Drash Cards for Lech Lecha (5762)

by Marc Mangel

• This is the beginning of the Biblical narrative.

• How old was Abraham when he got the word?  The Chazal place a minimum of 3 years and a maximum of 48 years, but he did not leave Haran until he was 75 years old.

• In Chapter 14 we have a big battle of kinds.  In verse 12, Lot is captured and in v 13-15 there are night time raids in two parties.

• Rashi comments on verse 14 that there were 318 men or Elizer alone (318 is the gematria of his name)

• Why don’t we ever heard about Abraham as a great warrior?

• A sociological reason (which could also be why the Book of Maccabees is not in the Jewish Bible) is that Jews were not militaristic/mighty from 70AD until 1948 AD

• A transformative reason: when he goes from Avram to Abraham, he loses/gives up his military instincts.

• And a spiritual reason: he was capable of militaristic action but now felt that he did not need to use those abilities.

• We are children of Abraham — and following in his tradition we should be careful about when and if we use our physical abilities rather than our chesed when solving a problem