Parshas Lech Lecha: The King with No Name

Parshas Lech Lecha: The King with No Name

Dedicated to a refuah shelaima for  Moshe Aaron ben Necha Itta, Binyamin ben Simcha, Chaya Sarah bas Esther Leah, Sharon bas Shoshana, and Batya Dina bas Chava Tzivia.

Parshas Lech Lecha is well known for Avram’s journeys, but it also contains the rather complicated and confounding story of the war between the Four Kings and the Five Kings. The full story is about the complicated politics of liege kingdoms and betrayed loyalty. Within that story, however, there is the intriguing spiral of alliances between people and people and between people and moral choices.

 

It might seem, at first glance, that the only significant aspect of this story is that the Four Kings took Lot captive, causing Avram to join the war. If that were the case, however, the Torah could merely state that in the war between these kingdoms and those kingdoms, Lot was taken captive, Instead, Hashem prioritized recording the history of the situation:

 

This was an ongoing conflict. The Four Kings, led, it seems by King Chedorlaomer of Elam, are major aggressors. They conquer the region of the Dead Sea and subjugate it for 12 years until the Five kingdoms of the region rise up and reclaim their sovereignty. Not long thereafter the Four Kings start fighting and conquering a large swath of other territory (the Rephaim, the Zuzim, the Emim, the Horites) until, eventually, they conquer the Amalekites and Amorites. Seeing how close to their borders their former conquerors are, the Five Kings “went forth and engaged them in battle in the Valley of Siddim.” But the Four Kings were practiced aggressors and defeated the Five Kings, ravaging the cities of Sodom and Amorah and taking Lot hostage… which is when Avram gets involved.

 

For many of us civilian minded people, wars such as the one described often feels shocking. There isn’t even a pretense of something to argue about (like possibly joining Nato) that fuels that aggression of the Four Kings. They want to rule the region; they want it all. It is important that Avraham’s descendants see that from the very beginning, this land was one that came with strife, that people fiercely desired. It is also important that one sees the great length Avram is willing to go to in order to rescue a part of his family, even though that family member had distanced himself from most of what Avram stood for.

 

Perhaps by describing the long-term scenario - of how the Five Kings knew with whom they were making a battle and then two of the kings ditched their allies and fled - Hashem wanted us to understand why Avram reacted so adversely to the overtures of the Five Kings after the war, insisting on taking no reward and, once Lot was saved, distancing himself from them once again. These same kingdoms, the Torah soon reveals, were not people with whom Avram wanted to interact. Had the kings of Sodom and Amorah not fled, perhaps treaties could have been signed or, at least, the cities might have been subjugated rather than overtaken and looted, but Bera and Birsha put themselves first and foremost.

 

There is, however, one additional peculiarity about this war. The Five Kings are listed as: King Bera of Sodom, King Birsha of Amorah, King Shinab of Admah, King Shemeber of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar. The Torah goes to great length to name all the kings involved. It isn’t that the kingdom of Elam fought the kingdom of Sodom (choosing just one name from each side). Four Kings are named on each side, and then there is “the king of Bela, which is Zoar.”  Why isn’t he named?

 

The Torah names people of significance. It names people who did great good and people who did great evil and sometimes just people whom Hashem felt deserved specific acknowledgement for their actions. Although the narrative of the war of the kings comes before Hashem directly expresses the morally lost nature of Sodom and Amorah, the character of these kings  was so unpalatable that just being associated with them by name implies one’s own low moral character.

 

Perhaps the King of Bela was spared his name to show us that he was not like Bera and Birsha. Such a contemplation is, perhaps, supported by the fact that in parshas Vayera, the malach agrees to Lot’s plea to spare one town, and that town is then called Zoar. He wasn't noteworthy for either good or evil…he simply was, and that was enough to merit his city being spared. 

 

The portrayal of the world in modern media is one of constant violence, hedonism, and moral degradation. The news media makes it seem as if everything is extreme, and, yet, the vast majority of people whom I know have no inclination do violence and live rather moderate, mostly moral, lives. Of course we should strive to be worthy of mention for the greatness we achieve, but we should also remember the benefit of not joining our name to the names of the wicked.