Commento su Genesi 13:14

אחרי הפרד לוט AFTER LOT WAS SEPARATED FROM HIM — So long as the wicked (Lot) was with him the word of God kept away from him (i. e. God had no communion with Abraham) (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayetzei 10).

אחרי הפרד לוט, G’d did not say what follows while Lot was still in Avram’s company, so that the latter would not boast and his shepherds would engage in stealing grazing land from the local inhabitants claiming G’d’s promise to Avram of future possession as their justification.

וה׳ אמר אל אברם. G'd said to Abram. The form of address is unusual. We would have expected ויאמר השם "now G'd said to Abraham, etc." The reason for the form of address chosen by the Torah maybe that the Torah wanted to give us a hint that G'd had already waited a long time to tell Abraham what He now told him, but that as long as the wicked Lot was part of his entourage He could not do so. G'd now fulfilled the second part of what He had said to Abraham in 12,1 i.e. אל הארץ אשר אראך.

וה' אמר אל אברם, this occurred while Lot was still with him. [otherwise the Torah would have used the mode of the immediate past, i.e. ויאמר. Ed.] If not, you might have thought that Lot and his descendants could also have staked a claim to part of the land of Canaan, seeing he was a blood relative of Avram. Now G’d wanted to correct Avram who had said to Lot in verse 9 “the whole land is in front of you, i.e. at your disposal.” Now that Lot had separated from Avram, away from the land of Canaan, G’d wanted to make certain that His promise to Avraham of the land of Canaan applied exclusively to direct offspring of Avram, not to relatives who were descendants of his father Terach. G’d‘s. words contained an implied criticism of Avram having offered Lot a choice which would have made him owner of part of the land of Canaan, when he had said to him: “if to the left, I will go to the right, and if to the right, I will go to the left.” Both the left and the right, i.e. north and south from where he stood, will be his and his descendants. Also east and west would be his. The reason why G’d mentioned north and south first, was because those were the areas which Avram had spoken to Lot about. In Deuteronomy 20,19 Moses quotes the lands which will be the inheritance of Lot’s descendants.

וה' אמר אל אברם אחרי הפרד לוט מעמו, “and G’d had spoken (again) to Avram after Lot had separated from him.” According to Rashi G’d had stopped communicating with Avraham while the latter kept company with the wicked Lot. The difficulty with this commentary is that we read in verse 7 that G’d appeared to Avraham and spoke to him (while he was in the company of Lot, [whom he had taken along without having been instructed to. Ed.])

אחרי הפרד לוט, “after Lot had separated, etc.” The verse teaches that G’d had not communicated with Avram until he had separated himself from a wicked companion.

At that time he was righteous. This can be seen also from Rashi’s comment on v. 10: “It was because they were permeated with immorality that Lot chose their locality.” [We may assume that] Lot became this way due to having been in Egypt, where they also were permeated with immorality, and he learned from them. Furthermore, Rashi explained on v. 11, “Lot removed himself from the One Who precedes the world” — implying that previously he was righteous.

(14-15) ‎הפרד מעמו, nicht bloß מעליו: eine geistig persönliche, nicht bloß räumliche Trennung.

וה' אמר אחרי הפרד לוט מעמו, “and Hashem had said after Lot had separated from him, etc.” G-d had told Avram that he made a mistake when he thought that Lot having moved to Sodom, or the valley near it was enough, as that was also part of the territories that He had in mind to give to Avram’s descendants as their ancestral territory.

וראה מן המקום, "and look from the place, etc." G'd had to emphasise the word מן המקום to alert us to the miracle that He expanded Abraham's sense of vision so that he could see the entire land of Israel from the place he stood on. He did not even have to turn around to look in the different directions.

Nachdem Abraham die bittere Erfahrung gemacht, seinen Brudersohn, also das ihn überlebende zweite Geschlecht, auf den er, der Kinderlose, seine nächste Hoffnung auf Fortdauer seiner geistigen Sendung hätte setzen können, sich von ihm lossagen und um der äußeren materiellen Verlockungen willen lieber in Gemeinschaft mit Sedom und Amora treten zu sehen, sprach Gott zu ihm: nicht einem Manne wie Lot, sondern gerade dir, der du nicht in erster Linie auf materielle Blüte zustrebst, fällt dieses Land mit all seiner Fülle zu Teil, Ich gebe es dir und den von dir stammenden Nachkommen. Nicht sollst du ausziehen und als Missionär andere Menschen für deine Sendung gewinnen. Was dir angehören soll, muß von dir gesäet, von deinem reinen Geiste ge- zeugt und erzogen sein. Juden wollen geboren, nicht nur erzogen sein. — לך אתננה ולזרעך עד עולם. Es ist damit nicht verkündet, dass sie es immer in Besitz haben werden. Gehören wird es ihnen immer, die Bestimmung werden sie und es immer für einander haben, so wie es ja hier auch dem Abraham gegeben wurde, ohne dass er es je persönlich in Besitz erhielt. —

אחרי הפרט לוט מעמו, “the need for this separation was to forestall Lot from ever claiming that his descendants were entitled to part of the land of Israel.” The relevant words concerning this interpretation are: כי את כל הארץ אשר אתה רואה, “for the whole land that you can see;” [Lot had also decided on the basis of what he could see. (13,10) Ed.] G-d emphasised that Lot should never have any claim to any part of the Holy Land.

עלם ,חלם ,הלם ,אלם ,עולם: Grundbedeutung binden. Der Gebundene: Stumme, die Garbe, das Zusammendrängen, d.i. Härten der Metalle. עלם, das Verborgene und die noch unentwickelte Jugend. Geheimnisvoll wie das Wesen erscheint auch die Bezeichnung des Begriffs "Traum" durch חלם. Es bedeutet: Traum, Eierdotter und gesunden. In dem Dotter liegen die Keime des künftigen lebendigen Wesens noch alle ununterschieden und unentwickelt, in einander und untereinander gebunden. Der Traum verhält sich zu dem wachen, intelligenten Bewusstsein wie der Dotter zum Vogel. In ihm webt der ganze Keimvorrat an Vorstellungen und Gedanken, die das wache Bewusstsein zum selbständigen Gedankenorganismus gliedert, ungesondert und ungeordnet, in einander und durcheinander. Genesen ist vielleicht: eine Wiederherstellung des gestörten Zusammenhangs der organischen Kräfte und Säfte; die Wiederherstellung der stofflichen und dynamischen Harmonie des Leibes. Bezeichnet חלם als genesen vielleicht zunächst den Heilungsprozeß von Wunden, und beginnt vielleicht dieser Prozess zuerst mit Schaffen eines flüssigen Bildungsstoffes (Eiter, Blastem), der bei der Reproduktion ganz dieselbe Stelle einnimmt wie der Dotter bei der Produktion? Ist Eiter der Dotter der Reproduktion? Heißt doch auch אולם: stark, gedrungen, gesund. עולם ist die noch unentwickelte Zeit, sowohl jene, in welcher die Gegenwart noch unentwickelt war, als diejenige, die noch gegenwärtig unentwickelt ist. Vergangenheit und Zukunft. Daher: מן העולם עד העולם.