So, perhaps, the opposite is true. Perhaps Avram is afraid because he did not strike soon enough.
If Avram could defeat Kederlaomer, why didn’t he do so earlier? Why didn’t he rescue those innocent nations who were ravaged by Kedarlaomer’s destructive opportunism? And when he did fight, why wasn’t it to rescue innocents or punish the evil. Why was it only to protect those who were close to him?
Perhaps Avram is afraid because he made the wrong choice.
Avram’s choice is not an ancient and distant one. His is a challenge we face today: two evils fight one another – ISIS and the Shiite Armies of G-d. In this war, innocents are swept up and slaughtered. What are we to do? Amongst such tremendous evil, what can and should we do to defend the enable the good and punish the evil?
The implications of Avram’s choice come far later. Amalek bears a grudge against the Jewish people because he did not defend them. When we emerge from Egypt, they attack. They stand no chance of victory and they know it. But they strike anyway – as an act of revenge for having been abandoned when Avram might have protected them. Hashem does not commanded to destroy Amalek because they attacked us. He commands us to destroy them because of the way in which they attacked us and because they attacked us despite our divine seal of approval.
The same challenge remains today. Those innocents who are harmed today might become our enemies tomorrow. They are becoming our enemies. And their animus might be created by our decision to stand aside.
In Avram’s case, Hashem tells him, “be not afraid.”
Avram made the right decision, given his limitations.
In fact, Avram and his descendants do not grow mankind’s relationships to G-d by attacking nations of evil or even by defending those with whom we have no connection. We grow mankind’s relations to G-d by protecting those we relate to; those who, trough us, have a relationship to G-d.
Today, we have more options. We need not abandon the next Amalek. We could establish a city of refuge – like Hong Kong – for those who would flee the destruction of their broken societies and embrace the values of ours. We could give hope and build relationships. We could avoid creating the next Amalek. And we could do it without going to war. And if we, or our friends, are threatened? Then we will be blessed with overwhelming success.
Our role is to spread the recognition of Hashem and thus engender the possibility of a relationship to Him. As we read in this week’s parsha, Hashem brought Avram from Haran and would later bring the Children of Israel from Egypt. Avram understands that he is spreading the name of G-d – and this is why he ultimately takes G-d’s name into his own.
In his mission, AvraHam is not tasked with building Bavel. Near the end of the Five Books of Moses there is a command – a command to take stones and plaster them and write the words of Torah upon the plaster. Unlike the builders of Bavel, our great works are built of stones – of real people with real imperfections. We do not mortar them together. Instead, we as a society plaster over their imperfections and thus create the surface onto which we can record the words of G-d. The surface we create is not a permanent surface; plaster wears quickly.
Our relationship to G-d, like any relationship, must be constantly renewed.
We are not perfect and we are not static. Like Avram, we live in a real world with real limitations. Even the most righteous among us, perhaps especially the most righteous among us, find ourselves facing genuinely challenging choices.
