A lesson from Avraham Avinu

Just thought I’d post something that I found interesting in relation to last week’s Parasha. It’s interesting partly because I don’t think it’s talked about much, and also because I think it provides an important lesson.

It is in reference to Avraham’s dialogue with G-d before Sedom was destroyed. Avraham pleaded with G-d that He not destroy the city of Sedom on account of various possible amounts of righteous people that may live there. In the end, none of his requests altered G-d’s decision, and Sedom was destroyed. But it made me realize how the attribute of kindness is justifiably personified by Avraham. Sedom was a city completely immersed in immorality and sin. G-d had decided that it be destroyed. And yet, Avraham was able to look past the obvious major flaws that the corrupt city possessed and beg that it be saved on account of a few possibly good citizens!

How many of us, or even people in the history of the world, would see a situation like this in the way Avraham saw this and request the same request? Very, very few, I think. Most of us would probably rejoice at the prospect that a group of sinful or unruly people are being punished for their deeds. Would we even think about worrying that there might be a handful of decent people in that group that should be saved? And even more than that, that the ENTIRE group should be saved because of them? Doubtful. But that was Avraham Avinu.

We can use this as a lesson for how we should view other groups of people that we think may be doing things wrong, and it may help us alter our perspective from seeing the negative aspects to the positive aspects. There are many lessons we can learn from Avraham, and this is one of them.