“Abram said to Lot: Please, let there not be a quarrel between me and you and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers” (Genesis 13:8). “Abram said to Lot: Please, let there not be a quarrel between me and you…” – Rabbi Azarya said in the name of Rabbi Yehuda ben Rabbi Simon: Just as there was a quarrel between Abram’s herdsmen and Lot’s herdsmen, so there was a quarrel between Abram and Lot.
That is what is written: “Abram said to Lot: Please, let there not be a quarrel between me and you…” [“For we are brothers”] – were they in fact brothers?33Lot was Abraham’s nephew. It means, rather, that his facial features resembled his. “Is the whole land not before you? Please, part from me; if to the left, I will go right, and if to the right, I will go left [veasme’ila]” (Genesis 13:9).
“Is the whole land not before you? Please, part from me” – Rabbi Ḥelbo said: “Separate from me” is not written here, but rather, part [hipared] – just as a mule [pirda] does not take in seed,34It is sterile and cannot be inseminated. so, it is impossible for this man to be intermingled with the seed of Abraham. “If to the left, I will go right, and if to the right, I will go left”35Smol and yamin can mean either left and right or north and south. – he said to him: ‘If you go to the left [north], I will go to the south, and if I go to the south, you go to the left [north].’36Abraham was telling Lot that, in any event, he wanted the land to the south for his portion.
Rabbi Yoḥanan said: This is analogous to two people who had two heaps of grain – one was of wheat and one was of barley. One said to the other: ‘If the wheat is mine, the barley is yours, and if the barley is yours, the wheat is mine; in either case, the wheat is mine.’ So, too, “if to the left, I will go right and if to the right, I will go left.” Rabbi Ḥanina bar Yitzḥak said: “I will go left [ve’esmola] is not written here, but rather, “I will cause to go left [ve’asme’ila] – in any case, I will make that person [Lot] go to the left.