The Job You Don’t Put on LinkedIn

Originally published on Gimme Some Torah by Rabbi Eli Garfinkel on October 29, 2026.

Amsterdam’s De Wallen, the world’s most famous red light district

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Bereshit/Genesis 19:8

הִנֵּה־נָא לִי שְׁתֵּי בָנוֹת אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יָדְעוּ אִישׁ אוֹצִיאָה־נָּא אֶתְהֶן אֲלֵיכֶם וַעֲשׂוּ לָהֶן כַּטּוֹב בְּעֵינֵיכֶם רַק לָאֲנָשִׁים הָאֵל אַל־תַּעֲשׂוּ דָבָר כִּי־עַל־כֵּן בָּאוּ בְּצֵל קֹרָתִי׃

Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you please; but do not do anything to the others, since they have come under the shelter of my roof.”

I’ve always found Gen. 19:8 to be one of the Torah’s most disturbing verses. Lot, begging the people of Sodom to not harm his visitors, offers them a consolation prize—his own virgin daughters. Here is what Ramban (bio) says about this hyper-wicked proposition:

LET ME, I PRAY YOU, BRING THEM OUT UNTO YOU. From the praise of this man Lot we have come to his disgrace: he made every effort on behalf of his guests in order to save them because they came under the shadow of his roof, but he is ready to appease the men of the city by abandoning his daughters to prostitution! This bespeaks nothing but an evil heart, for it shows that the matter of prostitution of women was not repugnant to him, and that in his opinion he would not be doing such great injustice to his daughters. It is for this reason that our Rabbis have said, “It is the custom of the world that a man fights to the death for the honor of his daughters and his wife, to slay or to be slain, but this man hands over his daughters for dishonor. Said the Holy One, blessed be He, to him, ‘It is for yourself that you keep them.’

The key to this comment is found in these words: “…the matter of prostitution of women was not repugnant to him, and that in his opinion he would not be doing such great injustice to his daughters.” According to Ramban, Lot was not just a bad person but a sociopath, someone who has no care for other people and who is willing to use others, even loved ones, for benefit.

Lot’s wickedness proved to be a disaster for all the people of Sodom. Abraham had already convinced God to save the city for the sake of ten righteous people, and he was counting on Lot to be one of the quorum. He apparently did not know that his wayward nephew was the type to offer his own daughters as prostitutes.

Today, in most countries, the police spend a lot of time arresting sex workers; the johns and pimps rarely see the inside of a jail cell. But Israel is one of just eight countries that have a more enlightened approach. In these countries, it is legal for a person to sell sex for money. It is, however, strictly illegal to purchase it. This policy, known as the Nordic Model, switches law enforcement’s focus from the supply to the demand, from the providers to the users.

Some argue that everyone should be free to sell and buy sexual services at will. The logic behind this idea is the same one that people use in support of allowing the sale of one’s organs for transplant, namely that individuals should have complete and total dominion over their own bodies.

We have laws against both sex work and organ sales because our society has rightly decided that some things should not be available in the marketplace. Although capitalism has lifted billions of people out of abject poverty, it still needs some basic guardrails.

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