Rashi’s opening comment to the beginning of the Torah, Genesis 1:1, explains that the Torah begins with the creation of the world, rather than with the first mitzvah given to the Israelites, in order to provide evidence for the Jewish people having rightful ownership over the land of Israel. If God is the creator of the world, then God can assign parts of that world to whomever the Divine wishes, and God assigned the land of Israel to the people of Israel.   One has to turn to Rashi’s midrashically-inspired commentary in order to see that idea in the first words of the Torah, but it is this week’s parashah that conveys a similar idea explicitly. In the opening lines of Lekh L’kha, God instructs Avram to leave his home and go to the land of Canaan, settle there, and make a great nation. God’s commands to Avram transform the land of Canaan into the Promised Land.   The undeniable relationship between the Jewish people and the land of Israel stretches back to antiquity. It is a relationship filled with love, with longing, and with complexity.    One of those layers of complexity is our relationship with the other peoples who also live in that land. Throughout the Tanakh, there is no shortage of passages that detail tensions between the Israelites and their neighbors, that tell stories of war and violence, of enmity and strife. And there are also passages that speak to supportive, friendly, and collaborative relationships between Israel and her neighbors.    Parts of the books of Joshua and Judges portray the Israelites, even after the initial conquest of land after the years of wandering in the wilderness, as living alongside other tribes and groups who were still residing there.    In the book of I Samuel, as David continues to fear for his life at the hands of King Saul, flees to the land of the Philistines, who provide him with refuge for over a year.    There are also pieces of our sacred tradition that govern how we treat people who are foreign to us. Literally dozens of times, the Torah commands us to treat the ger, the foreigner, with kindness and care. We must provide them with basic needs, following in God’s footsteps. We are forbidden to mistreat them.    I am not so naive as to think that our biblical tradition presents us with livable guidelines for the contemporary messy geopolitical realities of Israel and Palestine.    And yet.   The increasing reports of violence against Palestinians perpetrated by Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank are devastating. Beyond the deplorable acts of violence, the reports indicate that neither the IDF nor the Israeli police are holding the attackers accountable.    Especially in recent days, the escalations in violence are gravely concerning. In August, extremist settlers surrounded Palestinian homes in the West Bank town of Qusra, blocking exits, and severing water and power lines. The blockade lasted for over two weeks.   The most recent incidents center on the current season of the olive harvest, with settlers and associated supporters attacking people as they attempt to harvest their trees or preventing them from reaching their groves at all. There have been over 160 attacks against Palestinian olive harvesters just in the first two weeks of October. Settlers have damaged private property and stolen harvested olives and farm equipment.    Just this past week, a group of 80 settlers attacked Palestinians harvesting olives, injuring a number of people, including American journalist Heidi Levine, who was hospitalized for her injuries. The attention that this attack garnered due to the involvement of an American journalist prompted a more robust response from the Israeli authorities, but other incidents do not receive the same attention.    And just yesterday, a group of American and Israeli activists with Rabbis for Human Rights and T’ruah, including a number of rabbis, was arrested while helping Palestinians harvest olives in the West Bank village of Nahalin. Most of those detained were released after several hours, but some remain in custody.    God’s words to Avram at the start of this week’s parashah prompt the Sages of the Midrash to ponder God’s choice of Avram as the one to establish the people and our ties to the land. They suggest a number of reasons, weaving fanciful stories about Avram’s worthy qualities. A few examples –    Avram traveled throughout the world, deducing that there must be someone in charge, leading God to reveal the Divine presence to him.    Despite not being raised in the practice of good deeds and mitzvot, Avram nonetheless amassed these through his own initiative. The merit he earned from his good deeds and mitzvot inspired God to choose him.    Avram gave his father, an idol maker, a lesson in monotheism by destroying all of the idols in his shop, laying the blame on the biggest one, and simultaneously pointing out to his father the ridiculousness of worshipping objects of stone and clay.    Avram, our biblical ancestor, was an iconoclast, a man of faith, someone who sought to increase goodness in the world. May we, and all of our fellow Jews, strive to live up to his example.