November 2, 2025|י"א חשון ה' אלפים תשפ"ו Not Even a Thread: Avraham’s Response to Mamdani’s Moral Inversion By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

After defeating the four kings and rescuing his nephew Lot in this week’s parsha, Avraham Avinu was on top of the world. Imagine him, triumphant, standing with his small band of warriors — some say 317 men, others say just him and Eliezer. Malki-Tzedek comes to bless him, praising God. At a moment like that, he could have done almost anything: he could have signed a commercial for Disney and shouted, “I’m going to Disney World!” He could have been plastered on a box of Wheaties as the ultimate hero. Honestly, he probably could have taken almost any corporate sponsorship imaginable. But there was one offer he refused — one “commercial” he would never film. That was the offer from the king of Sodom: ten li ha-nefesh v’ahrchush kach lakh. “Give me the people and take the possessions for yourself.”

Avraham’s response was striking:
“Im michut v’ad sroch na’al; v’im ekach mikol asher lach, v’lo tomar ani he’esharti et Avram.”
“I will not take even a thread or a shoe strap, nor anything that is yours, lest you say, ‘I made Avraham rich.’”

Why such forceful refusal? Why decline what, on the surface, he might rightly claim? Especially since, in other instances — with Pharaoh and Avimelech — Avraham readily accepted gifts. The classical commentators point us toward two truths. The Maharal explains that Pharaoh and Avimelech gave from honor and respect — gifts that fulfilled God’s promise of va’avarecheka, “I will bless you” in the beginning of this week’s parsha. The king of Sodom’s offer was different. His gift came from calculation, not blessing — from a corrupt transactional instinct that sought to retain control of his people. Ibn Ezra reads the verse as Avraham clarifying that he had taken no spoils of war in the past, not that he plans to take no spoils in the future. Rav Yitzchak Etshalom notes that Avraham’s phrase mi chut v’ad sroch na’al, “from a thread to a shoe strap” echoed ancient Near Eastern wartime oaths — pledges that soldiers would not enrich themselves from plunder. However one reads it, Avraham’s message is clear: moral restraint and integrity come before material reward.

But perhaps the deeper reason lies in what Sodom represented. We often associate Sodom with sexual immorality, but the navi Yechezkel gives a different diagnosis:
“Hinei zeh haya avon Sodom… g’on, siv’at lechem, v’shalvat hashket … v’yad ani v’evyon lo hechezikah.”
“Behold, this was the sin of Sodom: pride, abundance, and complacency — yet they did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.”

Sodom’s sin was not only licentiousness; it was moral indifference — a proud, self-satisfied ethic of “what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is yours.” Pirkei Avot calls that sheli sheli, shelach shelach — zohi midat Sodom. It can sound principled, but in practice, it is coldness masquerading as fairness. That’s why Avraham wanted no part of them. He understood that sometimes the most dangerous people are not the openly immoral — but those who sound moral while living by a distorted code. The king of Sodom looked generous, but his offer came from pride. He wanted the credit — “ani he’esharti et Avram.” He wanted to appear ethical while remaining corrupt. And he wanted Avraham to associate himself with this corruption.

This ancient lesson is painfully modern. There are public figures who speak beautifully about justice, equality, and compassion — yet whose rhetoric, when examined closely, inverts right and wrong. They offer eloquent language, while erasing moral responsibility: excusing terrorists, refusing to acknowledge the right of Jews to defend themselves, or blind-siding the suffering of victims. One contemporary example is New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. His words drip with the language of empathy — yet his moral compass is profoundly warped. In a 2023 interview, he declared, “When the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.” Two years earlier, in 2021, he argued that “we must connect the struggle against austerity with the struggle against the funding of Israeli apartheid.” These are not isolated remarks. They reveal a worldview that uses the language of justice to delegitimize the Jewish people’s right to exist and defend themselves.

The problem here is not policy disagreement — it is moral inversion. Like Sodom, such rhetoric sounds principled but is built on distorted priorities. Too many have bought into that inversion — even some Jews who, seduced by fashionable narratives, abandon historical truth and the most basic moral distinction between aggressor and victim. Anti-Zionism, once presented as political critique, has become in practice a gateway to antisemitism — targeting Jews and Jewish identity under a new moral banner.

So what does Avraham teach us? He teaches that eloquence is not ethics, and slogans are not substance. We must listen beneath the words — to the moral core, or lack thereof, that they conceal. Avraham models moral independence: the courage to refuse gifts, approval, or alliances that compromise integrity. He teaches us to walk away from comfort purchased at the cost of conscience. And he teaches us to keep teaching that truth — even when it feels like no one wants to hear it.

Because today it may look like the king of Sodom is winning. It may look like figures such as Mamdani — who speak the language of compassion while advancing moral perversion — are gaining popularity and power. It may feel as though truth has lost its voice. But Avraham’s response still resounds across history: we do not measure truth by polls. We measure it by faithfulness — by the courage to speak, to teach, and to refuse the false blessing, even when the world applauds the wrong people.

That is our task: to keep opposing Sodom — the Sodom of false morality wrapped in moral language, of elegant speech masking cruelty — and to model instead a Torah morality grounded in truth, compassion, and justice.

And yet, we also see that moral resilience is alive. We see it in our IDF soldiers. We see it in their families. We see it in Jews around the world who stand up for Israel and for decency. These are Avraham’s children, walking his path of moral courage. That instinct — to stand for what is right, even when it costs — is the essence of Lech Lecha: moving forward, sometimes alone, to build a world faithful to God’s promise.

So when the voices of Sodom grow louder, let us answer with Avraham’s words:
“Im michut v’ad s’roch na’al… v’lo tomar ani he’esharti et Avram.”
“I will not take even a thread or a shoe strap, lest you say, ‘I made Avraham rich.’”

True blessing — va’avarecheka — does not come from comfort, applause, or fashionable virtue, but from fidelity to truth and to God. May we have the strength to resist Sodom’s false gold, the wisdom to expose counterfeit morality, and the courage to keep building lives and communities of true moral wealth.