GENESIS XII-XVII
SPIRITUALITY SHOULD NOT BE COMPROMISED
The hero of these chapters is the patriarch Avraham, who heeds God’s exhortation to leave the safety of his hometown and the warmth of his parents’ home for a new land that had not been identified at first. The family initially goes to the city of Haran and only Avraham, his nephew Lot and their respective families continue the journey to the Promised Land, known at that time as Cana’an.
Avraham isn’t the only hero. Also deserving of honor are his wife Sarai and nephew Lot, who also made the decision to leave the comfort of a familiar environment for a strange and possibly hostile land. This joint experience should have brought the uncle and nephew closer together, both spiritually and emotionally. That is why it is strange that they decide to separate when there is a quarrel between their respective shepherds over the pasture in the land.
Avraham urges Lot to choose the path first, while he will take the opposite path. In the beginning, the monotheistic ideal had united them, and now the abundance of cattle produces separation. Perhaps it is necessary to better understand the first verse of our chapters: Lech lecha, “go away!”
Did Avraham have to sever all ties with his relatives, including Lot? What had been the fundamental intention of the Divine order, when God commanded Avraham toleave the home of his parents, because apparently, he would not be able to consolidate his ideal there? Namely the existence of only one God. It must not be forgotten that his nephew had lost his father and Avraham had taken his place, symbolically, and therefore, was willing to follow him on an intriguing adventure. What was Lot‘s motive, faith in the one God, or the family bond and security offered by Avraham’s presence?
The Midrash interprets the quarrel between the shepherds of Avraham and Lot as a moral dispute. Lot’s shepherds were willing to seizethe lands of the Cana’anites arguing that God had ceded these lands to Avraham, and since Lot was the rightful heir of the patriarch, his shepherds could take advantage of those lands immediately. The argument of Avraham’s shepherds was that while the Cana’anites inhabited that region, it was not legitimate to use what rightfully belonged to them.
God had promised Avraham that he would be the father of a great nation, but his wife Sarai—a name later changed to Sarah—could not conceive a descendant. Avraham thought that perhaps his offspring would come through his nephew Lot, and that he should only be separated from his father Terah and therest of the family. Lot would be the exception. While Lot appears as an integral part of the patriarch’s inner circle, the abundance of possessions brings about a change. The goods are no longer pooled. Lot retained his shepherds and cattle and Avraham did likewise It is possible that the flow of goods had a spiritual and emotional effect. While they shared the goods, they also shared the ideas. Once Lot acquires economic independence, he simultaneously wants to assert his intellectual and spiritual independence.
In Avraham’s case, material goods play a secondary role. The fundamental motive of his life is the monotheistic ideal, for which he was willing to sacrifice his only son, as we shall learn in future chapters. Spirituality could not be compromised. On the other hand, Lot – when he separated from Abraham – chose the fertile valleys for his livestock, even though the inhabitants of those places were immersed in idolatry and of sexual deviations.
The well-being and development of material goods was basic to Lot and was willing to take any spiritual risk in the quest to become a potentate of cattle raising. The future of monotheism could not depend on Lot’s attitude. It was necessary to differentiate the future heirs that Sarai would engenderfrom the philosophy of life represented by the materialism that Lot advocated.
MITSVAH: ORDINANCE OF THE TORAH IN THIS PARSHA
CONTAINS 1 POSITIVE MITSVAH
2. Genesis 17:10 The Precept of Circumcision
