Even the pious Avraham Avinu could not sway God to forgive the people of Sodom. They had become so depraved, immoral and unholy that God felt compelled to destroy the cities. But all was not lost. Lot and his family were whisked out of the city by guardian angles and given the opportunity to begin life anew. As they were readying themselves to take leave of Sodom, the angel outlines a simple set of instructions:
And it came to pass, when they took them outside, that he said, “Flee for your life, do not look behind you, and do not stand in the entire plain. Flee to the mountain, lest you perish.” (Bereishis 19:17)
Lot and his daughters complied, but his wife Iris did not.
“And the Lord caused to rain down upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord, from heaven. And He turned over these cities and the entire plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and the vegetation of the ground. And his wife looked from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” (Bereishis 19:24-26)
The commentaries spend much time analyzing why Iris became a pillar of salt. It is clear that she violated the angelic directive but why was this the punishment? Rashi and others understand this punishment to reflect some degree of Divine reciprocity. As the Midrash explains, she refused to give salt (to accompany the bread) to the strangers who visited her home and when punished became a pillar of salt. But I would like to veer in a different direction (within this same story). The Torah is a book of laws. The Torah is not a history or a story book. As such when the Torah shares stories with us it is to teach us moral, ethical and/or legal lessons. What is the lesson from this episode? What are we to learn from Iris, the wife of Lot and what is the contemporary message?
Rav Shmuel Weinberg (1850-1916), the Rebbe of Slonim provides an incredible insight:
“When the angel said to them, ‘Al tabet acharecha, do not look behind you’ this was referring to the failures of the past. The wife of Lot looked back and what occurred? She became a pillar of salt.”
The Rebbe is teaching us an incredible lesson. Embedded in this story is perhaps one of the most important life principals. If you want to build a future, you must let go of the past. If you want to move forward, you must stop looking in the rearview mirror. Memory is a gift, but if used incorrectly can become a handicap. We all fail and in the aftermath of failure we must dust ourselves off, learn the hard lessons and move forward. We cannot live in the past because we cannot change the past. We can’t replay the mistakes and missteps of our past over and over because there is nothing more we can do to correct them. The only way to build a new future is to stop looking back and start moving forward.
God was giving Lot and his family the opportunity to start again and make a new life for themselves. But Iris looked back, she couldn’t detach from her past, she was tethered to it and therefore couldn’t move on. She turned into a pillar of salt. Why salt? Salt is a preservative, it keeps things in their present state, it prevents change and evolution. Iris couldn’t evolve or change because she was always looking back. Thus, she became stagnant, present-preserving salt.
