Going your own way – Lech L’cha
This week we encounter the quite different personalities and philosophies of Abraham and Lot, the uncle and nephew. One is a generous, dignified patriarch, his life ruled by “the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice”. The other, despite his prosperity, is self-seeking and resentful of the older man.
So when they can no longer stay together, Abraham suggests that Lot should choose which direction to go and he will go the other way: “Let us rather be separate in habitation than separate in heart”, he says.
So where does Lot choose to go? The whole world is before him – and he opts for the rich plain of the Jordan, where the land is fertile but the people are “wicked and very sinful before the Lord”. He must know who he will be mixing with, but the lure of even greater affluence is the overriding thought.
Ephraim Levine, an Anglo-Jewish preacher, suggests that the stages in Lot’s moral degradation are indicated by the words of the text. First it is vaye’ehal, “he pitched his tent”, then vayeshev, “he dwelt”, and finally yoshev b’sha’ar S’dom, “he sat at the gate of Sodom” as a judge and leader of the community.
No wonder Lot barely escaped with his life when the sinfulness of Sodom caught up with the city and destruction came from heaven.
