In April 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, I attended a forum featuring four Nobel Peace laureates. One of the speakers was Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and tireless advocate for human dignity. Drawing upon his experience of the Second World War and the liberation of Holocaust survivors, Wiesel offered this sobering observation: “No war is just, but some wars are necessary.” I remember wondering who gets to make such a determination.
It is a question that becomes especially urgent when the world seems to be unraveling around us. When a nation is attacked, innocent people are murdered, and families are torn apart, anger and fear are understandable responses. For those of us who love Israel and the Jewish people, such suffering touches something profound within us. Yet there is another danger. In the midst of violence, our anger can become so consuming that we lose sight of the very values we seek to defend. We can become so preoccupied with who is right and who is wrong that we forget to ask what it means to remain faithful to God in a world that has lost its way.
We cannot always prevent war or change the decisions of those who lead us. But we can decide how we respond. Will we allow fear and vengeance to shape our faith, or will we continue to seek the light of the Holy One, even in the midst of darkness?
Our Torah portion, Lech Lecha, introduces us to Abraham, the first Hebrew, whose journey of faith becomes foundational to the Jewish experience. We remember this parasha for the promises of a people, a land, and the blessing that would extend through Abraham to all the families of the earth. Yet nestled within these great promises is a story of kings, armies, captivity, and war. Perhaps it is precisely because this account is uncomfortable that we need to pay attention to it.
Abraham Enters the Conflict
Genesis 14 recounts how a coalition of kings defeats the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the aftermath, Lot, Abraham’s nephew, is taken captive along with his household and possessions. When Abraham learns what has happened, he gathers 318 trained men from his household, pursues the victorious armies, and attacks them by night. He defeats them and recovers Lot and the other captives.
Abraham, the man called to become a blessing to the nations, now finds himself involved in an armed conflict among those nations. He must decide how to respond when the lives of people he loves are threatened. The text does not offer a comprehensive theology of war, nor does Abraham’s victory establish that military success is evidence of divine approval. Instead, it presents a man of faith who must act in a violent world.
What happens after the battle, however, is particularly instructive. Abraham encounters two kings, Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High, and the king of Sodom. From these encounters, and from the rabbinic tradition that reflects upon them, we can draw three lessons for our own lives: give God His due, give others their due, and put people first.
First, Give God His Due
After Abraham returns victorious, Melchizedek brings bread and wine and blesses him, declaring that God Most High has delivered his enemies into his hand (Genesis 14:18–20). Abraham has acted courageously, organized his men, and recovered the captives. Yet the encounter directs his attention beyond his own accomplishments to the God who sustains him.
This becomes even clearer when the king of Sodom offers Abraham the recovered possessions. Abraham refuses, declaring that he will not take even a thread or a sandal strap, lest the king claim, “I have made Abram rich” (Genesis 14:22–23). Abraham will not use the victory to enrich himself. His confidence rests in the God who called him and promised to bless him.
The sages of the Talmud find significance in Abraham’s refusal to take even a thread or a sandal strap. In Sotah 17a, they connect his language with the mitzvot of tzitzit and tefillin, commandments that remind Israel of its relationship with God. Abraham’s refusal to profit from the battle becomes a lesson in remembering whose we are and to whom we are accountable.
This is a lesson we desperately need in times of conflict. War can make us believe that everything depends upon our strength, our weapons, and our ability to defeat those who threaten us. We may even begin to imagine that victory proves God is on our side. But faith requires humility. We can pray for Israel’s protection and for the safety of those who defend her without imagining that we possess the mind of God or that every military outcome is a simple verdict on our righteousness.
To give God His due is to recognize that we are not God. We do not see the whole of history, and we cannot always distinguish between what is expedient and what is ultimately good. We must act with courage, but also with humility. Abraham reminds us that our identity rests not in our victories or accomplishments but in our relationship with the Holy One. God is not merely the One we invoke when we are afraid; He is the One to whom we remain accountable when we are strong.
Second, Give Others Their Due
Abraham’s refusal to take the spoils does not mean that he disregards the claims of those who fought beside him. He tells the king of Sodom that he will take nothing for himself, except what his men have eaten, while insisting that his allies receive their rightful share (Genesis 14:24). Abraham will not enrich himself, but neither will he deprive others of what is theirs. His personal restraint does not become an excuse to deny others their due.
In the aftermath of war, we can become preoccupied with political leaders, military strategies, and national objectives. Yet behind every conflict are human beings whose lives have been placed at risk. There are soldiers who leave their families, people who provide food and medical care, and families who wait anxiously for news. There are those who return wounded and those who must rebuild their lives after losing everything familiar.
To give others their due means refusing to make these people invisible. It means recognizing their sacrifices, caring for those who are vulnerable, and remembering that the burdens of conflict are not distributed equally.
The Torah repeatedly commands Israel to remember the stranger, the widow, the orphan, and the poor. Israel is to remember its own experience of oppression and allow that memory to shape its treatment of others. Having known vulnerability, we must not become indifferent to the vulnerability of others.
This does not mean that all sides bear equal responsibility for every conflict or that we should abandon the distinction between aggressors and those who defend themselves. Compassion does not require us to pretend that evil is good. It does mean that our moral responsibilities do not disappear when the world becomes dangerous. We can defend the innocent, recognize the sacrifices of those who protect us, and care for those who suffer without allowing hatred to determine whom we consider worthy of compassion.
Abraham reminds us that even after a battle has been won, our obligations to others remain. Faith is not merely a private conviction; it shapes how we treat the people whose lives are bound up with our own.
Third, Put People First
The third lesson arises from a brief but revealing exchange. The king of Sodom tells Abraham, “Give me the persons, but take the possessions for yourself” (Genesis 14:21). Abraham has already refused to profit from the victory. But the king’s request raises another question: What responsibility does Abraham have toward the people he has rescued?
The rabbinic tradition offers a surprising interpretation. In Nedarim 32a, Rabbi Yochanan suggests that Abraham was punished through the later enslavement of his descendants in Egypt because he had prevented people from entering under the wings of the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence. The biblical text does not explicitly tell us that Abraham failed in this way. Rather, the sages use the story to raise a challenging moral question. Could Abraham have done more than rescue the captives? Could he have invited them to encounter the God who had called him and promised that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed?
The interpretation challenges us to consider whether rescuing people from immediate danger is enough if we fail to care about their longer-term well-being. Abraham had risked his life to recover the captives, yet the sages invite us to imagine a responsibility that extends beyond the immediate crisis.
We live in a world preoccupied with winning. We want to win arguments, elections, and battles. Even our religious commitments can become entangled in the desire to prevail over those who oppose us. We can become so concerned with defending our position that we forget the people we claim to be defending. The question is not whether truth and justice matter. They do. The question is whether we can pursue them without losing sight of the humanity of those affected by our decisions.
People are not merely symbols of a political cause or statistics in a military report. They are human beings created in the image of God. To put people first is not to abandon principle but to recognize that our principles must serve the purposes of the Holy One. Sometimes protecting people requires confronting those who threaten them. Yet even when difficult decisions must be made, we must not allow our convictions to extinguish our compassion.
For those of us who follow Messiah Yeshua, this responsibility is inseparable from the teaching of our Master. In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10), Yeshua directs our attention away from the question of who deserves to be our neighbor and toward the question of whether we will become neighbors to those in need. The Samaritan does not first resolve the differences separating him from the wounded man. He sees a human being in need and responds with mercy.
This does not settle every question about war or national defense. It does establish a standard for our own conduct. We are called to seek justice without abandoning mercy, to defend the vulnerable without becoming indifferent to the suffering of others, and to pursue peace without confusing it with the mere absence of resistance. We must never allow the pursuit of victory to make us indifferent to human life.
Finding Light in the Darkness
I return to Elie Wiesel’s observation that no war is just, but some wars are necessary, and to the question I asked that evening: Who gets to make such a determination? The decision to enter a war carries consequences far beyond the battlefield, affecting those who fight, those who are defended, those who are displaced, and those who inherit the consequences long afterward. There may be circumstances in which a nation must defend its people against those who seek to destroy them. But even when force becomes necessary, we remain responsible for how it is used and for the human lives affected by our decisions.
Abraham’s story does not offer a simple formula for deciding when war is justified. Instead, it shows us how a person of faith might conduct himself in a violent world. He refuses to make personal profit the purpose of victory, recognizes the claims of those who stand beside him, and challenges us, through the rabbinic tradition, to consider whether we have done enough for the people whose lives we touch. These three lessons belong together. To give God His due is to remember that we are accountable to a moral authority beyond ourselves. To give others their due is to recognize our obligations to those around us. To put people first is to refuse to let our anger or our pursuit of victory erase the dignity of human beings.
We cannot always prevent the world from going to war, but we can choose whether we will allow the darkness around us to become the darkness within us. We can pray for the peace of Jerusalem, support those who defend Israel, mourn those who have been murdered, comfort those who grieve, and stand against the hatred that dehumanizes an entire people. We can also resist the temptation to treat suffering as something that matters only when it happens to our own.
The God who called Abraham promised that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed. That promise pointed toward a people formed by covenant and called to bear witness to the character of the Holy One. As followers of Messiah Yeshua, we share in that responsibility. We become a blessing not by pretending that evil does not exist, but by refusing to let evil have the final word in our own lives.
The darkness is real, the suffering is real, and the questions are difficult. The answers are not always clear, but the light is also real. Sometimes the first step toward finding that light is simply to remember three things: give God His due, give others their due, and, whenever we have the opportunity, put people first.
May the Holy One give us the wisdom to discern what is right, the courage to stand against evil, the humility to recognize the limits of our understanding, and the compassion to remember the humanity of those whose lives are touched by our choices. May He comfort those who mourn, protect those in danger, strengthen those who serve, and bring healing to those whose lives have been shattered by violence. And may the day come when the nations will no longer learn war, when justice and mercy will embrace, and when the God of Israel will be acknowledged as the source of life and peace for all humanity. Amen.