This week. At the beginning of this portion we see that YHVH (The LORD) appears to Abraham. This is an incredibly packed portion of the Torah. Contained in it is God’s test of Abraham’s devotion by commanding him to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah (the Temple Mount) in Jerusalem. Isaac is bound and placed on the altar, and Abraham raises the knife to slaughter his son. A voice from heaven calls to stop him; a ram, caught in the undergrowth by its horns, is offered in Isaac’s place.
Please stand with me while I read from the parsha:
Gen 18:1 And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day.
Gen 18:2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth
Gen 18:3 and said, “O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant.
Gen 18:4 Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree,
Gen 18:5 while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on–since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.”
Gen 18:6 And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quick! Three seahs of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes.”
Gen 18:7 And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, who prepared it quickly.
Gen 18:8 Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate.
The following is from an article by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
It is one of the most famous scenes in the Bible. Abraham is sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day when three strangers pass by. He urges them to rest and take some food. The text calls them men. They are in fact angels, coming to tell Sarah that she will have a child.
The chapter seems simple. It is, however, complex and ambiguous. It consists of three sections:
Verse 1: God appears to Abraham.
Verses 2–16: Abraham and the men/angels.
Verses 17–33: The dialogue between God and Abraham about the fate of Sodom.
So we ask, are these sections related to one another? Are they one scene, two or three? The most obvious answer is three. Each of the above sections is a separate event. First, God appears to Abraham, then the visitors arrive with the news about Sarah’s child. Then the great dialogue about justice.
Maimonides suggests that there are two scenes (the visit of the angels, and the dialogue with God). The first verse does not describe an event at all. It is, rather, a chapter heading.
The third possibility is that we have a single continuous scene. God appears to Abraham, but before He can speak, Abraham sees the passersby and asks God to wait while he serves them food. Only when they have departed does he turn to God, and the conversation begins.
The Sages have come to understand this passage as one continuous story. This interpretation leaves us with an extraordinary event because it suggests that Abraham interrupted God as He was about to speak, and asked Him to wait while he attended to his guests. This is how tradition ruled that the passage should be read:
The Lord appeared to Abraham . . . He looked up and saw three men standing over against him. On seeing them, he hurried from his tent door to meet them, and bowed down. [Turning to God,] he said: “My God, if I have found favor in your eyes, do not leave your servant [i.e., please wait until I have given hospitality to these men].” [He then turned to the men and said:] “Let me send for some water so that you may bathe your feet, and rest under this tree . . .”
This daring interpretation became the basis for a principle in Judaism: “Greater is hospitality than receiving the Divine Presence.” Faced with a choice between listening to God and offering hospitality to [what seemed to be] human beings, Abraham chose the latter. God acceded to his request, and waited while Abraham brought the visitors food and drink, before engaging him in dialogue about the fate of Sodom.
How can this be so? Is it not disrespectful at best, heretical at worst, to put the needs of human beings before attending on the presence of God?
What the passage is telling us, though, is something of immensely profound. The idolaters of Abraham’s time worshipped the sun, the stars and the forces of nature as gods. They worshipped power and the powerful. Abraham knew, however, that God is not in nature but beyond nature. There is only one thing in the universe on which He has set His image: the human person, every person, powerful and powerless alike.
The forces of nature are impersonal, which is why those who worship them eventually lose their humanity. You cannot worship impersonal forces and remain a person: compassionate, humane, generous, forgiving. Precisely because we believe that God is personal, someone to whom we can say “You,” we honor human dignity as something sacred.
Abraham, father of monotheism, knew the truth that to live the life of faith is to see the traces of God in the face of a stranger. It is easy to receive the Divine Presence when God appears as God. What is difficult is to sense the Divine Presence when it comes disguised as the people we meet each day. That was Abraham’s greatness. He knew that serving God and offering hospitality to strangers were not two things but one.
One of the most beautiful comments on this episode was given by R. Shalom of Belz, who noted that in verse 2 the visitors are spoken of as standing above Abraham (nitzavim alav). In verse 8, Abraham is described as standing above them (omed aleihem). He said: at first, the visitors were higher than Abraham because they were angels and he a mere human being. But when he gave them food and drink and shelter, he stood even higher than the angels. We honor God by honoring His image, all humankind.
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