Lot's Self-Sacrifice

Lot liked his uncle Abraham. He was a chassid of Abraham. There were other family members and nephews, but only he, Lot, went along with Abraham's views wholeheartedly. (Which is why he never squealed to the Egyptians on Abraham's real relationship with Sarah).

Like his uncle, Lot appreciated the opportunity to lavish upon guests; Most especially if they were indeed hungry.

Still, Lot preferred distancing himself physically from uncle Abraham. He wasn't as "religious" as his uncle; But he did indulge, as did his uncle, in congenial outreach to needy souls.

Once, having lived in Sodom for a while, Lot found a voyager out on the street, hungry for food. He instructed his daughter to secretly feed the homeless man at night, without rousing notice of the act of goodwill. Sodomites loathed and would kill perpetrators of goodness and charity.

In fact, the Sodomites caught Lot's daughter red-handed. They took her to a roof, stripped her, smeared her entire body with honey, and bees ate her up or killed her. It was this girl's cries that God refers to: "I will go down now to verify that she so cries." (Gen. 18:21)

Lot thus lost a daughter.

When the angels arrive to Sodom, dressed as passers-by, Lot now risks his OWN life to grant favor to strangers. He suggests they enter his house - only do so by taking a detoured side entrance.

The Sodomites had a great detection system in place to catch perpetrators of goodwill. Lot too was caught in the act.

This urge to do good, at the risk of self-sacrifice, even after losing a daughter to the cause, earned Lot an unusual prize. God rewarded Lot by providing that it be his seed that shall share in the Messianic dynasty's lineage.

(Heard this this Shabbos Lech-Lecha from the chassid Rabbi D.S. Pape, who remembers the Rebbe saying this in a farbrengen in 770 where he occupied a permanent "box seat", that -- on account of this self-sacrifice --  Lot merited the privilege of hosting two seeds of the Messianic genetic pool.)

Lot's Legacy Shines

The most fearsome and ferocious General of the army was leading the charge, with 3 other mighty Generals alongside. These were 4 armies about to do battle with 5 opposing armies. What went on was nothing less than a World War, 9 kingdoms taking sides.

The clashes went on far from where Abraham and Lot occupied vast adjacent property, but local enough for Lot to pick up and visit Sodom when he liked. Oh, he really did like Sodom!

Wouldn't you know it, Lot happened to be "cruising" Sodom one day, just when the mightiest of all generals, Nimrod ("Amraphel"), swept him up, throwing him in with his other booty gained for the day. Lot was in the wrong place the wrong time.

Lot never figured Uncle Abraham would enter his comfortable domain or niche. Abraham was "religious", and he wasn't, which was why they lived in separate domains. Of course he believed in God, Lot did, but he also enjoyed other fascinating facets of life that Abraham would not want to get near to.

A second heart-wrenching shock shook Lot that dreadful day. He went full swing, from a bitter fright of losing his life, to where he achieved freedom's ecstasy as his chains fell away. He experienced Abraham's sudden, daring rescue effort. At the end of the day he had good reason to acknowledge stronger affinity to his Uncle Abraham.

How do we know to read Lot's mind? Torah tells us with 3 "by-the-way" words. "And they grabbed up Lot and all his assets, Lot who was the nephew of Abraham, and he was sitting in Sodom." (Gen.14:12)

Now we know: He was sitting in a bar in Sodom, maybe sipping his favorite drink. Suddenly - an invasion of privacy! Suddenly heavy swords come clashing down! Suddenly, Lot has no prayer to exist to the next moment. What Lot didn't know, and what saved him, was he was the genetic carrier of a unique light.

A most brilliant light lies in wait, to indulge the righteous; A light that had been stored for this purpose since the universe's Day One. This brilliant Messianic light that first coursed through Abraham spiritually now was to pass itself on physically via Lot's genetic distribution. Abraham's Light would thus wend its way into the sovereign Messianic lineage. Lot's seeds of Moav and Amon would incorporate into this chain; Moav- via Rut (and Boaz); Amon - via Naamah (and King Shlomo).

Lot, therefore, couldn't have been all that bad!

The Power to Bless - Its Lineage

Humanity derived from 3 Human beings - the 3 sons of Noah.

Until today, that fact remains the bedrock of belief among many.

Shem, Yafet and Cham sprung the nations of the world, after they survived the "Great Flood". Shem's progeny led to Abraham.

It was Abraham who received a special privilege, granted by God, that no man who ever lived before him ever got! Whereas before Abraham got this rank of Blesser, only God had power to provide blessings; Afterwards, it was now up to Abraham to determine who will get blessed, and how.

This conduit of blessing from infinite source God removed from His own repertoire and charged it over to the responsibility of Abraham.

God blessed Adam; God blessed Noah;  From Abraham's time onward, Abraham or his inherited lineage receive that power.

It was as if God had said, "Abraham, you have one wish!" and Abraham said, "My wish is to have the capability of making wishes!", to which God said, "I grant you your wish!"

We note Bilaam, the Gentile prophet, too was said to have enormous powers of blessing or, as to which he had the option, one no righteous being would ever consider, the enormous power to curse.

Bilaam too was a Semite - deriving from Shem - following the lineage of Haran, Abraham's brother, but arrived on the scene many years later, when Jews were trekking the desert.

The difference between Bilaam and Abraham was, Bilaam was a token or temporary possessor of powers, whereas Abraham passed his powers to succeeding generations where certain righteous generational leaders similarly, until today, possess those divine powers of blessing.

Belief in The Creator - Then and Now

It's customary to think belief in a Creator is a matter of faith and not a matter of intellect or logic. As if it's a matter of personal choice; He who wants to, believes, and he who does not want to, does not believe. As if it cannot be a matter proven with rationality, but, rather, a matter of simple, inner conviction.

Man has both a potential for faith and posseses the power to reason. In fact, faith and reason lie on separate planes, for indeed, man's soul can have faith in something that is entirely beyond his intellect and reason.

Nevertheless, recognizing the existence of a Creator need not remain in the domain of faith exclusively. A good dose of reasonable thought will also lead to an inevitable conclusion - that a Creator of the universe exists! Given to such thought, man no longer "believes" in a Creator, he "knows" it!

The first to reach this mental conclusion, our sages tell us, was some four thousand years ago, in the person of Abraham. Maimonides describes Abraham's search for the driving force behind the universe. He began to ask the right questions even as a young child, and concluded that there must be one supreme power that created everything and controls it all. In a world filled with idolatry and statue cults, Abraham discovered faith - in the One Supreme Being.

This belief gave birth to the Jewish people, who then bequeathed this faith in One to all of humanity.

It came a long way. It began with Abraham smashing the idols in his father Terach's store. It made its way through struggles with false prophets during the early history of the Jewish people. And finally it transformed to a heritable monotheism that all of humanity can now accept.

Yet another obstacle not too long ago then materialized, a seemingly formidable roadblock. In the two last centuries major breakthroughs in science gave people something with which they could replace God. Science was quickly cracking the secrets of creation, and formulas and laws could be imputed to displace belief in a supernatural force. Intellect could now outmaneuver belief with intricate explanations of Nature's phenomena.

But here too the new wave of rebellion faded. Just when science became extremely sophisticated, just when it revealed the incredible level of complexity in every tiny factor newly discovered, theory became completely upended and - behold - it was moving inexorably in the direction that Torah and Judaism originally stood for. The further science probed into the secrets of the world, the more it revealed how impotent it stood before the awesome intricacies that existed even in the tiniest morsel under inspection. The claim that things arose by managed randomness or that circumstance played a role became ever more ridiculous and laughable.

Even today, after having split the atom, sent telescopes into outer space and landed on Mars, after creating the greatest and fastest computers, TVs and cellular telephones, we cannot help but remain awestruck at a how little we know about the mechanisms inside - even one cell of the body, or even in one cell of a fly's wing. All that creation entails simply boggles even our "sophisticated" mind.

No question we often come across events when our minds question the Supernal Being. But here we see just how limited our rationale is, and how strong our faith must kick in, for, as the prophet Isaiah (55:8) proclaims, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are My ways yours!"

Lech Lecha: Get going!

This week's Torah portion, "לך לך", starts with a command to our forefather Abraham, "Get yourself going from your land ... to the land I will show you."

G-d demanded of Abraham to leave his land, his birthplace and his father's house, to go to some unknown place. Rashi explains that G-d did not reveal to Abraham his destination in order to endear him to the land he yearns to discover.

A deeper perspective is this, as per the Alter Rebbe; By obeying the command, "Keep going", i.e., when the Jew unchains himself and sheds all measures and boundaries that his spiritual worship had heretofore taken on, and leaves this plateau to reach for a higher one, he will reach the plateau of "that which I will show you"; G-d will reveal to him the essence of man's Jewish core.

Let's merit to live with our forefather Abraham, to reach higher plateaus, by shedding bad habits and imaginary boundaries, and we'll merit seeing the real essence of our Jewishness ... and may we soon dance together, at the 3rd Temple, with King Moshiach!