Our parsha asks: When is it time to part ways?

These past weeks Israel seems to be in the grip of a wave of terror: stabbings, shootings, firebombs, and riots, leaving us wondering whether there is anything left of the ‘peace process’; seems more like pieces.

People often say, you don’t make peace with your friends, you make peace with enemies and you have to be willing to sit and dialogue with even your most bitter enemy. 

True, but you have to start with an enemy who wants to make peace, and for that matter, who is willing to talk.  So maybe it’s time to let go; maybe there is no peace partner and we need to part ways, build fences, and leave attempts at any rapprochement for another day. 

And yet, are we really at the point where we must walk away from any hope of peace with our Arab cousins, many of whom I am sure want peace as much as we do? 

How do you know when it really is time to let go?

This week’s portion of Lech Lecha provides a classic case in point: It seems that the shepherds of Avram and the shepherds of Lot, Avram’s nephew, had gotten into an argument big enough that it came to Avram’s attention. (Bereishit 12:5-7)

While the Torah is vague about the exact nature of the conflict between the shepherds, Rashi, quoting the Midrash, makes it very clear: Lot’s shepherds were stealing, and Avram’s shepherds were taking the moral high ground. 

More puzzling than the conflict however, is Avram’s inexplicable reaction to it: “And Avram said to Lot: ‘Let there not be a quarrel between you and I and between my shepherds and your shepherds. Behold all the land is before you; please separate [part] from me; if you go left I will go right, and if you go right, I will go left.” (12:8-9)

“Separate from me”? This is Avram’s great solution to conflict? Bear in mind that this is not an argument with someone you never met who is in you parking space, this is Avram’s own nephew! 

In fact, the verse does not actually say Avram and Lot were arguing, it says the argument was between the shepherds.

So why does Avram feel Lot should leave? How depressing to think that even the paradigm of loving-kindness in this world can reach the point of no return in his relationship with his own nephew.