהוה and Their greatness after this orgy of violence? How can we rely on יהוה’s word after Them breaking it so casually? How can we trust יהוה’s righteousness and justice after They displayed such depravity?

Posing these questions is hard enough. Answering them satisfactorily will be harder still. Hence, I cannot begrudge people who respond by turning away from their faith, by losing their religion. At the same time, I recognize that יהוה, throughout the Hebrew Bible, keeps challenging Their chosen people. There are no easy answers. There is no easy way out. Not even for Abraham. In Genesis 22, יהוה seeks to test him and orders him to take “your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and […] offer him up as a burnt offering.” Ever faithful, Abraham followed Their instructions, “built there an altar and laid out the wood and bound Isaac his son and placed him on the altar.” And only in the nick of time, after Abraham “took the cleaver to slaughter his son,” יהוה’s messenger intervenes, saving Isaac.

In light of this test, we might want to consider that, possibly maybe, we are supposed to find Genesis 19 so very challenging. That we are supposed to be repelled by the incommensurate violence and wanton cruelty. That we are supposed to question יהוה, Their word, and Their justice. That we are supposed to have a crisis of faith. If that’s indeed the case, we are still getting off lightly. After all, we are not being asked to sacrifice a family member as burnt-offering. If that’s indeed the case, the particulars of our ansers may not be as important as the process of each and everyone of us working through their own crisis of faith. That doesn’t mean, however, that each and everyone of us is on their own. We can still come together to tease out coping strategies and consider our options for restoring our trust in יהוה.

A fair number of these coping strategies are fundamentally based on the argument that, יהוה being יהוה, They must have had good reason to have rained fire and brimstone across the plain. Besides, They could not possibly have committed genocide. That’s pretty much the extent of the core strategy. It is rooted in authority, absolute authority. It is content to always trust, never question, just follow, and as a last resort, enforce authority. That can take the edge off many an unpleasant situation in life. But it also implies condemning oneself to suffocating mediocrity. Plus, there is the real risk of ending up amidst the accused in a tribunal investigating crimes against humanity.

A somewhat more sophisticated variation of that same basic strategy does at least acknowledge, for a moment, that יהוה went far too far in destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. But instead of letting that sink in, instead of allowing oneself to experience the pain, real pain, people employing this strategy hone in on the fact that countenancing such inhumanity requires a leap of faith. The very act of leaping then becomes a badge of honor, to proudly display to others, conspicuously placed on one’s jacket lapel. Look at me! See how I jumped when יהוה said jump. Except by turning their eagerness to jump into an insipid decoration, they rob it of meaning. What seemed like a leap of faith turns into a stupid pet trick.

Another variation doesn’t wait for analysis or commentary. It most certainly doesn’t bother with critical self-reflection. Instead, it goes on the attack. Blasphemy! How dare you allege genocide when, obviously, יהוה only meant to cuddle with the men of Sodom?! The substance of the simultaneous denial usually isn’t quite as inane, but only marginally so. Meanwhile, the impact of the accusation on the accused very much depends on their personal circumstances and current country of residence. Ideally, such a vacuous accusation would have no repercussion. But even in somewhat enlightened societies, people have been fired from their jobs or deported, with official justifications so utterly absurd it beggars credulity. In the worst case, people are put on trial and sentenced to years of imprisonment or death. If your god requires doing so, you are following a fraud!

Yet another variation fills the void resulting from a lack of credible, divine justification with some more or less arbitrarily invented reason. To add insult to grievous injury, people who employ this strategy are prone to pretending that this act of human speculation actually reflects יהוה’s will. That’s a double heresy right here, first for misrepresenting a human fabrication and second for claiming to know יהוה’s state of mind, if only for a moment, on that day on the plain.

Despite such grave doctrinal failings, the last coping strategy is the very reason for Sodom and Gomorrah becoming associated with gay butt sex. However, just like rumors exhibit a tendency towards the sensationally lurid with repeated oral telling, the concept of sodomy—behold, Genesis 19 sired a proper English noun—turned out to be promiscuous, bandying with several other forms of allegedly deviant sexual expression. What started as gay butt sex, soon thereafter signified all of gay sex. Apparently, that wasn’t scandalous enough, so bestiality was thrown in as an unlikely but titilating freebie. Homophobes usually aren’t particularly well-versed in the lexicon of bodily pleasure. So, eventually, all sex that wasn’t narrowly focused on straight, downward penetrative procreation became known as sodomy. As the etymology of the word so vividly illustrates, human inventiveness knows few bounds or shackles.

Sadly, some religious fundamentalists insist on misrepresenting the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as gay-butt-sex-related to this day. Not content with propagating such double heresy, they pile on by claiming that this scriptural misrepresentation warrants severe punishment, imprisonment or even execution, of those who, like me, are known to indulge in the practice. Again, that take is based on double heresy. Furthermore, equating some of the worst crimes humans can commit, i.e., those punishable by long prison sentences and possible death, with an activity that brings tremendous pleasure to participants and otherwise harms no one is plainly offensive and positively deranged. Should you disagree, I urge you to seek counseling. I also recommend you finally follow through with your fantasies about a giant hard cock slowly pushing past your sphincter. My recommendation is to start small and with prosthetics, use generous amounts of silicon lube, and take the occasional hit of poppers, ahem, video head cleaner.

I need to add: It really is peak hubris to invent an arbitrary reason for יהוה’s genocide in Sodom and Gomorrah and then seek to arrest others because of the supposed moral implications. In addition to being a heretic, anyone who claims that sodomy has anything to do with gay butt sex is one big dumb ass who obviously can’t read. Genesis 18 and 19 share one topic besides Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham and Lot excel at it. The men of Sodom not so much. Hospitality. The importance thereof. The scope thereof. That’s the topic. The lack thereof is the one scriptural reason one might try to put forward as justification for what happened on the plain. It too fails to justify genocide. But it is at least based on the text. Read my lips: It’s hospitality, stupid!

The above coping strategies are fundamentally inadequate for the same basic reason. They pretend that genocide might just be acceptable, if only we could articulate the right rationale. That’s plainly wrong. We can, in fact, go much further and state with absolute certainty that indiscriminate mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and genocide are unequivocally always wrong—and evil. Any argument otherwise is fundamentally dehumanizing and deeply immoral—and evil. If you are wondering about the difference, they all are mass murder. Ethnic cleansing targets a specific ethnic, national, racial, or religious group. Genocide does so with the specific intent of exterminating said group.

Our next coping strategy leverages scripture’s lack of internal consistency for selectively overriding passages from the Hebrew Bible with, depending on your choice of Abrahamic religion, passages from Talmud, New Testament, or Quran. Even though that strategy reeks of legalism, it is not without merit. As an instructive example, compare Leviticus with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Leviticus’ rules for righteous living are straight-forward and easy to follow. Many of them also are arbitrary and irrelevant, at least nowadays. Furthermore, one suspects that Lewis Carroll modelled the Queen of Hearts after Leviticus, since both are prone to screaming: “Off with their heads!”

Meanwhile, the Sermon on the Mount hasn’t lost any of its relevance over the last two millennia. Furthermore, some of its exhortations, say, to “turn to them the other cheek” when stricken (Matthew 5:39, NIV), are as revolutionary today as they were during Jesus’ time. That also makes it harder to adhere to those strictures. Alas, that can’t explain why so many self-identified conservative Christians heap suffering onto the poor and meek, while worshipping insufferable billionaires, i.e., pretty much the inverse of Jesus’ teachings.

Israel’s On-Going Genocide in Gaza

Before we can, finally, explore the one coping strategy that isn’t wholly inadequate, I want to explicitly address the currently on-going genocide of the Palestinian population in Gaza by the state of Israel under prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While I have been careful to center my exposition on the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and base my arguments on the specific language of scripture, I have nonetheless presented my analysis in a way that should make the many parallels and similarities between יהוה’s genocide in Sodom and Gomorrah and Israel’s genocide in Gaza rather obvious.

If that wasn’t your experience, I apologize for not being more obvious. Furthermore, I respectfully encourage you to re-read the text up to this point, only this time while actively seeking the recognition that originally remained unnoticed. I am asking you to do that work yourself instead of conveniently spelling out those parallels and similarities because I want you to be invested in this essay. For that same reason, I included an exercise in the previous section, even if the presentation is thoroughly tongue-in-cheek. While I won’t belabor parallels and similarities in general, I do need to highlight three critical differences and one similarity that has significant broader repercussions. I start with the differences.

First, Israel is a nation state and has no claim to divinity. That sounds obvious at first, but glosses over an important issue. Zionism started out during the second half of the 19^th century as a secular ethnocultural movement. It derives perfectly legitimate, non-exclusive claim to Abraham’s bosom from the cultural continuity connecting contemporary Jewry to the Israelites. I’m on board with that. However, I forcefully reject any attempt at pretending that Israel and the Israelites are one and the same, in other words, that the country can claim divine providence. Only יהוה can decide whether to still honor the covenant and, if so, who might belong to the Israelites.

Second, the trigger of the genocide in Gaza, the October 7 pogrom instigated by Hamas, was so much worse than the transgression of Sodom’s male population. The craven rape and murder of kibbutzim, ravers, Thai farmhands, and Negev bedouin is reprehensible. Taking a few hundred of them hostage is an outrage. Keeping some for well over a year, only to murder them as Israeli troops approach their position is utterly depraved. However, only about 7,000 Hamas fighters and other assorted militants participated in the pogrom. The rest of Gaza’s population, 2,223,000 Palestinians, were not involved and must be treated as innocent civilians.

Third, while the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah took less than a day, Israel’s military campaign against the population of Gaza is in its 22^nd month and on-going. The October 7 pogrom was followed by a week of more or less conventional war, with the Israeli Defense Forces or IDF and Hamas trading heavy rocket fire. Forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of the civilian population started on October 13, 2023, when the IDF ordered 1.1 million Palestinians living in Gaza City to evacuate within 24 hours. Other than dropping fliers announcing the order over northern Gaza, the IDF provided no assistance, even though major streets were already severely damaged from shelling, there was no public transportation, and fuel for private vehicles was already scarce. South Africa filed its case against Israel committing genocide with the International Court of Justice on December 29, 2023.

Over nineteen months later, the genocide is still on-going. It has also reached a particularly precarious stage. After five months of Israel allowing at most minimal aid into the territory and replacing 400 aid distribution sites operated by the UN with four sites operated by a newly created US-sponsored not-for-profit, famine is endemic in Gaza. Deaths from starvation have become a daily occurrence. So have deaths from being shot by IDF soldiers and American security contractors at the remaining four aid distribution sites.

Against that backdrop, it is incomprehensible how people like the American ambassador to Israel, who is a Baptist minister nonetheless, can still deny mass starvation and spread misinformation while pretending to “set [sic] record straight.” Likewise, it is incomprehensible that western governments and politicians still try suppress protests against the on-going genocide. Most recently, the government of New South Whales opposed a march over Syney’s iconic harbor bridge. After court intervention and despite pouring rain, up to 300,000 Australians ended up marching, making this one of the largest political protests in Australian history. More such shows of solidarity with the population of Gaza are urgently needed. Only massive and sustained international pressure on Israel can motivate the country into allowing the UN to resume its aid distribution and provide life-saving Plumpy’Nut to Gaza’s children.

The International Court of Justice has issued a valid warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest. The international community must execute this warrant and bring him to The Hague. Anything else would be an obscene miscarriage of justice. He is not just a mass murderer, he justifiably stands accused of committing genocide!

Fourth, false accusations of antisemitism have become a common strategy for deflecting and discrediting criticism of Israel. I have already described the range of adverse consequences for the falsely accused. But that description focused on individual impact. False accusations of antisemitism, however, also have collective, systemic impact. In Germany, for instance, they have become an excuse for the systemic opppression of Palestinian and Jewish dissent. The blatant overuse of such accusations has also made it impossible to track the spread of antisemitic speech. While that is an important concern in light of far-right political parties rapidly gaining voters over the last few years in many western countries, failure to separate actual antisemitism from legitimate dissent has rendered most such statistics meaningless.

You might hope that experts on genocide would intervene in this situation and provide a powerful voice against abusive accusations of genocide. Never mind “never again,” the opposite is the case. To begin with, many genocide scholars and groups dedicated to the remembrance of the Shoah have remained largely silent on Israel’s crimes against humanity to this day. That alone should count as abject professional failure. Alas, it gets worse. One major enabling factor for false accusations of antisemitism is the definition by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. It is unusually expansive and mischaracterizes perfectly reasonable speech as antisemitic.

For example, one clause states: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” If the clause was about unfounded comparisons, it might be valid. As written, it assumes that Israeli policy cannot possibly mirror that of the Nazis. However, as I discuss in a February 2024 essay about Netanyahu using the same dehumanizing language as Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, that assumption, tragically, does not hold anymore. I might try absolving myself on a technicality. After all, my essay is about language, not policy. But if I go by the spirit of that overly broad clause, it would tarnish my writing with the false accusation of antisemitism. Meanwhile, the actual offender, Israel’s prime minister, keeps spewing dehumanizing language and snuffing out Palestinian lives on grand scale.

The on-going slaughter, the blatant lies, they are total madness. They must stop. Now!

Sitting Shiva

Glorified and sanctified be יהוה’s great name throughout the world which They have created according to Their will.

We are finally in a position to explore the one coping strategy that isn’t doomed to fail, that possibly stands a chance. I hope that, by now, you too recognize the reason all other strategies are wholly inadequate. They try to gloss over crimes against humanity. Whether by pretending no such crimes occurred or by making a quick, perfunctory acknowledgment before moving on. Any survivor of the Shoah can tell you, not so fast, the trauma lingers lifelong. There is no fast or easy way of coping with genocide. We must acknowledge the devastating loss. We must acknowledge the insufferable pain. Over and over again.

May They establish Their kingdom in your lifetime and during your days, and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon.

The loss and pain may become more bearable over time, at least for most of the time. But they will never quite go away. They flare up at the least opportune times. They depress. They remain. Everyone of us who has lost a friend or family member knows that. We may eventually emerge from mourning. Experience life almost to its fullest again. But loss remains loss. Pain remains pain. All that holds for genocide but is so much worse, becomes collectivized. The trauma of crimes against humanity lingers. Not days, months, or years. But generations. It is that devastating.

May Their great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

When people pretend that genocide isn’t genocide, they make everything that much worse. They amplify the loss. They amplify the pain. They insult all of us who have eyes to see, ears to hear, noses to smell, and hearts to love. We saw people being murdered. We heard the gun shots and bombs. We smelled the bodies decomposing in ruins. We felt our hearts break as our loved ones were killed. Netanyahu’s glib self-serving lies are despicable. They reveal the inhuman monster he is. If that wasn’t horrendous enough, he gives license to so many others to dissemble and deny. He truly is inhuman, a monster. He deserves to be locked up for the rest of his life.

Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be They, beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world.

Just as Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians puts us into an intolerable position, Genesis 19 puts us into an intolerable position. The critical difference is that the state of Israel is run by humans, but Genesis 19 speaks of יהוה committing genocide. I have already argued that the many contradictions, the fact that what happened on the plain is neither righteous nor just, point to the chapter being a test, יהוה testing our faith, just like They tested Abraham. The many parallels to and similarities with the on-going genocide point to a second critical function of Genesis 19: It stands as emphatic warning not to repeat the events on the plain, not to commit genocide. But here we are. Or more precisely, the state of Israel brought us here.

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and for all Israel.

I don’t have a quorum. I am not even a Jew. But somebody has to start. Hence, I’m sitting shiva, the traditional mourning period for the dead. Hence, I’m reciting the mourner’s kaddish, the traditional prayer for the dead. I’m sitting shiva for the kibbutzim, ravers, Thai farmhands, and Negev bedouin murdered on October 7. I’m sitting shiva for the hostages killed in Gaza. I’m sitting shiva for Lot’s wife. I’m sitting shiva for every IDF soldier killed on October 7 and in Gaza. I’m sitting shiva for each and every inhabitant of Sodom, Gomorrah, and Gaza who died, whether by an act of יהוה or IDF, or as a consequence of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mourn every single human, whose life was snuffed out in this madness. I mourn.

Please join me. Help me form that quorum and then some. Let’s mourn together. Because we all are children of יהוה. We all are Israelites. Join me. Please.

They who create peace in Their celestial heights, may They create peace for us and for all Israel.

A Memorial and a Name

I started this essay by arguing that more liberally minded folk should counter attempts to censor books by trying to censor the Bible. After all, scripture has no shortage of violence and sexual perversion. Furthermore, as I showed in this essay, it is so very easy to misinterpret scripture, to stray from the path of the righteous and just. I stand by that call. But it should remain a means of last resort. Censorship is a tawdry business, after all. Far more important is that we more liberally minded folk start reading scripture again and bring our voices, our readings, our takes to the table. We mustn’t leave scripture to the voices of apartheid, mass murder, and genocide. We must help bring about a spiritual renewal. I just did my part towards this end. Now, it’s upon you to spread the word.

If you read this essay and still think Israel’s genocide in Gaza is in any way justified, please read it again. If you re-read this essay and still think Israel’s genocide in Gaza is in any way justified, I must warn you that you ignored one more lesson from יהוה’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: The magnitude and ferociousness of יהוה’s wrath. Once triggered, it knows few bounds and is altogether devastating. Do you really want to paint a big red target on yourself? Calling יהוה’s wrath down on yourself? Do you really believe that יהוה will forgive you for ignoring Their urgent warning in Genesis 19? Do you really believe that יהוה will forgive you for violating the covenant so cruelly and extensively? No covenant withstands genocide. You cannot be Israelite and commit genocide, too.

I must admit that I wouldn’t mind יהוה becoming more hands-on again when it comes to human affairs. Because, surely, They’d turn the likes of you into salt pillars. We could then charge tourists admission and use the money for rebuilding Gaza. So go ahead, channel Their wrath onto yourself. We are standing ready to mourn, to burry, to feed, to console, and to rebuild. Anything else is unacceptable, violates יהוה’s covenant, and common human decency, too.

I wrote of the loss and pain lingering for generations. We can’t sit shiva for generations. Future generations need to live their lives. So, how can we help them along the way? I already made this proposal in February 2024. I make it right here again. It’s a start, a constructive next step after we are done sitting shiva. Yad Vashem, the memorial to the Shoah, becomes the memorial to the Nakba, too. A memorial and a name. יָד וָשֵׁם. A memorial and a name in Hebrew. نصب تذكاري واسم. A memorial and a name in Arabic. By commemorating both, a memorial and a name becomes the shared site for acknowledging unspeakable loss and pain. By commemorating both, a memorial and a name challenges Zionists to reflect on how the survivors of the Shoah could become the perpetrators of the Nakba, starting in 1948 and lasting to this day. By commemorating both, a memorial and a name emphasizes the shared devastation and, hopefully, points to a righteous and just future for Zionists and Palestinians alike, for Jews, Muslims, and Christians, for all of us humans together. For that, I pray.

Amen

Uhm, excuse me! Hello! Even in the context of Genesis, יהוה eradicating human life on the plain (save Zoar) was a mere blip. Why obsess about what effectively is a non-event? Go read Genesis 6-9. It describes how They drowned all humans (save one family) and animals (save one pair per species) on earth—in other words, a global extinction event. Surely, any discussion of יהוה committing genocide should start with that.

Hmm… Let’s see… Ah, but יהוה didn’t target a specific ethnic, national, racial, or religious group. That means They didn’t commit genocide when flooding Earth…