Ra'anana Community Kollel - Parshat Vayera 5766

No Matter What

Rabbi Binyomin Lipson

Our tradition teaches that our forefather Avraham excelled above all in the kindness that he did with others. In his quest to spread the awareness of truth in the world, Avraham inspired his many students to acquire this knowledge through recognizing the beauty of the natural world and cultivated within them a feeling of gratitude for the many, many wonderful gifts which were placed within it. To this end, the Gemara tells us that Avraham established an Eishel, an open house for guests and passersby which offered food, drink, and lodging for the night.

What seems a bit strange however, is that none of these extensive chessed activities are mentioned directly in the Torah. Interestingly, the one exception to this rule seems to be at the beginning of this week’s parsha. Why is only here that we see a detailed depiction of the extent to which Avraham took care of his guests and genuinely sought the good of others?

As we all know, the parshah opens with Avraham sitting at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. According to the Midrash, this was actually the third day after Avraham had performed the brit millah which is the most difficult point of the recovery process. The Midrash also explains that so as not to trouble Avraham with guests while he was still convalescing, Hashem “removed the sun from its casing” in order to ensure that no traveler would dare venture outside. This is the setting in which we read about Avraham’s extraordinary treatment of his three mysterious guests; the only place in the Torah where we see explicitly the legendary chachnasat orchim for which he became so famous.

The Kehillat Yitzhak explains that the Torah chose to give us a glimpse of the kindness of Avraham Avinu specifically in this instance in order to teach us an important lesson about the way in which we should strive to fulfill all the mitzvot of the Torah. Many times when a person in the community is needy and requires the help of others, there are many people who exempt themselves from this obligation for a wide variety of reasons. One person is busy at work trying to support his family. Another is sick. Yet another is involved with other matters. And unfortunately, this state of affairs can sometimes result in a lack of support for the person who desperately needs it.

Certainly, if anyone would have asked us, we could have easily exempted Avraham from making the efforts to take in guests under such adverse conditions. He was ninety nine years old, suffering from the most painful day of recovery after a major operation, and in addition to everything, his air-conditioning was not working on one of the hottest days of all time! If there was anyone who was exempt from fulfilling such a mitzvah it was Avraham.

This is the message that the Torah is trying to teach us. Take the mitzvah of chessed for example. Almost everyone enjoys doing something for someone else, and we all do it on a fairly regular basis. However, the question is, what is the motivation beyond our actions. Everyone has hobbies. Some people play golf and others prefer skydiving for a little excitement. Some people collect record albums, and others enjoy traveling. Of course, there’s noting wrong with this, but we must beware of the day that our mitzvah observance becomes something we do for the purpose of enjoyment and entertainment. A hobby is something we only perform because of the enjoyment that it gives us, but they are not absolute values in and of themselves.

Mitzvot on the other hand were not given for the express purpose of providing us with something interesting to occupy us in our spare time. The mitzvot perfect our true spiritual selves and awaken us to the true priorities in life, but we must always remember that they are commandments and not merely “good deeds”.

The Torah refrains from teaching us almost anything about Avraham’s chessed activities so that we should not get the wrong impression. Some people are natural candidates for giving to others, either because they have a lot of free time or a particularly generous nature, or both. Most people will not push away a lost Jew if he lands on their doorstep, or pass by a poor person without giving him at least something. However, the true test comes when our situation makes it more challenging for us to fulfill a particular mitzvah and although in our heart of hearts we know what we should do, the fact of the matter is that we just don’t feel like it.

Perhaps it was with times like these in mind that the Torah waited to reveal Avraham’s love of kindness until he was recovering from his brit millah at the age of ninety nine on the hottest day of the year. Despite all of the possible reasons he could have used to exempted himself completely, or even instructed his students or family members to act on his behalf, Avraham prevailed in teaching us that his involvement in helping others was not a hobby that he chose to do because he enjoyed it, but rather, an absolute value in and of itself.