When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he mustered his trained men… and went in pursuit. (Genesis 14:14)
Abraham just separated from Lot for spiritual clarity. Yet the moment Lot is captured, he mobilizes 318 “trained ones,” yet Chazal say it was Abraham (then still called Abram) with Eliezer (gematria = 318),[1] and risks everything to rescue him. No hesitation; no, “he made his choice,” excuses; no, “I am busy serving G‑d,” justification. Just fierce loyalty. Abraham demonstrates that separation does not mean abandonment, that boundaries do not require indifference, that loyalty to your own is unbreakable.
In quantum mechanics, entanglement lives across subsystems. A pair can be entangled in several independent degrees of freedom at once, e.g., polarization and spatial mode—this is called hyperentanglement. Selective decoherence is possible. A local noise channel or measurement can destroy entanglement in one degree of freedom while leaving another intact, e.g., dephase polarization so it is separable, yet keep path/momentum entanglement.
Let there be no strife between me and you… for we are relatives. (Genesis 13:8–9).
Avram disentangles from Lot in the ideology degree-of-freedom without discarding the kinship degree-of-freedom. In other words, he “decoheres” the values channel but does not trace out (ignore/delete) the family channel—so that bond still carries obligations.
Hold your boundaries; keep your loyalties.
This couldn’t be more urgent today. When Hamas captured hostages, our nation went to war to rescue them, while risking the lives of many soldiers.
We Jews are one family, one small tribe, universally hated, perennially vulnerable. Debate Israeli policy? That is democracy. Disagree with my opinion? That’s fine, that’s what we Jews do. “For every two Jews there are three opinions,” yet when one of us is under attack, disagreements must be set aside. But spread false accusations fueling Jew-hatred, refuse to serve in the army when your country is at war, march with those who celebrate October 7th, or endorse and vote for Hamas-supporting Islamist politicians calling for “global intifada”? That’s betrayal, pure and simple. We, Jews, have a problem with loyalty.
Abraham teaches: separate if you must, disagree fiercely if you will, but be unwaveringly loyal when your own are in danger, and be ready to risk your life to save one of your own, let alone your country. Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh (mutual responsibility) is a cardinal principle of Torah.[2] Even if we became separable in the “values” subspace, we must remain entangled in the “family” subspace. Like a hyperentangled pair, we can be separable in one degree of freedom (ideology) while retaining quantum-like correlations in another (family, nation); selective decoherence removes one channel without collapsing the rest. Disagree in polarization; stay bound in path.
Takeaway
Family and tribal bonds transcend politics. Abraham rushed to Lot’s rescue despite their separation and disentanglement. When your people are under attack, you drop everything and defend them. The quantum universe remembers shared histories; so must we—loyalty above all.
[1] Nedarim 32a.
[2] Shevuot 39a.