For the sake of ten righteous people, God does not destroy the world. These are the Lamed Vavnik. They live scattered in any nation under heaven, are member of any class, of any profession which may be imagined; and they are invisible to the world. Lo, not even they know the significance of their lives. Such ignorance is their righteousness. They merely live, so they suppose, as other people live. But Heaven knows the difference.
And this is the mercy of God: that when one of the Lamed Vavnik dies, God raises up another.
-Walt Wangerin, Ragman, and Other Cries of Faith, 89.
2 comments:
According to Wangerin, this is an old Hasidic (Jewish) legend.
While God was willing to save Sodom and Gemorrah had 10 righteous persons been found, Lamed-vav means "Thirty-six" in Hebrew, and it is 36 hidden righteous ones that, according to Jewish lore, sustain the world.
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