Parshat Vayeira - 5773

7/31/2019 Parshat Vayeira - 5773

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Parshat Vayeira 5773

Rabbi Shaanan Gelman

Seeing the Angel in Every Man and the Man in Every Angel

Our Sidra twice deals with the theme of Hachnasat Orchim, of inviting

and taking care of guests. The opening narrative deals with Avraham as

the , the host, and the second instance is of Lot serving as

the host.

Lets begin with Avraham: Hardly in a position to welcome guests,

having just undergone a Brit Milah at the age of 99, three strangers

appear at his door:

II Avraham Welcomes Guests

1 And the LORD appeared unto him by the

terebinths of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door

in the heat of the day; 2 and he lifted up his eyesand looked, and, lo, three men stood over

against him; and when he saw them, he ran to

meet them from the tent door, and bowed

down to the earth, 3 and said: 'My lord, if now I

have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I

pray thee, from thy servant. 4 Let now a little

water be fetched, and wash your feet, and

recline yourselves under the tree. 5 And I will

fetch a morsel of bread, and stay ye your heart;after that ye shall pass on; forasmuch as ye are

come to your servant.' And they said: 'So do, as

thou hast said.' 6 And Abraham hastened into

the tent unto Sarah, and said: 'Make ready

quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it,

and make cakes.' 7 And Abraham ran unto the

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herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and

gave it unto the servant; and he hastened to

dress it. 8 And he took curd, and milk, and the

calf which he had dressed, and set it before

them; and he stood by them under the tree, andthey did eat.

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Avrahams guests, three unidentified , are treated as princes - he

provides them with water to wash their feet as well as to drink, bread

and freshly baked cakes, and a place to rest. Avrahams extraordinary

efforts thus make him the prototype for the mitzvah of Hachnasat

Orchim (welcoming guests). In fact, the Chafetz Chaim ( ,

" ) uses Avraham Avinu as the case study through which he

extrapolates the laws of welcoming guests.

Not withstanding Avrahams noteworthy conduct, as we move on to

the next chapter in the Parsha it seems as if there is another contender

for the award of best host:

1 And the two angels came to Sodom at even;

and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom; and Lot saw

them, and rose up to meet them; and he fell

down on his face to the earth; 2 and he said:

'Behold now, my lords, turn aside, I pray you,

into your servant's house, and tarry all night,

and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early,

and go on your way.' And they said: 'Nay; but

we will abide in the broad place all night.'3

Andhe urged them greatly; and they turned in unto

him, and entered into his house; and he made

them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread,

and they did eat. 4 But before they lay down,

the men of the city, even the men of Sodom,

compassed the house round, both young and

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old, all the people from every quarter. 5 And

they called unto Lot, and said unto him: 'Where

are the men that came in to thee this night?

bring them out unto us, that we may know

them.' 6 And Lot went out unto them to thedoor, and shut the door after him. 7 And he

said: 'I pray you, my brethren, do not so

wickedly. 8 Behold now, I have two daughters

that have not known man; let me, I pray you,

bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as

is good in your eyes; only unto these men do

nothing; forasmuch as they are come under the

shadow of my roof.'

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Much like Avraham, Lot welcomes guests into his home. He too

provides his visitors with water to wash their feet, something to eat and

drink as well as a place to rest and recharge their batteries.

Much like Avraham, Lot had to perform the mitzvah under less than

ideal circumstances while he had not had a Bris Milah 2 days earlier,

there existed a law in Sdom which prohibited welcoming guests. Thepenalty for violating this law was death.

Worse yet, when the house was surrounded by the angry hordes of

fiendish brutes who demanded that the guests be sent outside the

home, Lot refuses, carefully locks the door between him and his guests

and proceeds to volunteer his own daughters in place of his precious

.

If someone were to be the prototype of the greatest

example of going to extremes on behalfof ones guests, it ought to be

Lot!


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Furthermore, if one looks at the way in which the guests are greeted,

Lot goes out of his way to bow down before his guests, fully prostrating

himself before them:

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In contrast, when Avraham first welcomed his guests he bows but the

word is not written, so as to suggest that his bow was incomplete:

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Why then do we learn the mitzvah of Hachnasat Orchim from Avraham

and not Lot, who seems to be every bit as hospitable and perhaps even

more so than his uncle!?

There is one slight difference1

between the two instances: when the

visitors approached Avraham, he saw them as , whereas Lot sawhis guests as .

Why the distinction? According to , the guests were

indeed the very Angels, , and yet Avraham

surprisingly sees them as .

Rashi (in his second explanation) deals with the disparity:

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1

Another subtle distinction is the fact that Lot prepared Matzot for his guests whereas Avraham prepared bread,

the Siftei Chachamim points out that we have a tradition that it was Pesach at the time they visited Lot. A possible

significance of this might be that Pesach is not just a time in which the Jewish Children went free from slavery but

rather it is a time in which everyone and everything in nature experiences a redemptionLots emancipation from

Sdom therefore takes place on Pesach.


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().

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Avraham, he explains, who was of great strength and spiritual stature

and who was frequented by , saw the Angels as mere mortals.

Lot, however, to whom a was a once in a lifetime visitor, saw his

guests in the form of Angels.

The , Rav Yosef Shaul HaLevi Nathanson2

elaborates upon

Rashi:

, , " "

. ,

," ,

To Avraham, who loved and respected every human being, he saw

them as men, for he was able to treat them with dignity no matter who

they were, but Lot only allowed individuals of prestige and of high

regard to enter his home so naturally, all that he sees in front of his

eyes are .

In this slight variation we learn a great deal about the nature of the

mitzvah of Hachnasat Orchim.

The essence of the mitzvah lies in the way in which we view others as

they enter our home. Hachnasat Orchim is about turning every regular

Joe into a prince, to see every encounter as precious, and to bring out

the fine china for whomever should come our way. The Lots of theworld only roll out the red carpet for guests with a certain number of

0s in their bank statements but Avraham does not discriminate.

2Paraphrased in the sefer ,


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There is another layer to Avrahams conduct as well: Not only does he

treat everyone with respect, he teaches us something important about

dealing with those who are considered the upper echelons of society.

Avraham takes the and for the first time in that persons life,treats him as a normal human being.

Imagine what life must be like for the wealthiest, most intelligent and

most revered member of society. He is accustomed to everyone doting

over him, to institutions, Yeshivot and charities salivating every time he

walks into the room. No one ever sees this man or any of his family

members as a human being, instead they see little dollar signs in his

eyes in the place of pupils. He hasnt a heartbeat or a soul, he is just a

moneybag. And most of the world is like Lot, but Avrahams

heightened sensitivity allows him to see beyond the charade and to find

a real genuine encounter, where others could not.

Children are able to do this, to really look beyond the faade and see

the truth.

Someone in our neighborhood told me a story that when she was a

little girl she met Menachem Begin and said that she noticed the

birthmark on his face and started to point at it and ask him questions

about it. Because to a pure soul like a child or like Avraham Avinu, it is

easy to treat anyone like a regular human being.

And the same thing applies when dealing with the have-nots, and the

otherwise neglected sector of ones community and society when

they come to the door, it is our duty as the descendents of Avraham

Avinu to see how important such a person truly is.


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How do we respond when someone comes to our home? This past

Wednesday evening, I was able to experience this personally. Many of

the members of our community were prepared to receive numerous

knocks at the door from many a happy trick-or-treater. Obviously, itgoes without saying that this is not a Yom Tov which we observe in our

faith, though I did see someone in Sams Club with a kippah purchase

an Orange and black Halloween themed candy bowl the other day.

Anyway, I was prepared for the many knocks on the door and was

curious about the kinds of different costumes I would see this year,

maybe an Obama or Romney mask. But the costume I saw surprised

meit was a group of five grown men dressed up as the iconic 70s

rock band ZZ Top. And after doing a double take, I quickly realized

that they werent trick-or-treaters at all, but rather a group of

meshulachim, collecting for Yeshivot and needy individuals.

At a moment of cognitive dissonance like that, when you expect one

thing and discover another, you are forced to process emotionally what

is going on in your head. And I realized something frightening and quite

embarrassing, namely, that I was a little disappointed. Not because I

wanted trick-or-treaters but because I didnt want my fellow Jew who

was coming to me in a time of need. Why do we go out of our way to

purchase candy and some even decorate for some Pagan holiday, when

we cant show the same respect and welcoming attitude towards our

own?

Its because there is something wrong with the way we look at others.

Many of us, are still in high school modality, ever consumed with a

whos in and whos out? attitude. If we find ourselves eager only to

welcome in then we had better take some time to reassess our


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priorities because that is not true Hachnasat Orchim, and it is not the

way of Chesed, the way of Avraham Avinu.

Interestingly enough, if you follow the paths of the descendents of

Avraham and Lot, you will notice that the two who were once so similar

begin to take divergent paths.

Lot has grandchildren through his daughters, their names are &

.

Avraham has a son named Yitzchak, from whom, Yaakov will be born

and eventually the entire . When ELiezer goes to find an

appropriate shidduch for Avrahams son, there is only one criteria he

uses in determining who the lucky girl will beis she a Baalat Chesed,

does she fetch water for her guests?

But there is a peculiar halacha that emerges in the Torah which once

again combines the fate of Lots family with Avrahams:

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An Amonite and Moabite shall not come to join the congregation of

God, not even after ten generations, for all of eternity.

And why are we so harsh when it comes to the Amonites and

Moabites? The Torah elaborates:

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Because they did not provide you with bread and water when you left

Egypt.


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The descendents of Abraham may not marry the descendents of Lot

because they dont understand chesed and hachnasat Orchim. They

took one look at the Jews knocking at their door and said of what

benefit are they to us?

In the time of when a Moabite changed her tune and acted in a

manner of loving-kindness, providing Naomi with grain (bread) from

the threshing floor, she merited to not only join the family of Avraham

and Sarah, but also to become the mother of , giving rise to King

David.

Because, to the Jewish people, the greatest sign of nobility and istaking care of guests, treating everyone with respect and honor.

Hachnasat Orchim is thus the great equalizer. It deems everyone holy

and declares that everyone is forged in Gods image. To be

the class systems and cliques, snobbery and bullying must all cease to

exist.

We have been tested in this vein this past week. The east coast haswitnessed a storm more devastating than any other in history. In our

own Jewish community, shuls, schools, homes, cars and lives have been

destroyed. I sent out a link yesterday to the OU Hurricane Sandy relief

fund. Please after Shabbat, go online and send them some money,

remember the ways of Avraham. Remember what true Chesed is all

about.

We are indeed blessed to live in a country which affords us the ability

to partake in the democratic process it is in the spirit of Avraham

Avinu which declares every man and every woman the right to choose


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their elected officials. This week, as we cast that vote, remember what

it means that no mans opinion is unimportant or irrelevant.

When Rabbi Akiva Eiger first became a Chatan, he was spending

Shabbos by his father in law. That Shabbos afternoon he was asked a

number of questions in learning by the father-in-laws community

members who had heard the fantastical stories about this young genius

named Akiva Eiger. But to everyones dismay, his answers were terse

one or two word responses. He displayed no mastery and no

scholarship that day. However two days later he gave shiur in the

community which had far surpassed the caliber of any noted Talmid

Chacham in his generation. He was magisterial and commanding, a far

cry from the young timid boy who sat at the table two days earlier.

When his father in law asked him about his conduct he explained

that Shabbos afternoon there was another Chatan and his father in

law in the shul, I did not want to humiliate him and make the brides

father feel as if he was not getting a good deal, so I remained silent.

That is the derech of our people, no one should ever feel like anuntermensch, inadequate or unimportant. Everyone in this room is so

precious, everyones perspective is valued, and everyones spiritual

contribution is desperately needed both to our tzibur and to the

Almighty.

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Parshat Vayeira - 5773