What inspired Abraham to pray for the city of Sodem? Being as their's was the most wicked of civilizations at the time, why would the most righteous man alive go to bat for them? The question deepens when we understand that Abraham related to Hashem specifically through kindness. He saw Hashem as the attribute of kindness and recognized that everything He did was ultimately kind and merciful.
So how did he assume to be kinder or more knowing than The Creator of kindness? When he prayed for Sodem, he sounds almost accusatory towards Hashem. "Would you destroy the righteous with the wicked?" How could any mortal human being address The Devine in such a manner?
The answer, we learn from the Torah portion of Noah. The lesson began even earlier in the first story of the Torah. When Adam sinned, he excepted his judgment for all the reasons we just mentioned. It hadn't occurred to him that he could try to defend himself, thus seemingly contradicting the will of his Creator. Only when Cain was punished, our sages taught that Adam waited outside of the garden. When he saw Cain come out alive, he was shocked! "How did you escape justice?" He asked. "I asked for forgiveness" was Cain's answer.
That encounter brought a whole new, unique concept to the world. Tshuvah/repentance.
The idea that a person isn't bound to his faults, and doesn't have to suffer the consequence of his sins if he repents. Of course Adam didn't know this, because it's almost an unfathomable notion. So when he saw Cain come out relatively unscathed, he was shocked and he cried. Because had he known, he would have repented, and possibly kept death from the world altogether.
Noah learned another lesson the hard way. As we know, in his generation, the people were wicked to the extreme. They had corrupted nature to the point that Hashem saw fit to start over. After the flood, Noah looked at the vast empty world and begun to cry, mourning the loss of life that he had witnessed. Hashem came to him and reproached him saying "Now your crying?! Why didn't you cry all those years you were building the ark? Then you could have saved them, now what's done is done!"
Though Noah had learned the lesson of Adam, it hadn't occurred to him that he could pray on behalf of another. If a man could promise to change, what promises could he give on his friends behalf? The cost of this lesson was the destruction of a generation.
Abraham was a fast learner. He understood from past events what was expected of him. So when he saw destruction coming to Sodem, he began to argue their case. He went to war with Hashem! Though even Abraham fell short of saving a nation in the merit of one man. That lesson would be taught much later by Moses in the desert.
The lesson for us is to never give up hope. Not on ourselves or on others. There is always a way if we want it enough. Hashem is the mercy and the merciful. His capacity for forgiveness is infinite. So when we see suffering in the world, either our own or other's, we should remember these lesson's and be prepared to "fight" with Hashem for mercy. Don't worry, he wants us to win!
