Parsha/Noah’s IV: THEFT
Who Owns Us?
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Rabbi Z Aviner
Noahidesevencommandments.com
Read about the War of the Kings: Chapters 13-14
King of Sodom – Abraham refuses to share with him, the king of thieves, steals from his own citizens as well
Malki Tzedek, king of Shalem – probably Jerusalem.
A priest to the Most-High God , perhaps it was the name of Noah’s son who had a Torah academy near Mount Moriah. Or he was a disciple of Abraham.
Blessed is Avraham to the Most – High God, perhaps he believed that there are also forces under God – partners to the Creator.
Since Avraham drank wine with him, they concluded that pagans were permitted to believe in God in fellowship, as an intermediate level until they recognized one God.
But this is certainly forbidden to the children of Noah, who are commanded to make God unique. Indeed, Avraham corrected him – the Lord the Most – High buys heaven and earth, the One God
Let us pay attention to the new name that Avraham calls Hashem: the Buyer of Heaven and Earth.
Adam and Noah knew God as the Creator, as a king, as a court. But not as a buyer. Because from whom will he buy? There is no culture in the world that says that the Creator is the buyer.
Rashi explains: He buys by virtue of his creation. The creator’s acquisition. Avraham learned this from his father, who sold idol sculptures. He asked his father, “By what merit do you sell them?” He answered, “By virtue of the fact that I created them.” If so, Avraham concluded, statues have no power
The second stage in the development of Abraham’s faith was when he grew up and saw the world as a beautiful capital with an architect. If so, the Creator is the owner of the capital by virtue of its creators. Only afterwards did he meet Noah – at the age of 58
In any case, faith in the Creator as the Buyer of heaven and earth was at the foundation of Avraham’s faith.
Why, then, does this belief now appear in the story? For this purpose, we will see the context of the story.
Context:
The declaration that the Holy One, blessed be He, buys heaven and earth, appears in connection with these stories:
1 The king of Sodom – Avraham refuses to share with him a thread to a shoelace. This is because he was chosen king because he became rich from theft – even from the citizens of Sedom.
They were so impressed by his wealth that they chose him. Therefore, Avraham said to him, “Do not say, ‘I have enriched Avraham.’
2 Prior to the War of the Kings, the four kings of the north came to collect taxes from the five kings of the south. We have an empire ahead of us. For 12 years they served the kings of the north and in the thirteenth year they rebelled (14:4)
The story correctly reflects history. Abraham lived in 1800 BCE and historians say that around 2200 BC the first empire was invented, in Mesopotamia, when Gilgamesh discovered that in order to get rich one had to work but to establish an army and invade a neighboring land and snatch land and slaves who would work for you in the field and in any hard work. For the first time in history, a class of nobles arose whose only occupation was to learn war and conquer territories and slaves.
Historians call this “organized theft” (the Armstrong Foundation). Humanity discovered an easy way to get rich and rise through political power and has continued to do so to this day. Thus. The empire of Assyria and Babylon and Egypt and Greece and Rome and colonialism was born to this day.
Abraham fought them and freed the captives into slavery.
Thus, we have before us two stories about theft – the king of Sodom who stole even from the citizens of Sodom, and the empire that stole taxes and slaves.
We will see further in the stories of Avraham in the parasha. Are they also dealing with theft?
3 Before: Aner Eshkol and Mamre, the Allies of Abraham (14:13) appear.
They believed in the Seven Commandments, but they distributed the spoils, and Abraham disqualified them from being his heirs because of theft
4 Before this, the people of Sodom are mentioned, who were very evil and sinful to God, and excelled in robbery, apart from other sins (13:13)
5 Before that, Lot appears, from whom Avraham parted because he stole water from the Canaanites. (13: 7) . Avraham tells him that if you go to the right, I will go to the left. Complete separation.
6 Before that, Sarah is kidnapped by Pharaoh (12:15)
7 Before this – “the Canaanite was then in the land” – it was stolen from the hand of the Amorite. (Rashi, 12:6)
Seven Stories About Theft – Adam’s Fourth Mitzvah. Why Is There a Need for Seven? Teach Us Seven Different Facets of Theft
For example, the concept of ownership.
Ownership
At the root of theft is the concept of ownership. Theft is an infringement of ownership.
There is no sin in the very aspiration for ownership. The Torah is not communist. On the contrary, God planted in man this instinct of ownership. As a gift that pushes man to create and create. This is one of the six gifts in the creation of man. On the other hand, there is no free gift. Every gift is a source of judgment – man before God. In other words, it is a judgment for theft and transgression of the fourth commandment.
And there is a message here about theft that you will not find anywhere else in the Torah
In order to understand theft, mitzva 4, one must understand ownership.
There are seven stories of theft against seven different aspects of ownership
The theft of land – by the Canaanite – shows ownership of land. How is it created and what is its legitimacy?
Ownership of a woman – in the story of Sarah’s kidnapping by Pharaoh – is not the same as owning land or property
Water theft – Roy Lot – a separate category of ownership of a precious and natural source of life. We go to war for it.
Theft of property – the people of Sodom – private ownership. What brought them to theft was extreme ownership: their slogan was “Mine is mine, and yours is yours”, which ostensibly supports private ownership but the slogan led them to selfishness and cruelty and from there to theft in the most cruel way
Theft by an empire – not on a private level as in the generation of Noah, ruled by the gangs of Tubal Cain – but organized theft by an army
Theft and kidnapping – for the sake of slavery, against a person’s ownership of himself
In other words, we are dealing with Adam’s fourth mitzvah, which is presented in great detail in seven stories.
The Torah wants us to know the mitzva in detail in all its aspects. So that we can learn it and it will change our hearts.
Noah’s Rainbow Covenant is similar
In the covenant of the rainbow, we saw that God spoke to his heart to show Noach that a person can speak to his heart and overcome the inclination to murder. In this way, a person can speak to his heart and overcome the inclination to steal and misappropriate.
We have an ownership instinct, which is important and good, but it must not lead us to sin.
Buyer of Heaven and Earth
Now we understand the new name that Avraham gave to God.
Abraham fought against theft. He did unlimited charity and acts of kindness, built hotels for passersby with his own money and fed them free of charge. He established hospitals and stayed away from thieves.
But he saw that there was a need to strengthen the struggle. Therefore, he called upon the Creator to show that the thief harms not only the property of another person but also the ownership of the Creator.
Stealing is not only a mitzva between man and his friend, but also between man and the Creator
In this way, he strengthened the struggle against theft.
The Sages also explain that Abraham began a new way of worshipping God by this name. Not as a Creator or a King or a Beit Din but as a Lord.
Avraham declared – if there is slavery in the world, then I will receive only one type – I am a servant of the Lord. He is my master, and I have no other master
I will keep His commandments with more devotion.
His mitzvot surround me all day
And a new way to get closer to God – as a devoted servant to the master and his lover. A more intimate relationship than a son.
. One who clings to God in this way will sin less in theft, as well as in other transgressions
The mitzvot in the book
Before that, in the book of Noach and the covenant of the rainbow and bloodshed, the third mitzva of man, an entire passage
And there, God teaches Noach the seven aspects of murder – such as loss of knowledge, indirect murder by mercenaries, or the cessation of food and medicine, the prohibition of abortion, and the prohibition of direct murder, which is punishable by death by a person’s court.
Before that, in the story of the Garden of Eden, Adam’s second commandment, incest, appears again in seven categories
Therefore, a man shall leave his father – and his father’s wife, and his mother – and her mother, and her daughter and her granddaughter
And he cleaves to his wife – and not to his friend’s wife, adultery
And they became one flesh – the prohibition of relations with animals and homosexuality.
Seven different categories in a person’s second mitzva
Before that, chapter 1 idolatry is the first mitzva of man, with seven types of idols
Anyone to whom God spoke in the plural became a man, he is a potential partner in Him.
Thus, nature, wisdom, art, ego, sex, and the urge to control can be six sources of idolatry
And one who believes only in kindness – with the degree of mercy that God has consulted in the plural – is also an idolater.
In other words, seven faces of idolatry
And after Avraham, Yaakov seeks justice, Adam’s fifth commandment. And the Torah presents seven facets of injustice, in the family, at work, and in society
Afterwards, the Torah presents the story of the sale of Yosef, which is a desecration of God’s name, a transgression against Adam’s sixth mitzva
Here, too, the Torah presents seven facets of desecration. The Name by Yaakov’s Family
In other words, the book of Genesis presents all six of man’s commandments, each section has seven different categories of mitzvah, so that we will go back and study it in detail, so that our hearts will change from good to very good