POVERTY
Abraham was tested ten times: the well-known asara nisyonot. Obviously, these “tests,” or experiences, were not meant for God to find out something He did not know about Abraham. They were intentional crises that helped Abraham grow, mature, learn about God and reach his full potential.
This year I noticed a detail I had missed before: the fourth crisis Abraham faces is the exact opposite of the second.
Let’s see. Abraham arrives in the land of Canaan, “invited by God,” with the promise of blessing (berakha). But as soon as he arrives, the second test begins: a terrible famine. So severe that Abraham is forced to move to Egypt for a while. It was a very hard test: do I abandon God when He does not give me what I want? Abraham passes. He stays loyal to his mission, trusts, and survives the famine. That famine also tested his patience.
After some time, Abraham comes back from Egypt with enormous wealth: gold, silver and livestock. Literally “thank God,” Abraham had prospered enormously. With him was Lot, his nephew, whom Abraham had adopted when Lot was orphaned. Until then, Lot was the candidate to inherit Abraham and continue his path, since Abraham had no children of his own. Abraham shared all his wealth with Lot.
And this is where the new crisis begins, the fourth test, the opposite of the earlier one. Without saying it outright, the Torah introduces for the first time a theme that will repeat itself through the generations: the risks and dangers of wealth. Does plenty of money make us vain, or do we stay humble? Do we use our surplus only to raise our comfort, or also to help those who have less?
TWO SIDES OF THE COIN
Wealth does not make Abraham materialistic. Our patriarch, as the Torah says explicitly (Gen. 13:3), goes back to his own tent, a symbol of humility and detachment. He decides to use his fortune to do good in the name of the Creator, and so to spread the knowledge of Him. Abraham sees himself as the manager of money that belongs more to God than to him. When the poor or the strangers who stay in his tent want to pay him for the food, Abraham refuses the money and invites them to thank God together (zimun): “the One who has given us what we have eaten.” That is why his neighbors call him Nesi Eloqim, “God’s representative,” in the land of Canaan.
Lot had been raised with the same spiritual values as Abraham. But now that he was a millionaire, his fortune changed him. His values changed. He no longer cared about following his uncle’s path. Now he wanted to do business, invest his capital and grow his portfolio. His eyes were on making more money, not on sharing it with the poor.
The crisis comes to a boil when Lot’s shepherds and Abraham’s shepherds fight, because the wide plains of Canaan had become too small for them.
Abraham understands that his nephew will not follow his path, and gives Lot the option of going off on his own.
Lot, perhaps to Abraham’s surprise, does not object to parting ways.
What was Lot’s greatest aspiration? To buy a house.
The poor, the nomads, lived in tents. But the rich could afford the luxury of a solid house, with a roof, doors and stone walls.
A house was the ultimate status symbol.
Lot wants to move to a private neighborhood, an exclusive country club, a gated community: no poor people, and a paid guard to keep strangers out.
That is how the distance between Abraham and Lot began. Not only in geography, but in values.
Wealth, as so often happens, ended up dividing the family.
THE WORST IS YET TO COME
But Lot’s new life as a rich man does not stop there. Lot decides that his new social status allows him, or requires him, to live among “people like us.” And he makes the worst decision of his life. He settles in Sedom (Sodom), a prosperous, powerful city, and utterly corrupt.
In Sedom, values were turned upside down. Abraham spent his fortune helping strangers. In Sedom, strangers were abused and robbed of the little they had.
Charity was considered a crime because, in true Nietzschean style, helping the poor harmed “the survival and growth of the strongest.”
Lot had lived through, and overcome together with Abraham, poverty, being orphaned, the move from Charan to Canaan, the trouble in Egypt. All of it had brought him closer to Abraham. His uncle was his role model. Lot wanted to be Abraham.
But now, facing the test of abundance, Lot collapses. All he cares about is a comfortable house in a gated neighborhood and his golf game.
When God wants to educate us, He does not drop gifts from the sky. He challenges us. He puts us through experiences and situations that force us to redefine ourselves. Some, like Lot, collapse. Others, like Abraham, grow stronger and rise with every crisis they overcome.
SHABBAT SHALOM
