Thursday's Parsha Tidbits - Parshas Lech Lecha

The following is a brief summary of some of thoughts said over by R' Frand on the parsha this evening. I have attempted to reproduce these vorts to the best of my ability. Any perceived inconsistency is the result of my efforts to transcribe the shiur and should not be attributed to R' Frand.

R' Frand started the vort by quoting a pasuk in the discussion of the war between the 4 kings and the 5 kings. In Bereishis 14:12 it states that while they captured Sodom, they also captured Lot and his possessions, the son of the brother of Avraham. But the diagram of the sentence is curious, as R' Frand said that it has a "misplaced modifier." Why is the fact that Lot is the son of the brother of Avraham placed after the mention that the kings took his possessions?

R' Frand first gave an introduction about Lot before answering the question. He said that a good Shabbos table discussion is - whether Lot was a Tzaddik. The Gemara in Berachos recites that if someone sees Lot and his wife he would make two blessings. On seeing Lot's wife, one would say "Baruch Dayan Ha'Emes" and upon seeing Lot one would say "Baruch Zocher HaTzaddikim."

R' Frand also quoted a Chazal about the angels saving Lot in Sodom. Lot responds to the angels when they want to save him and he asks them to stop. The Gemara in Shavuous states that Lot stopped to daven on behalf of the City of Mitzor because it was created a year after Sodom and had not committed the same number of sins. R' Frand cited to R' Yerucham of the Mirrer Yeshiva who observed that Lot was running for his life at the time, yet he stopped because he wanted to pray for the city - this is an act of Tzidkus. 

R' Frand quoted the Targum which observed that Sarah did not want to leave her homeland to go with Avraham, but she went with her husband. But Lot had no problem to leave everything behind to go with Avraham. And Avraham repaid this kindness by travelling to save Lot.

But with all this, when Lot decided to leave Avraham, Avraham threw him out! Why did he change his heart about Lot? And why did Lot say that he did not want to be with Avraham or his God? Because Lot was a Rasha at his heart and this came out in the fight between the shepherds. Avraham muzzled his cattle so that they would not eat other's foods and Lot said why bother doing this? Avraham looked at this and said - Lot has yetzer hara for money and that was why he picked Sodom to begin with. This desire for money altered Lot's view of the world and Avraham said, I can't live near this person because it will rub off on me. I love you, but I can't live near you.

To this Lot said, I don't want to live near him. R' Schwalb explains that this gives color to why the fact that he was Avraham's nephew was mentioned at the end of the pasuk. Because Lot's money and possessions literally came between him and Avraham.

R' Frand also noted that when Lot and Avraham separated from each other, the pasuk states in Bereishis 13:6 that they could not live together because they had a lot of money and they could not live together. R' Frand explained that the reason that they could not live together was mentioned twice was because the feeling was mutual. Avraham did not want to live near Lot and Lot did not want to live near Avraham. But while it was fairly obvious why Avraham did not want to live near Lot, why was Lot not interested in staying near Avraham?

R' Frand answered that Lot did not want to live near Avraham because he felt guilty when he saw him. A person does not want to be reminded of his flaws and seeing Avraham muzzle his livestock just reminded Lot of the wrongs he was allowing to be committed. So Lot went to Sodom where people were like him and no one cared about the possessions of others.

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