A question I received: Why was Sodom destroyed? Its laws seemed to be just. Everybody received what they were due.

My Answer: In Sodom, everybody stayed to himself. “Leave me alone, stay away! I give you nothing, you give me nothing. Then we won’t have any conflicts. Everybody is by himself. Everything is fair and just. You got a problem? Take it up with the Creator. But leave me alone!” The citizens of Sodom had turned this into religion. But, in and of themselves, the laws were not bad.

In contrast, the state of the world today is far worse than Sodom was. Now, not only is everyone separate unto themselves, everybody wants to destroy, steal from, and use everybody else. This was not the case in Sodom. The city’s laws stated, “Don’t be good to others, but don’t cause harm either. You’re forbidden to even wish harm to others in your thoughts!”

Sodom’s only flaw was that its laws prevented people from uniting, “Do whatever you want, but don’t get close to others.” This means don’t connect with others. It also prohibits waging war; however, war, too, is a kind of connection or, as in a breaking, a kind of interpenetration.

A breaking is no longer a state of “Sodom” but rather “Jerusalem.” When the broken parts of Bina and Malchut connect to one another, they can be corrected. However, Sodom cannot be corrected because there is no mutual connection. It can’t receive the qualities of Bina, and therefore, it simply must be destroyed. It is forbidden to touch these parts of the desire to enjoy that can’t mix with others, which as result cannot be corrected.

Sodom’s ideology is incredibly strong. In today’s world, we can bring it out, explain it to people, and they would understand and wish to follow it; however, it’s flawed in that it doesn’t allow the mixing of the parts of the broken soul, the qualities of Bina and Malchut, which is necessary for the next phase of correction.

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