Breaking Up A Family Business

Rabbi Melanie Aron

October 27, 2001

Earlier this morning Evan mentioned that he found the story of Abraham's rescue of Lot the most interesting part of this week's Torah portion. It is full of drama and presents Abraham leading a small battalion on a rescue mission, a way in which we don't often imagine him. For me, what was particularly intriguing this year was figuring out the story behind the story. I wondered about the separation between Abraham and his nephew, about how it was that Lot ended up in Sodom in the first place.

The Torah gives us just a little bit of information about this separation. In one verse we are told that the herdsmen of Lot and the herdsmen of Abraham were quarrelling. In the next, Abraham suggests that he and Lot separate and offers Lot the choice of the direction he would like to go. That feels a little abrupt.

Suppose the Cantor and I each had office assistants, and they didn't get along. There are certainly a lot of alternatives available to us, before we decide to each head off in a different direction. Why didn't Abraham try to work it out between the herdsmen, or fire them and hire some that would get along. Why did he move so quickly to send Lot off packing?

The first clue is found in the editorial comment in verse 7 "and the Canaanites were then in the land." Clearly this comment was written at a time when the Canaanites were already gone from the scene. I imagine the author of this sidebar comment thinking that a reader might wonder: "Canaan's not a large country but certainly it's big enough for the herd's of Abraham and Lot. Why does it say that the land could not support them both together?" Rashi says that it is because the Canaanites were controlling so much of the land, that there really wasn't enough open space for grazing. But perhaps it wasn't just a space issue, maybe it was instead an issue of being disunited in the face of an enemy. One contemporary rabbi suggests that Abraham didn't want the Canaanites to see him fighting with a kinsman. If they sensed dissension within his camp, it would weaken his position in the community, particularly since Lot his junior was not acting respectfully. Another biblical commentator, Sforno sees it somewhat differently. He notes: If the herdsmen of Abram and Lot had a family conflict, it would show the native people that these newcomers were argumentative by nature, which would be less than desirable. The Canaanites and the Perizites would say- loosely translated: The new kids on the block can't even get along with each other, how are they going to get along with us. As a vulnerable outsider Abraham had to be sensitive to what others thought of him and he didn't think that conflict with Lot was helpful to his reputation.

Another way of looking at it focuses on Lot's character. The text notes that Lot did not defer to his uncle when offered his choice of land, he didn't say, please you pick first, or let's figure out a fair way to divine the land. Instead he claimed what he thought would be best for himself. Perhaps this same selfishness was the real cause of the fighting between the herdsman,

Rashi says that the fighting came about because it was Abraham's practice to muzzle his herd when they passed through someone else's land, so they would not destroy property belonging to another person. I find this curious because although I have been to Israel 9 times for periods ranging from 2 weeks to 15 months, and I have seen many shepherds with their flocks, I have never seen a sheep or goat muzzled. I wonder if in muzzling his flocks Abraham was going beyond common practice. Sunday morning in our business ethics class we will look at the question of whether Jewish law requires you to be more honest than common practice.

Or perhaps it wasn't muzzling that they fought about, but just about keeping your herds off someone else's land. Rashi puts the following words into Lot's mouth: "Abraham, God promised you this whole land. Someday it will all belong to you. Why not get some benefit from it now? Let your goats and sheep graze wherever they would like." In this way Lot shows his character, making him ineligible to be Abraham's successor. Maybe this is why Abraham doesn't want him around.

Finally there is the issue of vision. Often the Biblical text uses words or word patterns in one verse that are found in another verse, to hint at a relationship between the verses that we might not otherwise see. With regard to Lot's choice of Sodom, the text tells us: vayisa Lot et eynav and Lot lifted up his eyes and saw how well watered was the plain of the Jordan. In Psalms we are told to lift up our eyes, esa einai el heharim. I lift up my eyes to the hills, to understand that the world of nature is but a display of God's glory. When Abraham lifts his eyes, it is to see the stars in the heaven and to recognize, vayar, later in Chapter 22, the special character of the place that will ultimately become the site of the Temple. What we see in the Torah is also what we chose and so we learn from this a great deal about the values of these two men.

In the end, we find in this matter, as is often the case in real life, that the presenting reason for the break-up is just the tip of the iceberg. While it is true that Lot's herdsmen and Abraham's herdsmen didn't get along, the real issues were much deeper. They had to do with relations with the outside world, with differences in ethical standards, and in world outlook. Abraham remained loyal to Lot and rescued him as a good uncle should. But Abraham was heading off in a new direction, one which Lot didn't accept or even fully understand.