The Zohar in the part of its commentary called סתרי תורה, explains the entire פרשה as describing the relationship between body and soul. Abraham represents the mystique of the soul, whereas Sarah represents the mystique of a pure body, and Lot represents the body in which the evil urge predominates. The commentary is extensive. Rabbi Yitzchak Arama, author of עקדת יצחק, also touches on that allegory (when he sees in the king of Sodom's offer to Abraham of the material part of the booty, whereas the king claimed the נפש), an allusion to Abraham being asked to "sell" his soul in return for material goods. [See this Editor's translation of the Akeidat Yitzchak end of chapter 16]. It is a great מצוה to draw one's relatives close to one. We must learn this from Abraham's selfless conduct in liberating Lot.

From the line הנה נא ידעתי כי אשה יפת מראה את, "Here I know (now) that you are a very attractive looking woman," we learn that Abraham was so chaste that up to that point he had remained unaware of Sarah's physical attractiveness. This quality of chastity is most inspiring.

And Abraham was very wealthy with livestock, silver, and gold, and he went on his journeys." We have explained earlier that "his journeys" are spiritual journeys, that he advanced to ever higher spiritual plateaus. The moral lesson here is that his growing material wealth did not interfere with his spiritual growth which continued unabated.

One must make great efforts to avoid personal strife. If a quarrel is in the offing, one must immediately strive to remove the cause of such quarrel, as our sages said in Sanhedrin 7 when commenting on Proverbs 17,14: פוטר מים ראשית מדון, "Starting a quarrel is like opening a sluice." Abraham demonstrated this virtue when he said to Lot: "let there not develop a quarrel between us." I detect a special meaning in Abraham employing the feminine form for the word strife, i.e. מריבה, although the Torah had already reported a "strong" quarrel, ריב, having occurred between their respective shepherds (Genesis 13,7). Abraham considered מריבה as a development of ריב. He considered the "fruit" of ריב to be מריבה. The latter word is akin to מתרבה, "constantly increasing." Since women produce children, he used the female form of the word ריב, i.e מריבה, in order to allude to the peculiarity of quarrels which keep increasing. He viewed ריב as something masculine, unable to give birth.

Another important moral lesson to be learned from our פרשה is that one should not derive material benefit from miracles. We have several examples in the Talmud, such as Taanit 24 and Shabbat 53, of people either rejecting sudden wealth due to a miracle, or criticism of someone who needed to accept the miracle in order to nurse a baby who had lost its mother in childbirth. The very fact that G–d needs to interfere with natural law to provide sustenance for someone implies some criticism of the person for whom such a miracle had to be performed. This is why Abraham rejected the spoils of his war against Kedarlaomer. Did Abraham prefer that G–d would make it rain silver and gold for him from heaven that he rejected the "gift" of the King of Sodom as not befitting to him? Of course, nothing is further from the truth. We know that Abraham had previously accepted gifts from Pharaoh (12,15). When the cause for sudden wealth is plausible, it is perfectly acceptable to accept and use such wealth. Abraham considered his victory in that war [with his 318 men against the four mightiest armies of that era] as so miraculous that the spoils were not a plausible way for G–d to provide for him.

Man must give thanks for whatever worldly goods G–d steers in his direction, since on the basis of his deeds he personally is not entitled to G–d's bounty. Our livelihood, be it ample or of subsistence level, is an act of צדקה, charity, for us by G–d.