October 29, 2023|י"ד חשון ה' אלפים תשפ"ד Avraham's War and our War
Print ArticleThis week we go to war in Eretz Yisrael. This week we go to war to free the hostage. Yes, this is the week we read about Avraham Avinu when he wages war against the four kings to rescue his nephew Lot who is taken hostage. What role does this story play in the Avraham narrative? What message is it meant to share?
Avraham didn’t ask for this war. Avraham wanted to live in peace and preach the word of God. But he cannot avoid going to war. He cannot avoid taking up arms. In the beginning of the parsha, God could have told Avraham to move anywhere, but He told him to move, settle and start a life for his nation at the crossroads of Asia, Africa and Europe, between the two main civilizations of the ancient Near East, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Because of our location, throughout our history, Israel has been eternally caught in the middle of the conflicts of its neighbors. According to Rav Hirsch, Israel was chosen precisely because of this vulnerability, in order to teach us that our security is dependent solely on God. When we think about the vulnerability of Eretz Yisrael, we may think about the fact that it is dependent on rain, as opposed to Egypt, which has a Nile River, so we more directly depend on God for our lives. Of course, in 2023, we may think that we are not so vulnerable, because in 2023, we have companies like Watergen, the pioneering Israeli company that has become the global leader in the atmospheric drinking water devices market, machines that create drinking water from air. In 2023, we may think that we no longer need God in Eretz Yisrael, but Avraham’s war with the four kings tells us that Eretz Yisrael is a land that is vulnerable and by extension, the Jewish people is a nation that is vulnerable. In 2023, with all of our superior military technology in Israel, we desperately need God.
The antisemitism that we are witnessing today simply defies logic. Our people have been terrorized and traumatized by a group of people whose cruelty and brutality rival the Nazis eighty years ago. But after a shiva period of sympathy for the dead Jews in the terror attack, we are witnessing calls to prosecute Israel for war crimes. We are witnessing unprecedented calls for Jewish genocide. We are witnessing attacks on Jews on college campuses, which are supposedly institutions of higher learning. I remember years ago learning that one of the “chiddushim” of the Nazi Holocaust was that this inhumane Jewish genocide was perpetrated by a nation that was viewed as the most cultured in the world and I always wondered how could that be. After all, the more advanced, progressive and cultured we are, the more we should support values of equality and liberty and the more we should fight discrimination and antisemitism. It was difficult for me to relate to this concept of a highly cultured citizen being an antisemite, but that is exactly what we are witnessing today. The so-called institutions of higher learning are morally bankrupt in their openness to support Hamas based on a perverse notion of free speech, and worse, they provide a forum for increased antisemitism masked in progressive liberal thought. It doesn’t make sense. It boggles the mind.
And yet, maybe that’s the point. Antisemitism, antizionism, and double standards as to how the world treats Israel and Jews even in 2023 defy logic. The only rational explanation is that it’s not rational, that it comes from God. The story of Avraham is a story that painfully reminds us that as Jews we will need to fight. We will need to fight on the battlefield and we will need to fight in the political arena, in the media, on social media and on college campuses because antisemitism will not go away.
Yes, the story of the four kings tells us that our fate is that we will always have to fight, that the antisemitism that we face must come from God because it is completely irrational, but the story of the four kings also tells us that we will win. In Breishit Rabbah (42:4), the midrash states that Avraham’s triumph over the four kings foreshadows our future victory over the four major kingdoms of Babylonia, Persia, Greece and Rome. The Ramban understands this story together with other stories in Sefer Breishit as “ma-aseh avot siman l’banim.” Whatever happened to our ancestors will happen to their descendants. In other words, we will win. Just as antisemitism and our constant battles to achieve legitimacy and normalcy as a nation defy logic, so too, our very existence after all these years, our return to Eretz Yisrael, the creation of a Jewish state and our military victories in 1948 and 1967 defy logic. That’s what this story tells us. Ma-aseh avot siman l’banim. Until the final redemption, there will be conflict. That was the fate of Avraham and that is our fate. However, we will ultimately prevail. That was Avraham’s destiny and that is our destiny.
The truth is, though, that the Torah is not only a guide for what we should believe, that we should have faith that God is behind the scenes both as we suffer the fate of antisemitism and as we experience the glory of victory, but the Torah is also a guide as to how we should behave. This story is a story of how Avraham behaves and therefore, it’s a story about how we should behave.
We all know that Avraham is called Avraham Ha-Ivri, Avraham the Hebrew. In the midrash (Breishit Rabbah 42:8), Rabbi Yehuda explains that this means that כל העולם כלו מעבר אחד והוא מעבר אחד – that the whole world was on one side and Avraham was on a different side. Rav Soloveitchik writes, “Abraham took the vision of the Creator of a new world order and a new morality, and thus separated himself from the rest of the world ideologically.” Avraham Avinu founded ethical monotheism. That is why he is called “ivri.” That is why he is different from the rest of the world.
But did you ever notice that he is only called “ivri” once in the entire Torah, and that is in the context of his battle with the four kings? He is called “ivri” when the “palit,” the fugitive, the escapee, comes to Avraham and tells him that his nephew is being held hostage. And maybe it is in this context, in the context of battle, in the context of doing something that is completely inconsistent with Avraham’s behavior, does Avraham’s description as an “ivri” finds its fullest expression.
First, many meforshim, like the Radak and Abrabanel, assert that the story teaches the importance of enduring loyalty to one’s family. Avraham heard that “nishbah achiv.” His brother was taken captive. Lot wasn’t technically his brother, but when Lot was in crisis, we are all brothers. We all care about each other. Lot may have gone off the derech in Sodom, but Avraham the prince of God viewed Lot as his brother when he was taken as a hostage. The achdut during this war has been unprecedented. Just a few days before the horrific terror attack, the country was so polarized with the judicial overhaul and the mechitza service in Tel Aviv. But now there is so much support and love between everyone across all segments of the population, from the religious to the secular. We hope it continues.
Rabbenu Bachya and Abrabanel explain that Avraham’s victory over the kings revealed both his bravery and his capabilities as a military strategist and warrior. Avraham was a man of peace and a man of chesed, a man of kindness, but when he needed to fight, he fought. He didn’t simply send soldiers to fight while he remained behind as a prince of God praying to God. He fought. He led the battle against the four kings. And that is why it is so important for every Jew who is capable to fight to defend our nation. It is true that charedim all across the country are supporting the war effort. Charedi medical services and emergency responder groups like United Hatzalah and Zaka have been leading amazing rescue and recovery efforts. Other charedim have mobilized to deliver food and essential equipment to reservists and displaced families. However, after the Hamas terror attack, something changed within parts of the charedi community. Over 2,000 charedim signed up to enlist in the IDF. This is unprecedented. Around 150 thus far have been drafted. There is starting to be a recognition among some in the charedi community that we can be Avraham. We can be a faithful servant of God and we can also fight. We can daven and we can also wage war and I hope that this trend continues, even after the war. We need everyone to bear responsibility for the safety and security of our country.
The Abrabanel, among other meforshim, also points to Avraham’s selflessness and his refusal to benefit from the spoils of battle as evidence of both his generosity and recognition that everything belongs to God. The prevailing custom in that society at that time was that the victor in battle takes the spoils of battle, but Avraham answered to a higher moral standard. That is why Avraham is called an “ivri” specifically in the context of this battle.
In his sefer Emek Halacha, Rabbi Yehoshua Baumol beautifully explains why Malkitzedek brought bread and wine following the war. Before the war, Avraham was not known as a warrior. He was a man of chesed and a man of peace. Now that Avraham was a warrior, the king of Sodom walked to him from a place called Emek Shaveh, the valley of “equal,” as if to say that we are all equal. Avraham is a warrior, just as the king of Sodom is a warrior. Malkitzedek then arrives with a different message. He comes with bread and wine. As opposed to all other foods, bread and wine are the only two foods whose bracha is elevated when they are changed. For example, if you eat an orange, you recite a bracha of ha’etz, but if you drink orange juice, you recite a lower level bracha of she-hakol. However, when you transform wheat into bread or grapes into wine, “ishtanei l’ma’alyuta,” the bracha is elevated to ha-motzi and ha-gafen, as the case may be. Malkitzedek in effect is telling Avraham that this change in Avraham from being a man of chesed to a man of war did not lower him. Just the opposite. Ishtanei l’ma-alyuta. It elevated him. When we fight to defend ourselves, when we fight with conviction both on the battlefield and in the media, when we fight to protect civilian life of our enemy as much as possible even when the enemy uses them as human shields not because the world is watching us but because we know it is the right thing to do, then we are “ishtanei l’ma-alyuta.” This story of Avraham is so critical to our very identity as a nation. It conveys to us our fate as Jews, our destiny as Jews, and it guides us how to be an ivri in the process.