Dvar Torah on Parashat Lekh Lekha: Gen. 12:1 – 17:27)
(Given at Temple Israel on Friday evening 10/27/2023)
This week’s Torah portion, Lekh Lekha, opens with God speaking to Avraham (then called Avram) – out of the blue and without warning – and commanding him:
לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ מֵאַרְצְךָ֥ וּמִמּֽוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖ וּמִבֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑יךָ אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַרְאֶֽךָּ׃
(“Lekh lekha mey’artzekha, umimoladtekha umibeyt avikha el ha’aretz asher areka)
“Go forth from your land, your birthplace and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”[1]
Which Avram immediately does --- taking along with him his wife Sarah (then called Sarai), his orphaned nephew Lot who had been living with them, as well as all their household servants, animals and possessions.
No doubt about it, this is a brave thing to do. To set out at the age of 75 to a completely new life in a strange new place. But maybe Avram and Sarai could do it because they had each other, and because they had faith and hope.
Later in the Torah portion, Avram and Lot part from one another when their shepherds start fighting with one another and it seems that they need more space and more distance between them. Avram stays in the land of Canaan, while Lot leaves for the cities of the plain.
But Uncle Avram doesn’t forget his family ties to Lot. When war breaks out among nine different armies in the region, and Lot and his household are caught up in the fighting and taken captive by invading armies, Avram springs into action. Even though he is outnumbered, and the odds are against him, Avram knows that he cannot forsake his nephew in his hour of need.
As the Torah relates:
Hearing that his kinsman had been taken captive, Avram mustered his retainers, born into his household, 318 of them, going in pursuit as far as Dan. At night he deployed himself and his forces against them, pursuing them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus. He then brought back all the possessions, his nephew Lot, too, and his possessions; the women, too, and the [other] people.[2]
In Jewish tradition, this passage from Parashat Lekh Lekha became a proof text for the traditional Jewish value of “pidyon shevuyim” (“Redemption of Captives”).
Many times in history this has involved the payment of ransom. However, in recent times, the State of Israel has had to confront Palestinian terrorist kidnappers who have instead demanded the release of convicted terrorists held in Israeli prisons. Because the Jewish value of pidyon shevuyim is so important, Israel in 2011 released over one thousand Palestinian prisoners in return for the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped five years earlier by terrorists who had infiltrated Israel via tunnels from Gaza.[3]
Fast forward to this month, when on October 7th, the Shabbat of Simchat Torah, Palestinian terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad stormed across the border from Gaza to murder over 1400 Israeli citizens and foreign nationals, and to kidnap over 200 hostages.
This time around, Israel is in no mood for negotiating prisoner releases or paying ransoms. As we gather here, the Israeli military response to the attack of October 7th is ongoing and our hearts are in our hands as we fret over the danger to Israeli soldiers, to Israeli and foreign hostages, and to Palestinians civilians caught up in the fighting in Gaza. And, lest we forget, Hamas continues every day to shoot missiles at civilian targets in Israel. Friends of mine in Tel Aviv have been rushing to bomb shelters multiple times almost every day. And meanwhile, Hezbollah terrorists in Southern Lebanon have been firing missiles at northern Israeli communities.
We pray for peace, but we also pray for Israel to be able to defeat the scourge represented by Hamas. The latter goal appears to be a painful prerequisite for the former.
In our Torah portion, Abraham is ultimately successful, not only in rescuing his nephew Lot from the forces of King Chedarlaomer and his allied forces. He also in the process liberates the people of Sodom and Gomorrah who had been kidnapped by Chedarlaomer’s invading armies.
After these dramatic events of Genesis 14, the following chapter opens with God coming to Avram in a vision and telling him
אַל־תִּירָ֣א אַבְרָ֗ם
( “Al tira Avram”)
“Have no fear, Avram!” [4]
The sages of old wonder why God should need to comfort Avram this way. And a classic midrash in Bereshit Rabba[5] responds that Avram was afraid lest he had killed any righteous individuals during his military activities to rescue his nephew and to free the captives who had been kidnapped by the forces of Chedarlaomer.
Israeli soldiers today worry about the same thing.
Rabbi Kenneth Brander, writing this week from Israel this week, describes this in poignant fashion. He writes:
Just last week, in the moments leading up to the onset of Shabbat, a group of combat soldiers came together to pray. Going one by one, each soldier was asked to share one prayer they were carrying with them in these trying days. Some quite reasonably asked for safety from harm through the ravages of war, and to be able to return home speedily and full in body and in spirit – a prayer we share with them in these difficult times. But the overwhelming majority of the soldiers, in this moment of honesty and vulnerability, shared that their greatest fear was that they may cause unnecessary harm or death to innocent civilians during the fighting.
Our soldiers, of mighty arms and loving hearts, joined with Avraham in the deep worry regarding the unavoidable collateral damage that comes with warfare, hoping at the very least to minimize damage done.
In the face of the Hamas-ISIS cult of death, our soldiers continue to value life.
As we continue to pray for the welfare of our armed forces as they take on the Hamas menace in the aftermath of the Simchat Torah massacre, we should be moved by their example. Like that of our father Avraham, our role as Jews guided by morality – in complete contrast to that of our enemy – is that we not lose sight of what is humanity. And even while we recognize that our goal must be complete victory, the safety of our soldiers and people – and nothing should stand in the way of that objective – we can still hold true to the tradition that innocent life has value.[6]
(That’s from a dvar torah published yesterday on the website of Ohr Torah Stone, which a network of modern Orthodox educational institutions for which Rabbi Brander is the Rosh Yeshivah or Dean.)
Sadly, we well know that the war against Hamas has already involved massive civilian casualties in Gaza and will continue to do so before it can be successfully concluded.
War is hell, but, as the Book of Ecclesiastes reminds us ---
עֵ֥ת מִלְחָמָ֖ה וְעֵ֥ת שָׁלֽוֹם׃
( “Eyt milchama ve’yet shalom.”)
“There is a time for war and a time for peace.”[7]
May the time for peace come quickly and may the people of Israel be safe from terror, and the people of Gaza be free to live in peace once the tyranny and violent fanaticism of its current leadership is brought to an end.
Shabbat shalom
© Rabbi David Steinberg (October 2023/ Cheshvan 5784)
[1] Genesis 12:1
[2] Genesis 14: 14-16
[3] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-768992
[4] Genesis 15:1
[5] Bereshit Rabbah 44:4 (sefaria.org)
[6] https://ots.org.il/avraham-the-warrior/
[7] Ecclesiastes 3:8
