Our Gemara on Amud Aleph addresses a philosophical and theological tension: Does God allow the innocent to suffer alongside the wicked?
Rabbi Abba bar Kahana taught:
What does it mean when Avraham says to God regarding Sodom, “Far be it from You to slay the righteous with the wicked” (Bereishis 18:25)?
Avraham argued: It would be a profanation (ḥalila) to Your name to act in this way.
But the Gemara challenges this: Doesn’t the verse in Yechezkel (21:8) say, “And I will cut off from you the righteous and the wicked”?
The Gemara resolves this by saying that verse refers to someone who is not completely righteous, and therefore subject to destruction with the wicked.
Let’s analyze. What does Rabbi Abba bar Kahana add beyond the plain reading of the verse, which clearly already gives Avraham‘s position that it would be a desecration for God to punish the righteous alongside the wicked? And why does the Gemara raise the contradiction as a clash between his teaching and the verse in Yechezkel, rather than just between the two verses?
Ben Yehoyada explains that Rabbi Abba bar Kahana intensifies Avraham’s claim. Without his comment, we might think Avraham was pleading for mercy, requesting God to act with middas harachamim even where justice might allow destruction. But once Rabbi Abba bar Kahana weighs in, he elevates the argument to a moral principle: It is inherently wrong—a cḥilul Hashem—for God to act indiscriminately. The word ḥalila implies not just a disgrace, but a hollowing-out of the Divine presence.
This forces the Gemara to reinterpret the verse in Yechezkel. How could a righteous person be destroyed with the wicked? The answer: Only one who is not fully righteous. Yismach Moshe (Noach 3) reads this into the grammar: “The righteous and the wicked”—not with the wicked—suggests a single person who contains both traits.
But this leads us to a deeper dilemma. Why would God not distinguish between a truly wicked person and one with a mixed record? It still seems unjust. The answer lies in the metaphysics of Divine providence and human vulnerability. In moments of cosmic upheaval such as wars, plagues, moral collapse—nature itself becomes tainted. Ordinary laws and of protection of society and even nature fail, or we might say that disaster becomes a part of nature because God is not pleased with an entire society. Only intense attachment to God and extraordinary righteousness can override this destructive force.
As Bava Kama (60a) famously teaches:
Regarding the plague of the firstborn: “None of you shall go out of your homes until morning” (Shemos 12:22).
Why? Once permission is given to the destroyer, it does not distinguish between righteous and wicked.
Tragedy follows its own rules unless counteracted by great merit. The world is not just subject to Divine will, but also to spiritual momentum. Avraham understood this too, but he begged God that he would have mercy nonetheless and argued that it could appear, as if God was unjust, even if actually that was not the reality.
Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation
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Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, LCSW-R, LMFT, DHL is a psychotherapist who works with high conflict couples and families. He can be reached via email at simchafeuerman@gmail.com