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Gershon Hepner

Left-Leaning Homochirality Led Lot to Sodom, Perhaps

It seems terrestrial molecules

are all left-handed. Nature rules:

amino acids have to favor

left-handedness, which is the flavor

that it considers not anemic:

right-handed wreaks what’s wrong, racemic.

 

Take care in your spirality

if bound by corps chirality,

not to swerve too left or right.
For both directions you may fight,

becoming not too esoteric,

while in between be isomeric.

 

Be Abrahamic, and do not

object when somebody like Lot,

takes different paths than you would take;

allow them to make a mistake,

though angels may not save you if

your journey takes you to a cliff,

and the straight line that hits the bottom

leads to Gomorrah or to Sodom.

Homochirality denotes single-handedness in amino acid molecules.  Dr. John R. Cronin and Dr. Sandra Pizzarello from Arizona State University report in Science that amino acids never found on earth but identified from the Murchison Meteorite which fell near Murchison, Australia in 1969 show a left-handed bias. Dr. William A. Bonner of Stanford University hypothesizes that light emitted from the intense gravitational field of a neutron star would be circularly polarized and could influence the left-handedness of molecules forming along its path in the thin interstellar gas.

Gen. 13:8-9 states:

ח  וַיֹּאמֶר אַבְרָם אֶל-לוֹט, אַל-נָא תְהִי מְרִיבָה בֵּינִי וּבֵינֶךָ, וּבֵין רֹעַי, וּבֵין רֹעֶיךָ:  כִּי-אֲנָשִׁים אַחִים, אֲנָחְנוּ.   8 And Abram said unto Lot: ‘Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we are brethren.

ט  הֲלֹא כָל-הָאָרֶץ לְפָנֶיךָ, הִפָּרֶד נָא מֵעָלָי:  אִם-הַשְּׂמֹאל וְאֵימִנָה, וְאִם-הַיָּמִין וְאַשְׂמְאִילָה.       9 Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me; if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou take the right hand, then I will go to the left.

Gen. 13:12 states:

יב  אַבְרָם, יָשַׁב בְּאֶרֶץ-כְּנָעַן; וְלוֹט, יָשַׁב בְּעָרֵי הַכִּכָּר, וַיֶּאֱהַל, עַד-סְדֹם.      12 Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the Plain, and moved his tent as far as Sodom.

About the Author
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored "Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel." He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
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