“Lot had accompanied Abram... But the land could not support them living together.... Lot looked up and saw that the entire Jordan Plain was well irrigated before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.... So Lot chose for himself the entire Jordan Plain.”
Initially, Lot, Abraham’s nephew, traveled with him. What is the secret of their companionship, even though their spiritual levels were so diametrically opposite to one another?
The sum of the values of “Abram” (אברם) and “Lot” (לוט) is 288—Abram’s value is 243 and Lot’s value is 45. 288 is also the number of sparks of holiness that fell from the shattered World of Chaos into our reality. It is also the value of “dew” (טל) and “rain” (מטר), the two key things we are asking for now in the Amidah, “Grant dew and rain that will be for a blessing” (ותן טל ומטר לברכה). With these numerical equivalencies in mind, let’s focus on Lot himself.
LOT AND THE HUSK OF NOGAH
As noted, the value of Lot (לוט) is 45, which is the value of the filling of God’s essential Name, Havayah, which is equal to 45 (יוד הא ואו הא) and is called the name of mah (מה), whose value is 45. The name of mah exists both in the realm of holiness and in the husk called nogah, referring to those things in this world which conceal Godliness but can still be useful for advancing God’s revelation. Thus, Lot is not entirely negative, rather, like nogah, he is a mixture of good and evil together.
The concept of the husk of nogah originates in Ezekiel’s vision of the Divine Chariot. On top of the Chariot, he sees the image of a form of a man, and he sees how the upper half of this form is enclothed in what is known as the chashmal (חשמל), a particular type of light, or revelation of Godliness; this is the holy part of nogah. The negative part of the husk of nogah enclothes the bottom half of this form. Abraham was aware that Lot was the representative of nogah’s lower half, and his goal was to hold on to Lot long enough to rectify it and ensure that it not fall into the hands of evil, into the hands of the idolaters surrounding Abraham. To that end, as bad as Sodom and its inhabitants were, they too at the time, were only the negative and evil part of nogah.
However, the Four Kings from the East who came from Mesopotamia (led by Nimrod who had cast Abraham into the fiery furnace) to conquer the five towns (among which were Sodom and Gomorrah) of the Jordan Plain (which was not yet the Dead Sea, but rather a very fertile area), they represented the three completely impure and evil husks. Which is why, when they conquered the five towns, Abraham was forced to pursue them alone to save Lot—to salvage the entire husk of nogah.
THE SOUL’S RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE BODY
Abraham also has a direct connection with the Name mah. Initially, his name was Abram, and when God added the letter hei to his name, he became known as Abraham (אברהם), which permutes to spell “an organ of mah” (אבר מה). What this implies Kabbalistically is that Abraham’s mah, represents the soul and Lot’s mah represents the body. Abraham’s mah—the soul—comes down into this world into a body to rectify Lot’s mah—the body, the mah of nogah.
We are all children of Abraham, the first Jew, so every Jew has a manifestation of Lot in him, which at times may look like it is completely disconnected from all that is holy. And yet, we should not give up on the body, we should never give up on our physical state. Instead, we are obligated to commit our entire soul to saving our body and bringing it back to holiness. Doing so is considered a major part of elevating the 288 sparks that we are all required to elevate.
But to fully understand why Abraham is fighting so hard for Lot, we need to go a bit deeper.
LOT’S FAITH AND ABRAHAM’S FAITH
The verse that describes Abraham’s faith in our parashah is, “He had faith in Havayah, and He [God] considered it charity” (והאמין ביהוה ויחשבה לו צדקה). The way the Torah writes the word “he had faith” (והאמין), it is missing a letter yud (וימין).
There is an explanation offered by the disciples of the Ba’al Shem Tov, based on the notion that there are two levels of faith. There is faith that is based on reason, on wisdom, represented by the letter yud. But, there is faith that is above reason. The missing yud from “he had faith” indicates that Abraham had gone above and beyond the regular faith that is based on reason. Abraham was a great thinker. He initially arrived at his faith in God through rational logic. In Kabbalah, Abraham is considered a manifestation of the wisdom of the crown, the highest form of wisdom. But the Torah is telling us that he transcended faith that is based on wisdom—he essentially pushed the letter yud out of “he had faith.”
Why then does the Torah say that God considered it a charity? Since God gave us our rational mind to use, coming to faith based on rational arguments is the right way to use the mind. Attaining faith based on the mind is akin to returning to God what he gave us for safe keeping in the first place. But, if I push my reasoning mind away and achieve faith that is beyond reason, then I am giving God, as it were, something new, something that He did not give me. Therefore, faith that is beyond reason is considered charity.
FAITH IN THE REDEMPTION
It is about faith beyond reason that the sages state, “Charity is great because it brings the Redemption closer” (גדולה צדקה שמקרבת את הגאולה). The value of “Redemption” (גאולה) is also 45, the value of the Name mah, we have been discussing. Now we can draw the analogy. Lot’s mah represents the lower level of faith in Redemption, which is based on reason—Redemption is something that benefits me and others. Abraham though has faith in Redemption in and of itself, above reason, and without need for any reasons.
Lot followed Abraham to the Land of Israel because it made sense to him. He was searching for the benefit and pleasure he would receive from the land. That is why he eventually split from Abraham and chose the most “pleasurable,” inherently rich part of the land, the fertile Jordan Plain that eventually became the Dead Sea. He split from Abraham because they were experiencing trouble with the local Canaanites. But Abraham was fulfilling God’s command because he knew it would bring Redemption. Even when it was difficult, even when there was no clear and immediate benefit.
Every Jew who comes to live in the Land of Israel is doing so because he or she believes in the Redemption and wants to push it forward. But what we now understand is that there are two different types of Redemption and Abraham has the responsibility to subsume Lot’s version of redemption into his own.
(Excerpted from a class given on the 7th of Cheshvan, 5773)
