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Our Rabbi's Message
November 7th 2008
By Rabbi Aaron KriegelAbraham and his cousin Lot did not get along. They had not yet come to fisticuffs, but the probability that they would was high. War between the two clans would only bring hardship to both. There could be no winner. How could there be? After a war both would be left with less than they initially had. After conflict both would be poorer both in manpower and in property. Both would have to bury their dead.
Lot was satisfied to remain where he was. Abraham was wiser. He looked at the vast land that surrounded both of them and said that there was enough land to satisfy both men. Abraham realized that wealth was fungible and so he offered his cousin to take whatever land he wanted. Lot could go one way and Abraham would go the other way. Lot could make the choice. In the end, if both separated, they might never come to arms, and they probably would remain on cordial relationships with each other.
So they separated, and until Lot needed help from Abraham when he was living in Sodom, they hardly ever interacted. Abraham, in his capacity as reformer, and he was a mighty reformer, weighed his priorities. He understood that the welfare of his family and the people in his clan was of utmost importance. He took action to save their lives and to decrease the possibility of conflict over wealth.
Think of the lesson that Abraham taught future generations. He gave us direction how we must live with wealth and how we must work to protect the peace of the land. How unfortunate that people of every caste in our society choose to disregard the lesson of Abraham, with the belief that their wealth, wherever it is found, is worth dying for. They reject, from selfish motive, the idea that mediation and negotiation can work in place of warfare and violence.
You see Abraham taught us that the cause of violence for property is not guns, but rather the philosophy, which allows us to choose the gun in the first place.
What a mess the children of Abraham, and those who accept his words as holy, have made of this world!
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