Prepare to Escape! The Survival of Lot
Students learn the story of Lot leaving Sdom (Bereshit 19:15-22) by playing a matching game.
Introduction
In this lesson, students learn the story of Lot leaving Sedom. The teacher addresses the students as Lot so that they will understand the imminent danger and the need to escape. In the main activity of the lesson, students will match the Hebrew text of key phrases, fashioned into “Storm Clouds” to the English translation, fashioned into “Storm Symbols.”
Lesson objectives
The student will be able to
1. Describe how Lot lingered.
2. Relate how the angels urge Lot to leave Sedom with his family.
3. Relate how the angels take Lot and his family outside the city.
4. Describe how the angels tell Lot to flee to the mountains and not to look back, so he would not be swept away.
5. Describe that Lot begs the angels to allow him to escape somewhere closer.
6. Relate how Lot begs to escape to Zoar, a small city that is close by.
7. Explain how the angels and God grant his wish but want him to hurry up.
Skills
The student will be able to
1. Identify the keyword הימלט in its various forms (המלט, אמלטה, להימלט).
2. Translate הימלט and its various forms.
3. Translate connecting phrases associated with הימלט, such as:
יז- הימלט על נפשך
יז – המלט פן תספה
יט – לא אוכל להימלט ההרה
כ – אמלטה נא שמה
כב –מהר הימלט שמה
4. Use taamei hamikra to read the text, stopping at etnachta, shva na and sof pasuk.
Values
The students will appreciate
1. Lot’s apprehension in leaving his home.
2. The importance of following orders in an emergency situation.
3. The patience demonstrated by the angels and God.
4. The importance of being kind to people.
Terms
הימלט – to escape
Resources & Equipment needed
- Posterboard and tape
- Copies of the Escape Clouds worksheet
- Copy of Storm Symbols document
- Two colored highlighters and a pen/pencil for each student
- Chumashim for all students
Procedure
Teacher Preparation before class
1. Create “Storm Clouds” for the blackboard by cutting out five large clouds from the posteboard. In large letters, write one of the following on each cloud:
יז- הימלט על נפשך
יז – המלט פן תספה
יט – לא אוכל להימלט ההרה
כ – אמלטה נא שמה
כב –מהר הימלט שמה
2. Print the “Storm Clouds” worksheet for students.
3. Print the “Storm Symbols” document for students or create your own. These are handouts with illustrations of symbols of destruction (i.e. a ball of sulfur, a lightning bolt, a raindrop, a running man, and a flame) with the English translation of the text used in the “Storm Clouds.” Each “Storm Symbol” matches up with one “Storm Cloud”.
4. Prepare the whiteboard by hanging the large “Storm Clouds” in the middle and by drawing signposts on either side. The signposts should indicate the directions of Zoar and Ha-hara (to the mountain). See the whiteboard diagram here.
Class Opening (3 minutes)
Begin class and pass out the relevant materials. Tell students that the time has come for Sedom to be destroyed. Dark clouds are thickening (motion to the clouds on the board). God is preparing thunder, lightning, and balls of sulfur and fire to throw at you! Everyone in the city and its environs will be destroyed! Only one family will make it. Yours. But you are still in grave danger. What must you do? Escape!
Escape Clouds Are in the Air
Distribute the “Escape Clouds” worksheet.
Ask students: Now that you have decided to escape, what should we do next? Tell students to look at the “Escape Clouds” on the board. Read the text on the clouds together as a class.
Ask students: Which word is repeated?
Answer: הימלט
Ask students if they know what this word means, and listen to various responses; if no correct response, tell them: to escape.
Look together through each of the Escape Clouds:
Escape Cloud #1:
Read the text together and explain to students that a “nefesh” is a soul or a person.
Ask students: So the angel is telling Lot to run for his life – to save his soul!
Tell students to write the Hebrew phrase in their “Escape Clouds” worksheets. Then read the worksheet together. Explain to students that the angels are warning Lot that he should run away lest – פן – so that – you won’t be ‘added’ to the destruction of the people of Sedom.
Escape Cloud #2 and #3
Write the text in Escape Cloud #2 in your worksheets. Then, tell students to read the text of Escape Cloud #3 together, and ask if they need any words. Explain that the phrase “לא אוכל” is like the word “יכול.” Explain that this means that Lot thinks that he can escape. The א is for future tense, meaning he is not able to escape there, to the mountains. Tell students to write this phrase in their Escape Cloud worksheets.
Escape Cloud #4:
Tell students to read Escape Cloud #4 together. Have students look at the word “שמה – there.” Explain that this means that Lot doesn’t think he can make it to the mountains, so he’ll escape there.
Explain that the word א –מלט-ה is in future tense again, meaning “I will escape” – ה- meaning there, like “ההרה” in the previous phrase. Tell students to write this phrase in their Escape Clouds worksheets.
Escape Clouds #5:
Tell students to read Escape Cloud #5, and tell them to add that last phrase to their worksheets.
Storm Symbols
Tell students that they will now try to understand these Escape Clouds phrases on a deeper level. Show students the Storm Symbols and ask them to identify them. Ask students what they represent, and explain that they all are visual representations of Sedom’s destruction. Tell students that they will now attach each symbol to its matching Escape Cloud on the board. Tell students that they will be matched in order and their translations and meanings will be discussed along the way.
Call up students to the board to do a match, and ask them to draw a small storm symbol and write the translation on their cloud sheets.
Answers:
המלט על נפשך – matches the sulfur ball of RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!
Ask students: What are you running away from?
Answer: Balls of sulfur!
Explain that Lot still did not go at this point, maybe because he was stalling because it’s so hard to leave home. He may have known that his home was about to be destroyed, along with his neighbors and everything he knew, but maybe he needed time to process what was happening.
המלט פן תספה – Escape, lest you be included in their destruction.
Ask students: What’s the next step after you’ve decided to escape?
Answer: You have to know where to escape to.
Ask: Where do you go? You’ve got to get away. But where? How far?
Answer: Far enough away from Sedom that we are not destroyed by the fire.
Ask: So where to?
Answer: Out of the city.
Ask: What was around a city in those days? There were no highways, trains, subways, or big cities. The largest city of those times was probably equivalent to a bungalow colony in upstate New York. So what was around Sedom?
Answer: Mountains and forests.
לא אוכל להימלט ההרה – A raindrop cutout of ‘I cannot escape to that mountain!”
Ask: Why not escape to the mountain? What are you afraid of, Lot?
Answer: Maybe he doesn’t like the people who live there. Maybe it’s too far. Maybe he doesn’t think he can make it – he’s not up to the journey.
Answer: It must be hard for Lot to leave his city. But the truth is, it’s do or die.
Indicate Zoar and ההרה signs on the board. Ask the student who attached the raindrop to draw an x through ההרה.
Explain that if you can’t go to the mountains, where should you go?
Answer: Somewhere closer, such as Zoar, the little city that’s a bit closer than the distant mountains. God had been planning to destroy them as well, because of their proximity to Sedom and Amorrah. But maybe God will spare it to help Lot.
אמלטה נא שמה – I will escape there (to Zoar).
Ask: Who are you ‘Lots’ speaking with, anyway? Who’s trying to convince you to leave, and negotiating where to go?
Answer: The angels who have come to destroy Sedom.
Ask: What did they think about escaping to Zoar instead of the mountains?
מהר המלט שמה – Quickly escape there!
Ask: Was your request approved?
Answer: Yes, Zoar it is.
Indicate the signs on the board. Ask the student who hung up Cloud #5’s translation to circle Zoar on the board.
Textual Highlighting
Tell students that they will now find the Escape Cloud phrases and highlight them in their text. Ask them to listen carefully while the pesukim are read, highlighters in hand. The teacher reads dramatically verses 15-22, translating when necessary. Students highlight.
Lot or Angels?
Tell students to look back at their highlighted phrases in the Chumash and explain who said each phrase, either Lot or the angels.
Then, divide the class into two: Half are Lot (indicate line down the middle of the room). The other half are angels. Ask all students to stand up with their chumashim in hand. (If there is room in the classroom for students to congregate on separate sides of the room, then move everyone to appropriate sections).
Explain that the teacher will read the narrative sections, where Lot and the angels are silent. Whosever turn it is to speak will continue reading as a group. We must understand what we are reading, so ask students to read in phrases remembering to stop at shva na – the two little dots above a word, the etnachta – the wishbone below the word, and at the end of a verse. When we get to a phrase from the Escape Clouds, everyone will say it together. The teacher begins reading verse 15 and stops at לאמר, then the students from the “Angels” group read, while the teacher helps with translation. Then, the teacher continues reading dramatically or reading and translating from verse 16 until ויאמר. The “Angels” group then reads again, with the teacher assisting with translation. All recite the translation of the escape phrase. The teacher continues reading from verse 18 until אלהם. The “Lot” group continues reading and translating with the assistance of the teacher until verse 21. The teacher then reads the first two words of verse 21, and then the “Angels” group continues reading and translating, with the teacher’s help, until the end of verse 22.
Highlighting
Ask all students to sit back down, with their chumashim still open in front of them. Ask them to highlight the conversation in your texts. Highlight Lot in blue and the angels in red, or use any two separate colors you have.
Discussion
Tell students to look at the powerful lesson of pasuk 22 which highlights the main values of the text we are learning today. Ask students: If I was doing you a favor, say, going out of my way to pick you up and take you to my house for a BBQ I was making, would you ask me to stop by the supermarket and pick up your favorite snack along the way? Well, let’s say you grew up in a jungle and you asked anyway. Would you expect me to do it? Isn’t that essentially what Lot is doing to the angels?
Tell students to review the storyline: God wants to destroy – Sedom and Amorrah, so Avraham begs God to save 50 tzaddikim, but there aren’t any, so he ends up with just Lot. The angels come to save Lot and he doesn’t want to go, but finally, he agrees. Storm clouds are in the air, and Sedomites are getting nervous, so Lot has to sit and discuss it first with the angels, so much so that they actually have to drag him and his family out of the city. Even when it was starting to rain, he wouldn’t leave! Then he decides he can’t even make it to the mountains, could he please go to Zoar? At this point, Lot was stalling – it is as though his life was on the line and he was asking for a coffee. To go. With extra sugar and cream. Perhaps the angels would be annoyed and tell him to escape on his own at this point, but they grant him his wishes. Maybe they realize how hard this is for Lot – to leave his home and lose his city. They give him the extra five minutes he needs to get his act together, as the clouds thicken and the rains start to fall.
Continue reading until כי לא אוכל לעשות דבר עד בואך שמה. At this point, the angels are saying: get a move on, Lot. But they’re still waiting patiently for Lot to move. They help him get where he needs to go, whether they like it or not.
Ask students to share examples of kindness like this that they have done or seen, such as waiting politely when they really want to leave, helping someone get where they need to go, or spending the extra five minutes when they really don’t want to.
Explain that in Lot’s case, the angels were able to save Lot anyway, but it’s important to remember to act appropriately in an emergency. For homework, please write down a kindness that you have done or witnessed. If neither has happened to you, create one that you find appealing.
Conclusion
Lead a final discussion: The next time your brother or sister, mom or dad keep you waiting, want you to move a little faster, etc, don’t get upset. Cut them some slack. Look at the patience of the angels as Lot stalls. You hear the strain coming through in their voices, but the bottom line is, they wait and they grant him his wishes. They give him his favorite snack. And this is to someone they don’t even know. Give someone a break today when you don’t really want to. They deserve it.