Bereshit Rabbah 41, Part 1: Lot

Good evening, everyone — I haven’t greeted you until now. Let me summarize. We have the first command: Avraham’s setting out toward the Land of Israel, and the promise that he would possess it. His flourishing, his radiance, can only come about within the borders of the Promised Land. But note: it is just as with man. He could have been sufficient unto himself — “male and female He created them” (Genesis 5:2) — since he was at once, and displayed at once, the characteristics, or the virtues, of both the masculine and the feminine; there nevertheless had to be a separation, and that separation means he had to find himself face to face with the other; and the other par excellence is his wife. But there is someone else in life who was called “the Other,” and that is Elisha ben Avuyah.

Elisha ben Avuyah was the teacher of Rabbi Meir — the one whose name stands behind the whole study of the Mishnah. And because his faith was thwarted by the reality he witnessed — tzaddik ve-ra lo, rasha ve-tov lo, the righteous man who suffers and the wicked man who always succeeds — he decided to go his own way. And yet Rabbi Meir kept following him; he did not leave him. He said: I took the fruit that was inside and got rid of its kelipah, its peel. But this peel, mind you, is what protects the fruit, and at no point can one actually throw it away — unless one has first extracted the fruit it encloses.

Now, I would not say that the feminine is that kind of peel for man — don’t take the comparison literally. What the text wants to tell us is that man’s relationship to the land is exactly like that of a husband to his wife. That is why, as we said, Avraham’s first act — va-yet oholo, “and he pitched his tent” (Genesis 12:8) — was to pitch his wife’s tent first; the woman is what is at stake in his settling, and at the same time in his exile. For here too — and this is precisely where the shoe pinches — the peel becomes Egypt, which lies at the border of the land of Canaan promised to Avraham.

But this does not mean that the people — just as “it is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18) — can live on its own: the Jewish people cannot withdraw into itself, apart from the other nations. Whether it likes it or not, circumstances will decide, willingly or unwillingly, that it fulfil a mission outside the Land of Israel, in a time of exile. And what will save it from that exile — because it will keep complete, undivided faithfulness to its covenant, to its source, to its origins — is the feminine. That is why the text concludes with Avraham coming up from Egypt, and that thanks to Sarah, who did not let the palace decide her fate. And when a woman stands up for her right absolutely, well, she wins on every front. She receives, she fully enjoys, the help of G-d, and everything Avraham obtains, he obtains by her favor — for Sarah’s sake.

So Avraham comes up; we said that this is the first point of departure of the Jewish people: first the couple par excellence, which realizes itself — or rather realizes its identity — more in Egypt than in Israel. Paradoxically, that is how it is, because we have a great deal to share with the outside world, but we must not take everything. And that is what we see today, since we have taken from everything: whether a French Jew, a Polish or Russian one, an American or English one, a Moroccan or Tunisian one — each came with a share of culture. There is much to take and much to leave; and here we are, in the very process of sifting things, showing that there could be an extraordinary symphony of all these cultures, because Israel has indeed passed them through its laboratory; we have extracted their essence, drawn out the best, in order to offer it anew to the nations. That, then, is ve-Avram kaved me’od — “and Avram was very heavy with cattle, with silver and with gold” (Genesis 13:2): Avram leaves Egypt heavily laden, ba-mikneh, with all he had acquired. It is translated “with cattle,” but listen — one can say that wealth does indeed contribute somewhat more to recognition from outside. For “the wisdom of the poor man is despised,” says Kohelet (Ecclesiastes 9:16). That is indeed the ideal; but what really matters is what one takes from the land — kesef and zahav, silver and gold — and this indeed requires passing through a crucible to remove all the dross. That is Israel’s mission.

We took this wealth of kesef and zahav. In these two words there are verbs: in kesef, the verb nikhsaf, to yearn for; and in zahav, ahav, to love — that is, the love of self-giving, of sharing what one has. It is that gold which loses nothing of its own value, which can truly buy everything because it does not rust, does not age, remains intact. That is why it is written: “He brought them out with silver and gold” (Psalms 105:37). Well, well — silver and gold: doesn’t all that get lost in life? But one must understand a second level. And so it says, “and he went on his journeys” (Genesis 13:3): he follows his itinerary, staying faithful to every stage of it.

On the way there he had passed through certain inns, and at that time he did not have much. He was that wandering Jew; and when he returns from his exile — mind you — he is no longer that wandering Jew, but he is not full of contempt, he does not look down on others. On the contrary, he passes again through the same inns, and to those who gave him credit, who trusted him, who served him and respected him — to them he returned; he paid his debts, and showed them that what he believed in had meaning. That is why Rabbi Elazar says: lifroa hakafotav, “to settle his debts.” He retraced his steps to pay his debts.

We too had debts when we left the land — the gaps of an unfinished mission. We pay them off step by step, as we give back to this galut, this exile, its true meaning: gilui, revelation — the geulah, liberation. So that is Avraham’s first — or rather second — trial: the first was to leave everything to go to the Promised Land; the second is exile, inherent in the very promise of the Land of Israel. But now the first breach opens within Avraham’s own family: “And Lot also, who went with Avram” (Genesis 13:5) — Lot, who followed the same itinerary as Avraham of his own free will. Lot was an orphan, and Avraham took him in, because Lot himself expressed the wish; he did not force him. Lot, who “went with Avram,” is thus this disciple, this family member who remains faithful — or rather is drawn — to Avraham’s way, and he benefits from every good thing. It is with him that Avraham shares everything.

But Lot — it will turn out that he is only Avraham’s veil, Avraham’s mask. He strangely resembles Avraham: everything Avraham teaches, Lot’s religion teaches too. In moral aspirations it is more or less the same thing, even if in practice that remains to be proven. Lot, as his name indicates, is a veil — lot; but Lot is also a curse, a kelalah — that is the second meaning. Yet paradoxically, the numerical value of Lot is that of Adam, so there is a dimension of Adam in him: the value of Adam — alef, dalet, mem — is forty-five, and Lot — thirty plus six plus nine — is forty-five. But just as every light casts a shadow the moment it falls on an object outside itself — well, Lot was Avraham’s shadow.

And the midrash says there were four good things Lot enjoyed because of Avraham. Avraham went to Canaan — “and Lot went with him” (Genesis 12:4) — Lot followed him too, and Lot received his share of the land of Canaan; why not. And when Avram went up from Egypt, Lot too went up with him — there were people, there were possessions. And Lot was taken hostage — we will see this later — by the neighboring kings, the league of kings: the four kings against the five kings. We will see the meaning of that war in chapter 14.

And Avraham mobilized his own disciples, his yeshivah, all his resources, all his energy, to save Lot, and brought him back with all his goods. It truly took a keen sense of family for Avraham to venture into battle against the kings in order to bring back his nephew Lot — even though Lot, as soon as he became rich, had demanded his independence. He no longer wanted to live under the guardianship of his master; he founded his own state, his own chapel, his own institution, where he would settle. We will see him at the gate of Sodom, and what he drew from it there. Sodom is like the city, “like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt” (Genesis 13:10) — it reminds him of the Garden of Eden, like the land of Egypt — no matter. And here is Lot: because the attraction remained superficial and he did not absorb all of Avraham’s values in depth — for that’s how it is, you know. In this week’s parashah there was, in particular, the section on the manna, where one had to ask each day for something to eat, and on the sixth day one had to take two portions, a double portion, because on Shabbat there would be no manna. But note: this section is introduced by a law that says, “that I may test them, whether they will walk in My Torah or not” (Exodus 16:4). There is an important educational element here: how does one test a people? Quite simply, by having it gather the manna, its daily ration, without excess and without trying to keep any for the next day; it had to be content with that. But on the sixth day it would act of its own accord. For when Moshe conveyed G-d’s will to the people, he told them: “You know, the manna will come down each day in measured portions, but you must not take more than is needed.” Nevertheless, two people transgressed the order and stored some for the next day.

Moshe was vexed — even though that manna bred worms, and that was that. But Moshe had not told the people to take a double portion on Friday, and the people worked it out for themselves: since the Holy One, blessed be He, had already instituted Shabbat — for Shabbat had been instituted earlier, right after the exodus from Egypt; it was observed even before the exodus, but after the exodus it became an institution — they took a double portion. And this time they transgressed, in quotation marks, the order to take only the day’s ration, because they knew that on Shabbat there would be no manna, and they knew that, out of regard for Shabbat, one should not go out the next day to gather the manna, to collect it. But the formalists, the upholders of the letter, the leaders — the so-called leaders — came to complain to Moshe, saying: “Listen, today it’s the whole people — not two people, the whole people has taken a double portion.” And Moshe tells them: “This is what the Lord has spoken” (Exodus 16:23) — this is what He wanted. That is, in view of the giving of the Torah, of the people’s future commitment, this people had to prove by itself — to give proof by itself — of its will to embrace the Law of its own accord; and it is at that moment that G-d gives it the Torah.

Otherwise, why hand over the Torah to someone who does not carry that will, that search for adherence to a teaching of a higher order? Well, now I return to my text: Lot did not have that original will. He was there in dependence on Avraham, under constraint; and under constraint, of course, it was for him simply a kind of ritual, because he had to respect Avraham’s way — so one must believe — or else he would not have enjoyed Avraham’s protection. That is why he joined the city of Sodom: although Sodom is a rotten, perverted city, he prefers to be there, because there is truly another culture there, another civilization — but one that defends everyone’s rights according to the principles of strictness and justice, without Avraham’s attributes of hesed (lovingkindness) and self-giving.

That is the difference between Avraham’s wealth and Lot’s wealth. And so, when G-d destroys Sodom — “And Elokim remembered Avraham, and sent Lot out” (Genesis 19:29) — He escorts Lot. And the fate of the disaster, the ruin He decreed for that city of Sodom, is the fate of Sodom, which was, if you like, the nucleus of other states, other peoples. Lot, then, should have given some thought to repaying Israel, to showing Israel gratitude for what Avraham had done for him. The midrash says: they should have repaid us with good, and not only did they do us no good, they rather served us evil. They mistreated us.

There is one thing to be said concerning Bilam son of Beor. Look at the messengers sent to Bilam son of Beor: “Now therefore come, I pray you, curse this people for me, for they are too mighty for me” (Numbers 22:6). Bilam son of Beor is solicited — he was at the time, if you like, the prophet of the nations, listened to by all the nations together, like the so-called UN — and he is asked, mind you, to come and curse this people: it must be sanctioned, censured, it must be given limits, blamed, cursed, because it threatens to block — “they cover the eye of the land” (ibid. 22:5), literally, the eye of the land — to overshadow all that we have done, to make it somewhat outdated compared with what this people will assert on its own land; and it must not be allowed to become independent.

It must stay under their thumb. Now Moav — who was he? He was the child, the fruit of the incest of Lot and his daughters. And of those two daughters — Ammon and Moav: in Moav’s name it is declared how much he is indeed the fruit of an incestuous relationship with the father — me-av, “from the father.” Ammon is the name of the second son, of the second daughter, who likewise thought there would be no more offspring and that humanity had to be perpetuated through their relations; and so she called him Ammon — “the little people.” And Moav and Ammon were two peoples who tried to bar the way of the Children of Israel returning to the Promised Land, “because they did not meet you with bread and with water” (Deuteronomy 23:5), starving them. And that is why the Torah decreed, “An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter the congregation of the Lord” (ibid. 23:4) — that no Ammonite and no Moabite may ever join the Jewish people.

But here is what they served us. Not only did Balak call Bilam, turn to Bilam to condemn us; Ammon and Amalek deprived us of the right of entry into the city of Israel, the gateway of the Land of Israel, the first conquest — the City of Palms, which is Yericho. And then it says: and behold, the children of Moav and the children of Ammon, as you know, joined forces against King Yehoshafat. And further it is written, “The adversary has spread out his hand over all her treasures” (Lamentations 1:10) — he stretched out his hand, yado paras, “over all” — you’ve deprived me of the text on the board, so I’m having to speak without it — “yado paras tzar al kol machamadeha”: the oppressor stretched out his hand. You know — tzar: what is the difference between tzar and oyev? A tzar is an oppressor, meaning he has no reason for his hatred, for his persecutions: the Jew simply bothers him. Whereas an oyev, an enemy, suffers from a morbid jealousy: he would truly have liked to be Israel, to take Israel’s place, and so he hates him only because he cannot be in his place.

There is more: “The adversary has spread out his hand over all her treasures” — over everything dear to him, the oppressor laid his hand, over everything dear to the Jewish people. And their sin was written, recorded, in four places. The first, as I cited a moment ago, in Deuteronomy: no member of Ammon and Moav shall come in, shall join the people of Israel, “because they did not meet you with bread and with water.” And it is written: “My people, remember now what Balak king of Moav devised” (Micah 6:5). And it is written: “because they did not meet the Children of Israel with bread and with water, and hired Bilam against them to curse them” (Nehemiah 13:2) — because he engaged the services of Bilam in order to curse them.

And four prophets arose and sealed the verdict of these peoples. Listen, I won’t dwell on it, but the prophecies of Yeshayahu — “The burden of Moav” (Isaiah 15:1): a prophecy singled out from among all the peoples for Moav — all Moav’s strongholds would be in ruins, reduced to silence. “I will cause an alarm of war to be heard in Rabbah of the children of Ammon” (Jeremiah 49:2) — I will make the capital of the children of Ammon hear the noise of war, the sound, the blast of war — “and it shall become a desolate mound, and her daughters shall be burned with fire; and Israel shall inherit those who inherited him”: Israel shall inherit those who sought to inherit it. “To the children of the east, together with the children of Ammon, I will give it as a possession” (Ezekiel 25:10) — the prophecy will be carried to the peoples of the east, and specifically to the children of Ammon, who will be given as an inheritance — “that the children of Ammon may not be remembered among the nations.” “And I will execute judgments upon Moav, and they shall know that I am the Lord” (ibid. 25:11) — upon Moav I will execute My judgments, I will render My verdict, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

Tzefaniah said: “Therefore, as I live, says the Lord of Hosts, the G-d of Israel: surely Moav shall be like Sodom, and the children of Ammon like Gomorrah” (Zephaniah 2:9) — back to square one. These, then, are the harmful effects of that artificial alliance which Avraham wished to accept and approve, which he defended to the end out of his spirit of tolerance, and which afterwards turned against Israel. But in spirit it did not turn entirely against Israel. We are told: mind you, there is Ruth and there is Naamah — Ruth the Moabite, Naamah the Ammonite, who is of Ammon.

So Naamah, the mother of King Shlomo, and Ruth the Moabite, the ancestress of King David, do indeed come from this line of Ammon and Moav; because Lot’s original path, his original will, will nevertheless attest to Lot’s will to preserve Avraham’s teaching in some way and not to banish it altogether, and something remained that takes part in Israel’s messianic hope. That is the first lesson, namely: family rifts — we will know them; they are inevitable, unfortunately. But one must know how to manage them. For mind you, as we shall see, as soon as Avraham becomes aware of the quarrel that will break out between Avraham’s shepherds and Lot’s shepherds, he will ask Lot to put some distance between them.

Yes: “If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left” (Genesis 13:9). I will always remain on the right, and you will always remain on the left. It is not “if you go right I go left, and if you go left I go right.” One must take ve-eiminah and ve-asme’ilah as a firm statement, meaning: I would in no case want us to present to the world a spirituality distorted by the ego of a man who would rather use his spirituality than share it and serve others with it. It is a teaching of great value at its source, which has lost nothing to this day — I would say it is relevant. We live it, we live it within the great family of Israel. We live it even within the small families of Israel. But it’s done, it’s a fact […]. So Avraham said: if you stay with me — and the future of the Promised Land is put in jeopardy by this presence at your side — because these shepherds, emboldened by G-d’s promise, emboldened by this land that will later belong to your descendants, are today stripping the neighbors, the neighboring owners, of their property, letting their cattle graze their grass, go in, break down the fences of their fields — then no.

Avraham felt that the spirit he carried within him — that spirit of elevation, that spirit which had inspired him, his source of inspiration… For, you know, I say it and say it again: sometimes it is our soul that seeks G-d, but at times it is G-d who seeks man. It is simply a matter of seeing that there are moments when G-d is looking for us, and moments when we are looking for Him. When we seek Him, we feel that rapture of the soul coming from within. When He seeks us, we feel that rapture of the soul coming from without. But when we have neither — no rapture from within and none from without — then we sink into the everyday, into repetition; there is nothing new in life, and we merely survive.

That is the situation Avraham does not want; that is where he feels that G-d has left him, that the spirit of G-d has left him. And when he feels that the spirit of G-d has left him, he says: no, I will not go on living at your side, because your directives, or your claims, or your way of interpreting G-d’s word in daily life, run counter to the principles of morality, and we cannot live with that. In the name of nationalism, nothing is justified; everything is justified in the name of morality, in the name of an intense spirituality, in respect and love for everyone. The time has not come to seize the land. “For the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full” (Genesis 15:16): the inhabitants — G-d Himself attests it — cannot be dislodged from their land overnight, because they do not yet deserve their displacement or their transfer, take it as you will. But one must see whether there is truly no possibility of integrating these forms of culture, and whether every possibility has been exhausted of taking possession of the land under the proper conditions, at the proper time, according to the very principles of the Torah.

So one might have said: well then, they must separate. But even that, even this separation, is afterwards condemned by the Holy One, blessed be He. For He says: with everyone Avraham finds compromises — only with his nephew does he find no compromise, did he not try to find one, to persuade him otherwise. Why did he not do so, and see it through? After all, he will defend him, and there will indeed be a repair. In short, I see the hour slipping away, and I will have to repeat what the text wants to tell us: that this veil within Israel will come between the various members of a great family. Yes — but one must not forget that there is a root of Adam in these family members. There may be eclipses — and not only eclipses: there may be enormous, unheard-of losses.

Just consider: if we came out of Egypt with six hundred thousand souls, think what we might be today but for the losses we have suffered through physical and moral persecutions — we would have been far more numerous than the Chinese people. But that is not what matters. What matters is this organic cell in its entirety — just like Sarah. Sarah: “because of Sarai, Avram’s wife” (Genesis 12:17) — she is the one who gives life. Sarah is the image of Chavah, even in Egypt. She loses nothing of her beauty, nothing of her integrity; she is carried off, she is coveted, but she will remain faithful to the covenant — from within, because what makes her beauty outwardly is her inner beauty.

And for that reason she can even be the means of drawing in the followers, the devotees, of that outward beauty. That is what she will try to do when she offers Hagar to her husband, to whom she has sworn faithfulness and love — because this desire to give body to a love shared with all of humanity stirs her to the depths of her soul. There — I’ll stop here, if you like, to make room for questions; I’ve talked too much. I would so much have liked active participation, even during the lecture. Sometimes perhaps I put forward ideas that shock you, but you can interrupt me — it’s better. — A small question about Lot: could we also say that there was no Sarah, no woman to balance him, to counterweigh him, and also that wealth came to him which perhaps, according to what you said, turned his head a little? Since it is just when he receives the flocks and herds, when he comes back from Egypt, that material things, appearances, visibly get the upper hand.

…get the upper hand. And one could also say that it is harder to convince someone who thinks he knows than someone who knows nothing at all — when we say it is really harder with Lot than with strangers: sometimes it is harder to convince someone who thinks he knows than someone who knows nothing. — You’re right, that’s true, that’s true. Why is there no — why, with Lot, do we not see the woman? But of Lot’s wife we have only one important detail: her nostalgia for the past, which she could not in fact overcome. Our Sages asked: whoever passes by the statue of Lot’s wife — what should he say? “Blessed be the True Judge,” as when one enters, for example, a cemetery — blessed be the True Judge — or not say it at all? We shall see. It seems to me that in any relationship between spouses one must not cast the stone of one upon the other. To what extent was Lot’s wife not also conditioned by Lot himself? For, as we have already said, the relationship of husband to wife passes through four stages. The first: ish, ishi — “my man” — and in this relationship there is another, primary notion, that of ba’al, master: the man acquires his wife, an acquisition, a conquest. Well, you told your wife on the first day of your marriage that you acquired her with a ring — now, its value, of course I didn’t know; I don’t even know whether you bought it with your own money; you declared that you received it as a gift from your parents. Fine — but that is not what makes the acquisition of a wife. The first relationship is that choice — the choice, the decision.

The choice you made: because you had the possibility of taking another, but it was on her that you set your heart. But not so that you would become her ba’al, her owner, and she your property. That is not… that is a purely formal relationship. But the relationship — the relationship is gevirti, “my lady”: the one who gives me my strength, who affirms me; the one who gives me my moral worth — “her husband is known in the gates” (Proverbs 31:23): it is the woman who makes him known at the gates of the city, who gives him that recognition and does not disparage him. And the fourth relationship: he never ceases to love her, until he calls her “my mother” — he calls her Ima. She has earned the right to take the place of the one who brought him into the world, who gave birth to him. It is wonderful. And what respect and what affection we have for our mother; and today it is the wife who deserves them, once the mother has left this world, of course.

Goodbye. Another question? Well then, good. […] See you next week. — Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Rav Benizri. Thank you so much, it was truly wonderful. Goodbye, until next week. — Wonderful, as always. Thank you very much. With every lesson our soul rises — thanks to you. Thanks to you; perhaps thanks to G-d, but thanks to you our soul rises. — But mine does too, with you, believe me. — One feels all that love; everything you transmit is steeped in love, one feels all that love, and that is what is so moving and extraordinary, truly. — May I come back to something, excuse me? Because she said “our soul rises.” And you said there are moments when G-d seeks us — and then we feel a call, is that it? And we receive something?

Yes, yes, yes. It is written in so many words in Shir ha-Shirim, the Song of Songs: “I sought him, but I found him not” — I am looking for my beloved and I cannot find him. I cannot find him. Why does he not reveal himself? And yet he is watching me through the chinks of the curtain — “peering through the lattice.” And first of all, “behold, he stands behind our wall.” And then he knocks at my door — “the voice of my beloved knocking.” And I say to myself: well, I’ve undressed now — “I have taken off my robe; how shall I put it on?” — I’ve already taken off my garment and I won’t put it back on now, nor put on my shoes to go and open for him. No. And then, when she says to herself, “Come, I’ll make the effort” — once she has decided — “my beloved had turned away and was gone”: he has already left.

There it is. — Well, thank you very much, that’s very interesting. We have those moments. We have those moments, but we feel that emptiness and we need to fill it with something substantial, and then we find no answer. — That is why I do this. One must always hold on to a teacher. — Exactly. It gives strength and optimism. — Yes, but one has to find him; one must always find him, because not everyone can lay claim to that — and, as they say, there is no arguing about tastes and colors, even when it comes to a teacher. In any case, one can see how much a world without spirituality is a world that is lost.

Don’t despair! — Oh no, it’s just an observation; it doesn’t dismay me. It doesn’t dismay me. An observation. […] — Thank you. Shavua tov, everyone. — Goodbye, then. Goodbye. Thank you very much. Goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.