<b>And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel (Gen. 14:1).</b> May it please our master to teach us whether a slave obtains his freedom if his owner assigns all his property to him as a gift.<sup class="footnote-marker">12</sup><i class="footnote">Gittin 8b.</i> Thus did our masters instruct us: If a man assigns all his property to his slave he becomes a free man, but if a portion of his property is withheld from him, the slave does not become free. R. Simeon said: He will become a free man unless his master says: “I give all my property to this slave with this one exception.”
It happened once that a certain man traveled to a distant island while his son remained in the land of Israel to study Torah. Prior to his death, this man willed all his property to his slave, with the exception that his son was to have the privilege of selecting one item from among his possessions for himself. Following his death, the slave gathered together all of the man’s possessions and brought them and the will to the land of Israel. He said to the son: “Your father is dead, and he has bequeathed to me all his possessions with the exception of any single thing you desire to select from among them.” What did the son do? He went to his teacher and related to him what had transpired. The teacher said to him: “Your father was indeed a man of profound wisdom, thoroughly informed in the law. He said to himself: ‘If I should simply entrust my property to the care of my slave, he will abscond with it and squander it; therefore, I will bequeath it to him as a gift so that he will guard it carefully, but to my son I will leave the privilege of selecting one thing for himself.’ When you go with him to court, let him bring the will with him, and then say to the court: ‘My masters, my father bequeathed to me the right to select the one thing I desire most from all his property, and the only thing I truly desire is this slave.’ Then you will obtain both the possessions and the slave.” He did as he was instructed, and the court gave him the property and the slave. For the law states that if a slave acquires property, both the property and the slave belong to the master. Solomon declared: <i>For to the man who is good in His sight He giveth wisdom and knowledge</i> (Eccles. 2:26), this was the father: <i>but to the sinner He giveth the task to gather and to heap up</i> (ibid.), this was the slave; <i>that he may leave to him that is good in the sight of God,</i> (ibid.) applies to the son.
Similarly, the Holy One, blessed be He, guards the wealth of the wicked for the sake of the righteous. Thus he declared: I will cause the kings to quarrel among themselves so that Abraham may attack them and seize their wealth. Whence do we know this to be so? We know this to be so from the contents of the chapter beginning with the words <i>And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel. They made war with Bera,</i> etc. (Gen. 14:1–2). They made war against Bera<sup class="footnote-marker">13</sup><i class="footnote">Each name contains the word that describes his sin: Bera, <i>ra</i> (“wicked”), Birsha, <i>rasha</i> (“evil”), Shinab sana (“hate”), Shemeber, eber (“limb,” hence “wing”)..</i> because he was wicked in the sight of God and man; they made war upon Birsha because he had behaved evilly; they fought against Shinab because he detested the Heavenly Father; and Shemeber because he had said, “I will ascend with a wing above the heights of the clouds.”
<i>All these came as allies unto the vale of Siddim</i> (Gen. 14:3). It was called Siddim because it nourished them as the breasts (<i>shadayim</i>) nourish the child. The same is the Salt Sea (ibid.): Because of their sins that valley was turned into a sea of salt water. Hence Scripture says: <i>A fruitful land into a salt waste, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein</i> (Ps. 107:34).
<i>And they turned back and came to En-mishpat</i>—<i>the same is Kadesh</i> (Gen. 14:7). Blessed be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, who declares <i>the end from the beginning</i> (Isa. 46:10). This place was named En-mishpat (“well of judgment”) on account of the fact that in the future Moses would be judged there because of the water.<sup class="footnote-marker">14</sup><i class="footnote">Where Moses struck the rock.</i> <i>And smote all the country of the Amalekites</i> (Gen. 14:7). The Amalekites are mentioned in this verse though many generations were to pass before Amalek was born.