Remembering Lot

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What's Lot got to do with Purim? While I do bring up some puns on the name, one I was thinking of real allusions, but just for fun, here's this one to connect our subject -- Lot -- to  Purim. See Esther 2:7
  [Haman] cast the pur-that is the lot- הִפִּ֣יל פּוּר֩ ה֨וּא הַגּוֹרָ֜ל  


But more seriously, earlier in the week, I started thinking about Lot, Avraham's nephew, who comes across as a rather weak-willed individual. He makes a bad decision to move to Sdom and gets so entrenched there that that he hesitates to leave. As he he is ushered out, the angels, have to urge him on with a pun on his own name, Berishis 19: 17
"Flee for your life  הִמָּלֵ֣ט עַל־נַפְשֶׁ֔ךָ"

He then asks for a small city to be spared so that he may shelter there but fears that it would be unsafe to stay and moves on to a cave where his daughters (believing all the rest of humanity has been wiped out and that it is their duty to repopulate the world) get him drunk in order to seduce him. From here we get the Hebrew expression of being as drunk as Lot,meaning to be so far gone that you don't recognize your own daughters.


Now here's the interesting thing: Lot was spared more than once, first as a prisoner of war in the battle of the 4 kings that Avraham personally got involved in and then again when the angels had to save him from the destruction of Sdom. That's an awful lot of trouble for an individual who comes across as not all that great in Scriptures. So why?

The answer lies in his descendants, those who would come from his sons, Ammon and Moav. Chazl refer to the saintly women who came from this embarrassing union of father and daughter, including Ruth, the Imma shel Malchus, whose descendant would be none other than David Hamelech, whose line will ultimately lead to Moshiach. 

In fact, I would say that one can find an allusion to that ultimate end in Lot's name with the same kind of pun we saw in the exhortation of the angel. This is in the verse from Yeshayahu 47:4
דוְעַד־זִקְנָה֙ אֲנִ֣י ה֔וּא וְעַד־שֵׂיבָ֖ה אֲנִ֣י אֶסְבֹּ֑ל אֲנִ֚י עָשִׂ֙יתִי֙ וַֽאֲנִ֣י אֶשָּׂ֔א וַֽאֲנִ֥י אֶסְבֹּ֖ל וַֽאֲמַלֵּֽט:

That is Hashem's promise to carry us through to old age, declaring, "I have made and I will bear and I will carry and deliver." That will happen with the ultimate redemption.

Now Purim refers to an intermediate redemption, and we celebrate with an unusual mitzvah of drinking wine. In discussing the obligation, the Rambam brings up the question of going so far so as to achieve the drunkenness of Lot. True, it's an expression, but it is also possible to see it as an allusion to the drinking that led to a chain of generations that culminate in the Davidic dynasty and to our future redemption with the coming of Moshiach, who should arrive soon.

Related post: http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2010/02/thoughts-on-purim-and-unexpected.html

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