Machshavot HaLev - Yeshivat Lev HaTorah

35
Vayera
The Power of Ten
Noam White
I n this week’s parsha we read about Avraham pleading with Hashem in order to
save Sodom and the other four cities that are included with it. Avraham asks Hashem
if He would save Sodom if there were fifty tzaddikim there. Rashi (18:24) comments
that Avraham asks about fifty because ten people were needed for each city in order
to merit salvation. But Hashem responds that there are not fifty tzaddikim. Avraham
then asks for forty five and Rashi (18:28) comments that this would include nine for
each city plus Hashem, which equals ten per city. But there weren’t forty five people.
He then asks for forty so that only four cities would be saved, then thirty for three
cities, then twenty for two cities, and finally ten, which would be enough to save
one city. In the end there were not even ten tzaddikim. Rashi (18:32) comments that
Avraham did not ask about less than ten because the generation of the flood was not
saved by the eight tzaddikim in Noach’s family (plus God Himself).
Why must there be ten tzaddikim in a city, or in Noach’s case in the world, in order to
merit salvation? What is so significant about the number ten?
We learn from the story of the םילגרמ that a group of ten people, even if they are
wicked, is called an הדע. The significance of an הדע is that it represents an entire
community. In Massechet Berachot (6a) it says:
“יבתיד דע אתלת ,איתאו הניכש המדק הרשע ?איעבמ הרשע ,אתלת ’יפאד רחאמ יכו“;
“If it is so that the Divine presence is with three, why mention that it is with ten?