“Lot looked about him and saw how well watered was the
whole plain of the Jordan, all of it…so Lot chose for himself the whole plain
of the Jordan…” (Bereshis 13:10-11).
Lot should have used a realtor! If he had, perhaps he
would have known that the beautiful patch of land that had caught his eye and
beckoned him with unspoken promises of wealth to come was actually a hotbed of
trouble.
There is no recording of how long it was after Lot
moved to Sodom that the entire valley was enmeshed in war, only hinting, later,
that it was long enough for him to be considered settled and for his identity
and his connection to Avram to be known. Lot moved to Sodom in Bereishis 13,
and all of perek 14 is a description of a regional conflagration that, until its
conclusion, has nothing to do with Avram, Sarai, or the future of the Jewish
people, which makes it almost odd that it was included in the Torah when so
many smaller, more meaningful moments in Avram’s life were not.
If one was only to study Bereishis as a means of
understanding the lives of our ancestors, then the text should simply have
stated that King Chedorlaomer of Elam and his three closest cohorts defeated the
rebellion of the five kings of the valley region of Sodom and, on their way
home, looted Sodom and took Lot (and all of his possessions) captive. Only in
the hostage-taking of Lot and Avram’s actions afterward appear relevant to understanding
our forefather.
But the Torah, in between noting the defeat of “The
Five” and the taking of Lot, includes six verses explaining the background of
the conflict. King Chedorlaomer and his hosts made the valley kings into his
vassals and, 13 years later, they rose up in rebellion. The war was actually
the suppression of this rebellion, and the Torah includes the details of all
the places that the armies with King Chedorlaomer conquered on their way to
battle “The Five” in the Valley of Siddim. Then the Torah offers a taste of the
character of the kings of Sodom and Amora, who, “in their flight, threw
themselves into them [the bituim pits], while the rest escaped to the hill
country” (14:10).
As interesting as this side-note of history may be,
the question must be asked as to why it received so much detail, so many
verses? What eternal lesson can we gain reading about the petty politics of the
ancient residents of the land of Canaan?
One common answer is that the Torah records these
details – the kings and the names of the cities that were conquered – in order
to emphasize the incredible nature of Avram’s defeat of the looting victors.
This was, as the Radak says, “due to God wanting Avram to acquire the
reputation of being a mighty warrior, if need be. This is part of the way in
which God fulfilled His promise to Avram 'I will make your name great.'”
Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch points out that this war
had the potential to affect Avram in the same way as the famine when he first
entered the land. No sooner had he returned from Egypt, where he had gone to
avoid the famine, then he discovers that Canaan is a land coveted and fought
over by kings of city-states big and small. The lesson to be learned from this
– the lesson being shown to Avram and recorded for all of his posterity – was that the Promised Land was not a land of easy promise.
Rav
Hirsch states: Left to itself
the land of Israel lay open to famine and political dependence. Situated where
Europe, Asia and Africa meet, hardly any world-war has occurred into which it
has not been drawn. And just because of this was it chosen. If, in spite of this,
a national life would blossom against which no conqueror would dare attack … if
all the kingdoms of the world would clash together there and make war on each
other, but no sword would dare enter this blooming and yet defenceless land,
then the eternal fact would have been brought to the eyes of the nations [that]
here God lives.
Obviously
Rav Hirsch, who lived in the 19th century, had enough knowledge of
history to see how true this message was. And we who live in the 21st
century, who have had the privilege of celebrating the State of Israel’s 71st
anniversary, have been able to witness how our people have been blessed with
the land flourishing once again and, with Divine providence and immense sacrifice,
the enemies that have threatened its borders continuing to fail.
It
is interesting to consider that perhaps the Torah includes so much detail about
the history of this conflict to demonstrate that Avram, who was a shepherd and
therefore travelled the land, would have known about it. Perhaps having
accepted that his inheritance of the land was a promise for the future he did
not feel that the war had anything to do with him. The capture of Lot, who
maintained some of the spirituality he had acquired with Avram, was Hashem's
indication to Avram and his descendants that never again could they be casual
about world affairs. They were now to be central to history - sometimes in the
foreground but often in the background – and no matter of world affairs could be assumed
to be innocuous. Time after time, as the Jewish diaspora spread around the
globe, the Jewish people have found themselves deeply affected by situations
not of their making. And, time after time, like their forefather Avram, their
fellow Jews have stood up to help their brothers in need.
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