The Greatest Debate

Debating seems to be a lost art in these heady times. IPods, e-mails, web-sites, proliferate – and e-mails are a form of debates, a reportee of ideas, mostly untested, unvarnished offering – out of personal ideology.

Debating was an art form long lost to us. The so-called Political Debates of recent history are more like personal statements of ones’ beliefs. True debating posits two opposing views and tries to demonstrate the inconsistencies, the consequences, of the opponent’s position.

History buffs believe that the Lincoln-Douglas debates were the high-water mark of debating. Douglas, a Democrat, vs. Lincoln of the former whig party, now part of the newly formed Republican Party.

“The prairies are on fire,” summed up the Eastern Seaboard, about the report of two protagonists for the Illinois Senate vacancy in 1858.

You had to be fast on your feet – fast on the response – in those heady days of frontier American’s fascination with political ideas fermenting for exposure.

Lincoln lost the election – but it was not by popular vote, buy by legislators who maneuvered him out of the running.

Still, the Debates are remembered, and his logic, his ability to draw parallels, his earthiness – all combined to give him the Presidency two years later, in 1860, against a mixed field which included Douglas.

Thus, debating proved politically profitable. Not so, however, with the Greatest Debate in all human history.

The opponents were Abraham and one of the Mysterious three strangers who came to visit him, and for his kindly reception, gave him the unique privilege of participating in the Greatest Debate of all time.

Abraham had become a righteous individual and obtained the greatest gift of all from G-d, the distinction of being the progenitor of a righteous people, the Jewish People, in “whom all the nations of the Earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 18.18-19).

In this week’s Torah portion, Abraham debates with G-d as to the seeming of injustice of destroying Sodom if there are 50 righteous people amongst all the wicked ones, arguing that “The Judge of all the Earth is bound to do justice.”

G-d agrees, and assures Abraham that if there are 50 righteous present in Sodom it will not be destroyed.

Abraham has the advantage and talks to 45, 40, 30, 20 and finally 10 righteous people – and the answer is the same, right down to 10 righteous people.

Beyond that minimum, Abraham will not go. But the question remains: one righteous person, will G-d save the city, and, perhaps, all humanity?

We are left to conjure the answer. But the principle, as stated by Abraham, who debated with the Creator, is the same:

“Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do justly?” (Gen. 18.25).

Hopefully there are many righteous people, but, necessarily, there is at least one human being who is pure enough to protect us all from the destruction that surely looms on the horizon.

© 2007 – LNS -