Sodom סדום
A wealthy city by the Dead Sea, destroyed for cruelty made into law.
Sodom in the Torah is not merely wicked but prosperous: the valley is «like the garden of the Lord», which is exactly why Lot chooses it. The sages explain its destruction with unexpected precision — not vice in general but a system. In Sodom charity was outlawed; travellers were stretched or cut to fit a bed; a girl who fed a beggar was executed. The Talmud sums up the Sodomite principle as «what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours» and calls it middat Sdom: refusing a kindness that costs nothing.
Avraham argues with God over the city — «shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?» — bargaining from fifty righteous men down to ten. Ten are not found. Lot is dragged out; his wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt.
Tradition places the site at the southern end of the Dead Sea, where Mount Sdom, a ridge of salt, still stands.