Lazarus of the crumbs

Luke the evangelist brings us the scene of contrast between a rich man and a beggar. The rich man is unnamed; the beggar is named Lazarus. The rich man is clothed in fine linen; Lazarus is clothed in sores. Dogs come and lick the sores. Lazarus longs for crumbs falling off the rich man’s table.

Later, both the rich man and Lazarus died. The rich man finds himself in the flames of hell, and finds Lazarus in nirvana. Their roles now reverse. The rich man begs for his tongue to be cooled by Lazarus’ wet finger-tip. It is now too late and the damage is irreversible, we are told. The chasm is impermissible.

Nobody wants to be in the flames of hell. So we learn and teach how to avoid those flames. Motivated by the aversion we wire into ourselves and into each other that we should almsgive, that giving is good and not giving is bad. The aversion-turned-incentive is to be generous–giving more is better than giving less.

That is a convenient template. Reading on, though, nowhere in Luke’s account does it suggest that the rich man should have fed Lazarus more crumbs. Rather, it has to do with the great chasm, gulf, abyss, canyon, crevasse; the deep rift, ditch; the big pit, the tehom gedolah; the big, wide, long and deep hole. It is about a contrast that shouldn’t have been.