Lot's Wife A-Salted

Rebecca Goldstein wrote an article, "Looking Back at Lot's Wife." In it she describes her wrestling with the implication of Lot's wife 'punishment.' Is it due to her taking voyeuristic interest in the destruction of others? Was she punished for being skeptical about God's planned destruction and was thus struck down? Was it a lesson to what happens to us when we take stupid, unnecessary risks? Was it nostalgia for loss of the life she knew? None of these provide satisfactory answers why she deserved to die as a pillar of salt.




Rebecca quotes Rabbi David Kimchi (aka Radak) who points out that in Duetoronomy, Moses describes the destruction as sulfur and salt (rather than the sulfur and fire in Genesis). So in Radak's understanding, the land of Sodom was laid waste as sulfur and its people as salt. So in essence, Lot's wife shared a common fate with the Sodomites. This begs the question once again as to why she died.



Rebecca offers a unique perspective, one which spoke to me as a parent (but I can see it having less effect on a non-parent). Recall that Lot had 2 married daughters who remained behind with their husbands who scoffed at the news of impending destruction. So Lot's wife (aka Irit, in legends) is essentially leaving 2 of her 4 daughters behind.



"Irit looked back to see if her two firstborn daughters were following, and she saw that they weren't and what had become of them.

"In such a moment of grief one knows only one desire: to follow after one's child, to experience what she's experienced, to be one with her in every aspect of suffering. Only to be one with her.

"And it was for this desire that Irit was turned into a pillar of salt. She was turned into salt either because God couldn't forgive her for this desire...or because he could."