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Why did Avrohom accept lavish gifts from Pharaoh but refuse even a shoelace from the king of Sodom? The shiur identifies the core trait of Sedom: "everything is coming to me." This sense of total entitlement means any gift given—even a string—makes the recipient wealthy in the giver's eyes, since he "deserves" nothing. The trait also explains "lashem od" (rebelling against God): if everything is owed to me, I owe God nothing in return.
Rabbi Zweig addresses a striking contrast in Parshas Lech Lecha. When Avrohom goes to Egypt, he explicitly tells Sarah to say she is his sister "so that I will receive gifts" (lema'an yitav li ba'avurech), and indeed Pharaoh enriches him greatly with cattle, silver, and gold. Yet when the king of Sodom offers Avrohom the spoils of war—wealth Avrohom had actually earned by rescuing Sodom's people and property—Avrohom refuses even "a thread or a shoelace," declaring, "so that you should not say 'I made Avrohom wealthy.'" The question is glaring: why take abundant gifts from Pharaoh but refuse even a shoelace from Sodom? And how could the king of Sodom possibly claim he made Avrohom wealthy by giving him a shoelace? The answer lies in understanding the psychology of Sedom. The Torah (תורה) describes the people of Sedom as "ra'im v'chata'im laHashem me'od" (evil and sinful to God exceedingly). Rashi (רש"י) explains "laHashem me'od" to mean they knew God yet intentionally rebelled against Him (yod'im es ribonam u'miskavnim limrod bo). The Gemara (גמרא) in Sanhedrin identifies the type of evil denoted by "ra'im v'chata'im" by citing the test of Yosef with Potiphar's wife: "How can I do this great evil and sin against God?" The crux of Yosef's struggle, Rabbi Zweig explains, was not primarily the prohibition of adultery—that is mentioned almost as an afterthought ("and I will have sinned against God"). Rather, Yosef's real conflict was betrayal of trust: "My master has withheld nothing from me; he has entrusted everything to my hand. How can I betray him?" The defining evil of Sedom is precisely this inability to feel gratitude or obligation, rooted in the belief that everything is owed to them.
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Bereishis 14:21-23 (Parshas Lech Lecha)
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How could Avrohom keep the entire Torah before it was given, including rabbinical laws? The key insight is that mitzvos represent eternal spiritual realities, not just historical commemorations, so Avrohom could access these truths through his genuine search. His entire 172-year journey—even his early idolatry—retroactively became service of God once he reached ultimate truth.
