GEN892 Let the poor be members of your household.   Pirkei Avot I:5  … The word ani means not only “poor” in the strictly financial sense. A man may be wealthy and still be an ani. Does not King David cry out, “I am poor and suffering!” Psalms 69:30 – and surely David possessed great wealth. Any man who is in need is, in regard to that need, poor. A man who is depressed and needs cheering; a lonely person in need of a friend; one who has a problem and needs advice – for all these who seek the warmth of friendship and sympathetic counsel, “let your house be open wide.” The Hebrew word which we translate as “wide,” r’vahah, also means “profit.” There is no word in our vocabulary which is so evocative of a sense of earnestness and efficiency, dispatch and self-sacrifice, as the word “business.” Consider the expressions, “He means business”; “a business-like manner”; “business is business.”   Now, for the authentic Jew, observance of Torah is his true, his only business. Recall how perturbed our father Abraham was when no travellers appeared, to whose wants he could minister. [In Scripture we read about Abraham, “The Lord appeared to him … as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day” [this verse] Rashi comments: “He sat in the tent door, to see if anyone came passing by, whom he could bring into his house” – to provide hospitality; this is the Midrashic view that we find in Avoth d’Rabbi Nathan, B14, and Midrash haGadol on the verse (See Torah Shelemah on the verse §§20, 23. Rashi continues: “In the heat of the day: The Holy One took the sun out of its sheath [so to speak], that he should not be troubled with guests [in the intense heat Abraham would find no one on whom to lavish hospitality]. But because He saw that he was so distressed that no [potential] guests came, He brought the angels to him in the guise of men” (verse 2). This is based on a passage in Talmud Baba Metzia 86b, and is stated expressly in Midrash Aggada p. 39.] ] These were Abraham’s “customers” ; and why  should he not be unhappy when “business” was so bad that day! Bearing this in mind, we can now interpret our teaching: Let your home be open for profit-making. Your entire approach to the mitzvah of hospitality should be with the same verve, spirit of dedication and punctiliousness with which you do your business. Let your home be open for the spiritual “profits” implicit in this mitzvah, for the divine blessings in store for those who fulfill it.   Included in this teaching is the principle of being generally accessible to others. The urge for privacy in our day has become almost a craze. Impassable secretaries, unlisted telephone numbers, and stuffy doormen are all signs of the times. The Mishnah, however, urges us to be available to the poor, accessible to those in need. Let your home be open lir’vahah: the word also means “for relief” – for aid and deliverance.   SINAI1 57-8

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GEN893 The Da’as Z’keinim explains that when God commanded Abraham to circumcise the men of his household, he sought advice from Mamre on how to convince those who were reluctant to comply. Mamre suggested he first circumcise himself and his son. Ismael, and the others would then emulate his example. True to his advice, after Abraham and his son were circumcised, the rest of his household were circumcised too.   … Could not Abraham have convinced his servants of the need to accept the command of God? Could not Abraham, a man of princely esteem and royal bearing, a man of dignity and persuasive eloquence, summon his powers of logic and elocution to sway the thinking of his servants? Has Jewish history ever witnessed a more articulate spokesman for the word of God? Apparently, we must conclude that here are times when the conviction of logic and the power of remonstration are not enough. There exists a more pressing argument than the finesse of eloquent rhetoric. And that is the power of example. … Too often e fail to appreciate how important a message this is. AS educators or as parents, we tend to think that words are the instrument which will inspire our youth and evoke the soundness of character we try to instill.   But from this Da’as Z’keinim, we now see that we have no more effective method of stimulating good conduct and inspiring our youth than through developing within ourselves the pattern of behavior we expect from our children. Regardless of the soundness of our beliefs, and irrespective of the elucidation of our thinking, there exists no more convincing logic than the argument of example.  BUILD 58-9

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GEN894 A person should seek out guests, even in difficult circumstances.   As a rule the Torah is extremely concise, but in this section the Torah describes all the small details of Abraham’s behavior with his guests.  This, wrote the Chofetz Chayim, is meant to teach us the importance of hachnosas orchim – hospitality to guests.  Abraham was very old and had just undergone circumcision.   Although he was in great pain, he nevertheless sat by the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day, hoping to see a sojourner whom he could invite to his home.  Even if we are unable to emulate Abraham completely, we should at least learn the fundamental principle of appreciate guests.   Ahavas Chesed, part 3, ch. 2.  Following an operation we might not be able to invite guests as Abraham did.   But at least we should learn from Abraham to invite guests even when it is difficult.   PLYN 58-9

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GEN895 The stranger in our midst. Allied to the kindliness we must show to the weak and the dying, the poor and the orphan, is the sympathetic treatment we must accord to the stranger in our midst.   The command “to love the stranger” occurs at least thirty-six times in the Torah, for “were ye not strangers in the land of Egypt?”   So kind has the Jew been to all in need or who have been alone in a strange environment, that it is no exaggeration to say that the word “stranger” has almost disappeared from his vocabulary. Each was made welcome to enjoy hospitality; each was asked to “feel at home” in our midst. Abraham gladly welcomed the wayfarers, little suspecting that they were angels in disguise [this verse].   The rigorous measures introduced against strangers of another faith in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah Ezra 9:2, 10:3; Nehemiah 9:2, 13:3, 23 were born of the desperate conditions of the times. Judaism had to be saved, a drastic step had to be made; with the result that those homes which were founded on mixed marriages had to be set up anew, divorced of the non-Jewish partner. This cannot be regarded as a measure of exclusiveness and chauvinism with which the Jewish people are credited by their maligners and detractors. The early chapters of the Torah and Books of Ruth and Jonah, with their accounts of men and women of other faiths who embraced the Jewish God, are proof that the racialism of Ezra was the exception rather than the rule. LEHRMAN 214

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GEN898 In Judaism, belief is secondary to action, and one is judged on the basis of what one does, not what one feels, thinks, or believes.   There are numerous Jewish sources demonstrating this fundamental viewpoint of Judaism.   Abraham left the presence of God Himself to perform the mitzvah of welcoming strangers into his home.  From here, the Talmud Shevuot 35b learns that performance of a religious action supersedes even the emotional feeling of being with God Almighty.   God says that it is preferable not to believe in God as long as the Jewish people keep the commandments of the Torah Jerusalem Talmud, Chagigah 6b.  (Of course, the goal of Judaism is to accomplish both, but action precedes feeling and belief.)  AMEMEI 39-40

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GEN901 Th[e] concept – that inviting strangers is seen more important than a private audience with the Almighty – is not only a Midrashic suggestion, but is brought down as part of normative Jewish law, both in Sephardic Kaf HaChaim 5:6 and Askenazic Rema, Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 33:1 with Mishna Berurah commentary 8 traditions.   AMJV 160

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GEN903 Using [Abraham] as an example, the rabbis praised the virtues of hospitality and developed a set of rules for both the guest and host to follow. [See source pages 89-96 for discussion and Talmudic citations].   ISAACS 84

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GEN897 A person who appreciates the importance of having guests will run to greet them. Abraham ran the entire way to greet the three strangers whom he spotted in the distance.  Not only did Abraham fulfill the mitzvah of taking in guests; he literally ran to perform the mitzvah (Haamek Dovor, on this verse).   PLYN 62

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GEN902 The only way to account for the shrillness, the passion, and the near-hysteria of the Hebrew prophets in their denunciation of immorality is to understand that the prophet looks upon the world through the perspective of God, who has a stake in the human situation, who cares for man, who in some sense is involved in the affairs of men. “For I know their sorrows.” Exodus 3:7 If, indeed, God is mercy and love and justice, then any act of injustice anywhere must, in some sense, “affect God.” [By this we are to understand that God is involved in history – in the affairs of men – to a degree which is best described by saying that “He is affected” by the deeds of man.] One poor man cries out and foundations seem to tremble. “And it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto Me, that I will hear.” Exodus 22:26   “The prophet’s word is a scream in the night, … while the world is at east and asleep, the prophet feels the blast from heaven.” A. J. Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Harper & Row, 1955), p. 16. There is another insight which can assist us in understanding the dominant moral passion of the Bible. The rational bias in philosophy, which is our legacy from the ancient Greeks, has influenced us all to assign higher value to the universal over the particular, the abstract over the concrete.   This has its origin in Greek ontological theory and epistemology. Thus Plata had little regard for the visual arts because their artifacts were twice removed from the Ideal Forms, and Aristotle thought more of drama than history because the latter dealt only with particular events while drama is more general, depicting types of character and kinds of events. It is for this reason that general terms like “justice,” “righteousness,” “ethics,” and “morality” seem to possess an air of sublimity and nobility, while particular acts of morality, embedded in all the prosaic details of their concrete situation, may, by contrast, appear trial and insignificant. Yet, when we stop to consider the nature of morality, we find that the very reverse is the truth. Justice and righteousness for all of their sonorous sound are mere concepts – empty and disembodied. Moral reality is achieved only when these moral ideals are realized in human affairs and actualized in concrete human deeds and actual human relationships. It is this emphasis on particular moral acts that characterizes the Torah approach to morality. The very first story told of Abraham after he enters into the covenant with God and becomes, as it were, the first Jew, involves an act of hospitality. Weary strangers appear at Abraham’s tent, and although weak from his recent circumcision and presumably still experiencing the presence of God, the aged Patriarch breaks off the divine encounter and “runs to meet them.” [this verse] After inviting them in, we are told, “Abraham ran to the herd and fetched a calf … and he took curd and mild … and he stood by them under the tree and they did eat.” Genesis 18: 7-8   This wealth of detail describing the personal devotion of the Patriarch in a series of benevolent actions reveals what is the ultimate task of the Jew and the human being: to realize abstract moral concepts in the myriad situations of everyday life. SPERO 122-3

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GEN899 It was irrelevant to Abraham whether his guests shared his faith.   According to the rabbinic understanding, when travelers thanked Abraham and Sarah for their hospitality, the couple would direct the guest’s thanks to God, the ultimate source of food Tanhuma Lekh Leckha 12. Through such behavior, Judaism’s premier patriarch and matriarch made people aware of God’s existence and made God lovable to them.   TELVOL1:458-9

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