"And the Lord said to Abram, 'Go forth from your land and your birthplace and your father's house to the land I will show you" Genesis 12:1

We read Parashat Lech Lecha in the current context of political and emotional upheaval over the Syrian migration to Europe. Arguably, in cutting ties with the idolatrous culture of his land, his birthplace and the home in which he was raised, to journey under God's guidance to the Promised Land, Abram was the first biblical migrant. Although his was a dramatically counter-cultural migration, Abram at age 75, together with his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot and family and their collective material wealth, were not fugitives fleeing the havoc of bombings or escaping outrageous poverty inflicted by greedy governments.

Theirs was a moral and spiritual migration, which was nonetheless fraught with obstacles and dangers. How then do we understand Rashi's interpretation of the words lech lecha as "going for your pleasure and for your benefit"? Perversely through the account of the war of the four kings against the five. Through the judicious integration of his own trusted men as soldiers, Abram plans a careful military strategy and, aided by God, wins a miraculous victory.

Despite his earlier separation from and quarrel with Lot, Abram, transformed by compassionate responsibility, saves his nephew from capture by the vanquished lawless kings of Sodom and Gomorrah (two of the five kings).

Laying down the first ethical laws of war ever chronicled (14:21-24), Abram refuses the corrupt kings' temptation to become rich through bartering human beings for possessions and delineates clear moral boundaries about what his men will take or not.

In the huge benefit to himself and to others of his personal, moral and spiritual transformation followed by judicious action, and in his rightful pleasure at rooting out evil at source and replacing it with justice, Abram's deeds, in light of Rashi's interpretation, have striking contemporary relevance.