We read in our parsha:(18:1-3) ’Now the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot. And he lifted his eyes and saw, and behold, three men were standing beside him, and he saw and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent and he prostrated himself to the ground. And he said:’אדני: my Lord, if I have found favor in your eyes, please do not pass on from beyond your servant.’
Rashi comments :’Another explanation: the word אדני is holy, and he was telling the Holy One, Blessed be His Name, to wait for him until he would run and bring in the wayfarers.’
Our Sages, in the Gemara (Shabbat 147.) learn from this, that: ’גדולה: greater is הכנסת אורחים: hospitality to guests than הקבלת פני : the reception of the Shechina, as it is written: ’My Lord, if I have found favor in your eyes, please do not pass on from beside Your servant.'
Rav Eliyahu Dessler, on this Gemara, comments:
’It is a surprising thing, as it appears like a חילול ה': a desecration of the Holy Name, to leave Hashem standing, as it were, in the midst of the presence of the Shechina!
‘However, there is a state of: A time to do for Hashem - to breach Your Torah’, such as the permission to transcribe the Oral Torah.
‘So too, our custom of swaying when we pray, to enable us to better have כוונה : proper intention, when we pray - should we not, when we are standing before the King, stand motionless - are our movements not a chillul Hashem?
‘The answer is that the main thing that Hashem looks at, is our inner state, and therefore what might appear in the ‘lower world’ as a chillul Hashem, is not viewed like that in the ‘upper realm’ - as there, only the inner intention is considered: התכלית: the objective.
‘If the objective brings to kiddush Hashem, then it itself is a kiddush Hashem.
‘This is the case in our matter: The hospitality of Avraham to the wayfarers was, in the perspective of pure chesed - even if the wayfarers were idolators - in the inner sense, in the world of giving, greater than the world of prophecy, the world of cleaving to Hashem - and therefore, in no way a desecration of the Name of Hashem’.
Rav Zalman Sorotzkin proffers two reasons for Avraham’s action: ’One: the Schechina does not, as it were, require any ‘assistance’ from man or his chesed, whereas the wayfarers, being weary and thirsty, have a need for rest and bread and water.
‘Second: Also in respect of receiving the Face of the Shechina, as in His Name and in observance of His Will, we do chesed for all creatures, and further, perhaps by offering them hospitality, they will come to be converted.’
The Netziv adds: ‘We learn that Avraham was, at that time, engrossed in the love of Hashem and His reception, which, apart from being a wondrous pleasure, was also an observance of the positive Mitzvah: ואהבת את ה' :’And you shall love Hashem’.
‘The question to be decided is for which Mitzvah is one obligated, when he is engaged in the Mitzvah of ‘loving Hashem’, which has no fixed time, obligated to stop - and our Gemara gives the answer: that greater is the Mitzvah of הכנסת אורחים: giving hospitality to wayfarers, as we learn from our parsha.
‘When we say:’greater’, we don’t mean more important, but that it is the Will of Hashem, that when we are faced with a מצוה מעשית: a Mitzvah requiring action, we should perform it in preference to a Mitzvah which has no fixed time for its performance.
‘Our Sages bring a proof from Avraham Avinu, who took a break from receiving the face of Hashem, to engage in attending to the needs of the wayfarers.
‘When confronted with this situation, Avraham was uncertain what to do - however, when he considered the matter, he decided that as they were eminent men, it was beneath their honor for their needs to be attended to by his servants, and that he had to attend to them himself, and interrupt his reception of the Shechina.
‘Had they been lesser men, he would have left them to care of his servantd, and continued with his reception of the Shechina.’
Rav Avigdor Nebenzahl brings an interesting insight into our subject, asking: ’Why can’t we also do as Avraham did: stop speaking to Hashem, to attend to the wayfarers who appeared to him?
‘Answers the Rav: For us, ‘speaking to Hashem’ is by our daily prayers, which is a mitzvah - and one who is engaged in performing the service of Hashem, does not leave it in the middle to engage in another service of Hashem: hospitality to wayfarers.
‘To Avraham, receiving the Shechina, was not by way of service of Hashem - it was by way of שכר: reward: Hashem came to visit him by way of a reward, as a visit to a sick person, Avraham suffering the pain of the third day after his circumcision.
‘This was in the way of the reward ‘like that in the world-to-come’:in this world.
‘When Avraham saw the wayfarers, it was in the way of : 'Today- to do’ - this world is the world ‘of doing’ - the reward can wait for the world-to-come:’and tomorrow, to receive the reward’ (Erovin 22.).
‘Avraham left the receipt of the reward to the world-to-come, and ran, to perform his duty as a servant of Hashem in this world.’
The Panim Yafot expounds:’Since the Shechina appeared to Avraham, it obligated him to sanctify himself in greater holiness, to receive the face of the Shechina.
‘Since he saw the wayfarers who were idolators, all his desire was to bring them under the Wings of the Shechina - to convert them.
‘At the same time, he was concerned that if he engaged in that holy task, the Shechina which had appeared to visit him, might leave.
‘He therefore implored Hashem:’My Lord, do not leave your servant’ - from this, our Sages learned that ‘greater is hospitality than receiving the face of the Shechina’.
‘As precious it was in his eyes to ascend by receiving the Shechina, more precious was it in his eyes, to perform the Mitzvah of hospitality to the wayfarers, and to elevate them.’
The Alshich Hakadosh comments: ’Avraham said: I have now been rewarded by two gifts: to receive the face of the Shechina and to be presented with the Mitzvah of extending hospitality to wayfarers.
‘If I engage in the latter, perhaps the Shechina will depart, and if I implored the Shechina: ’Please do not leave me’, I may have to do so at length, and these wayfarers - who appeared out of nowhere - may just as speedily depart.
‘Woe to me, if I plead with them first, as this would be disrespectful to the Shechina, to speak to them, before I speak to the Shechina.
‘He therefore acted wisely, by not speaking to them, but hinting to them that he wished to speak to them, so that they not leave.
‘To this end, ‘he ran toward them’ - though they were close by - ‘from the opening of the tent’, so that they would understand that he wished to speak to them - that whether they be angels or mortals - ‘and prostrated himself before them’, thereby feeling assured that they would wait for him, and not depart whilst he was engaged with the Shechina, as they would be aware that he wished to speak to them, and would not be satisfied until he did so.’
The Netivot Shalom expounds: ’It is a wonder, that when Avraham was confronted with the two Mitzvot - receiving the Shechina AND providing hospitality to the wayfarers - whilst he was already engaged in receiving the countenance of the Shechina.
‘From where did Avraham know that ‘hospitality to strangers was greater than receiving the Shechina’?
‘We have to say that the purpose of Creation was doing chesed, as we read in the Psalm(89) ’Because I said: the world by chesed will be built’- as though Hashem could have decided that this be by the attribute of יראה, of strict justice, He chose that it be, by the attribute of love - of chesed.
‘Avraham, when confronted with these two mitzvot, knew that it would be the Will of Hashem, that he engage in the one that would give the greater nachat ruach to Hashem - and that clearly was attending to the wayfarers needs.
‘This attribute of love embraced even the case where you do not know at all, who they are - only that they are ‘sons of Hashem’, and therefore you are obligated to love them.’
The Be’er Mayim Chaim expounds: ’We read that Avraham was sitting at the entrance to his tent, this being due to his love of Hashem and His mitzvot, as though he merited a visit from the Shechina, and should have been totally engaged in the enjoyment of this singular honor, and not to be aware of anything else whatsoever - but not so, Avraham.
‘Because at the same time as he was enjoying this wondrous experience, he raised his eyes to see, perhaps there was a passer-by to whom he could extend hospitality, and he did not desist from so doing, neither because of the singular visit he received, and not because of his Awe of his Creator, so beloved were the Mitzvot in his eyes, that not for a moment were they far from his heart.
'And - as our Sages teach - ‘greater is the Mitzvah of hospitality than receiving the countenance of the Shechina’- and pethaps because of this, the word ישב, sat, is written incompletely - it should have written יושב - to hint that though he saw the revelation of Hashem, he still was on the lookout that perhaps there was a passer-by, to whom he could run, to extend hospitality.
‘Therefore, at the same time, he raised his eyes to the distance, to see if perhaps, there was a passer-by, this at a time when he was in the presence of the King, and should have been totally engrossed in his wondrous honor, and lowering his eyes from being distracted by any other matter.’
Rav Pinchas Friedman brings our Gemara, and comments: ’The parshanim wondered: though it is true that we can learn from Avraham that ‘hospitality to strangers is greater than receiving the countenance of the Shechina’ - as we read that Avraham asked Hashem, not to depart whilst he was engaged in extending hospitality to the three wayfarers - but from where did Avraham learn this halakha?
‘Many answers have been advanced to this question, and let us now offer a new answer: Avraham learned this - that it was right to ask Hashem to wait, while he was engaged in hospitality to the wayfarers - from Hashem, on that day, because that was the first occasion on which this halakha was in evidence concerning Hashem.
‘The matter was that after Hashem visited the ailing Avraham, on seeing Avraham’s distress at being unable to perform the Mitzvah of hospitality, He sent him the three angels, so that Avraham could perform for them the Mitzvah of hospitality.
‘From here, the proof that ‘hospitality is greater than receiving the countenance of the Shechina’, as had this not been the case, Hashem would have departed from Avraham before the appearance of the wayfarers.
‘As Hashem stayed throughout, it is proof that Hadhem innovated on that day in the Beit Din Above, the halakha that ‘hospitality is greater than receiving the countenance of the Shechina’.
A parting gem on the very same question, from the Chidushei Ha’Rim: ’Avraham learned that ‘hospitality was greater than receiving the countenance of the Shechina’, from Hashem saying to him: ’Sit and I will stand, and this is a sign to your descendants, that I am destined to do so in the congregation of the judges, and they will sit’ (Rashi 18:1).
‘From this, Avraham learned not to be ashamed, out of awe of Hashem, but that one is permitted to perform a Mitzvah in composure, as that is the Will of Hashem - so too, the dayanim sit when judging, so as to do so in composure, remain seated, whilst Hashem is standing.
‘Abraham deduced from this our halakha - from Hashem saying to him: Sit and I will stand, meaning: don’t stop from your service of sitting at the entrance of your tent, to see if there are any wayfarers.’
לרפואת נריה דוב בן חנה ולרפואת נועם עליזה בת זהבה רבקה ונחום אלימלך רפאל בן זהבה רבקה, בתוך שאר חולי עמנו.