Personal Love

Translated from Rabbi Arush’s feature article in the weekly Chut shel Chessed newsletter. The articles focus on his main message: “Loving others as yourself” and emuna.

The Pain Is Bone-deep 

At the age of ninety-nine, one is not so young anymore. Even then, in the times of Avraham Avinu, it was already an advanced age. How do we know? From our parasha, in which the angels inform Sarah of the future birth of Yitzchak and Sarah is doubtful, due to her husband’s advanced age.  

Avraham Avinu was recovering from the brit milah (circumcision) that he had performed upon himself, at the command of Hashem yitbarach. On the third day, when the pain was at its strongest, and outside it was very, very hot – unusually hot – Avraham Avinu was at the opening of his tent, waiting for guests. If he would have seen travelers going by and would have made the effort to greet them in spite of the pain, it would have been one thing. But there was no one to be seen… Our natural reaction would have been: “What do you want? Sit and relax and let your body heal…” 

And not only that – Hashem revealed Himself to him at that moment! He came to visit Avraham. We haven’t the slightest idea of the immense pleasure involved in receiving such a revelation of the Shechinah (Divine Presence), in seeing Hashem, so-to-speak. This would have been the perfect time to forget about the whole world and just enjoy the moment…  

But our forefather could not relax, because he was in pain. No – not the pain of the brit. Something else was causing him pain. He was pained because he had no guests. His desire to give, to provide, to feed and to bring people close to Hashem was simply burning in him, like a fire in his bones. He was willing to do without the Shechinah revelation. He was not interested in his age, nor in his medical condition, nor in the heat – just give him a guest, even the lowliest person, and he will run and run and activate the entire family and spend a great amount of money only to do good to someone else and influence him! 

It is amazing to think about this, to think about this giant of a man. And we ask ourselves: why was he doing this? Why did he long so for guests at the expense of everything else, including even his spiritual development? And since we ask, “When will my deeds equal those of my forefathers?”¹, we ask our forefather Avraham: Please tell us, why did you do this? Why this burning desire? 

Complete Love  

Every person loves himself, is concerned for himself and his interests. Unfortunately, there is no room in the heart for two loves. But Avraham Avinu loved Hashem completely. If Hashem called him “Avraham who loves Me”, that means that he loved Hashem without any concern for himself or his own desires. 

If there is something that is G-d’s will, nothing can match it! 

Avraham Avinu believed in Hashem completely and knew that Hashem wanted all living human beings to know about Him and recognize Him and talk to Him and thank Him and live with the knowledge of His existence! 

And that was Avraham Avinu’s task: to go from place to place and bring people closer to Hashem. As our parasha says later: “He planted an eshel in Beer Sheva”². The midrash says that he planted an orchard that had all types of fruit trees so that he would be able to give every guest the fruit of his choice. And he opened an inn where he would welcome the passers-by, and after they would eat and drink, he would tell them to make a blessing. When they would ask him: “What blessing should we make?” he would reply: “Say this: Blessed is the Supreme G-d, from whose food we have eaten!” 

The Rambam tells thus: “And he began to stand and call out loudly to the entire world and announce that there is one G-d in the whole world, and that it is He whom they should worship. And he would go and call out and bring together people from city to city and from kingdom to kingdom until he reached the land of Canaan and invoked Hashem’s name. And since the people would gather around him and ask him about his teachings, he would teach each and every one according to his level until he would return him to the way of truth; thousands and tens of thousands of people gathered around him and they were the people of the house of Avraham and he planted in their hearts this great principle…”³ 

What do we learn from this? That what burned in Avraham Avinu was the idea of disseminating faith in Hashem, and the main tool for that was his hospitality and that is why it was so important to him to welcome guests! 

One can understand this in a simple, and even slightly superficial way: that for Avraham, hospitality was just a form of enticement. His goal was to attract people and remove their objections and open their hearts so that he would be able to influence them to come close to Hashem yitbarach, the same way children are given sweets so that they will come and say Tehillim.  

But if that is the whole explanation, one must ask: If it was only the enticement, why did Avraham have to slaughter three calves? In one calf there is enough fine and tender meat for a hundred people. Even the tongue of one calf is enough for more than three people. And in general, for three people who have been walking in the heat for hours – a bit of shade and cold water are already a great chessed (act of lovingkindness), but he asked Sarah to prepare round cakes and offered them milk and butter – and that in itself should have been enough to give them lessons in emuna (faith) and to teach them to invoke the name of Hashem, and yet Avraham Avinu had no rest until he had slaughtered and prepared three calves. 

One may explain this in light of a tremendous and novel idea – that Hashem wishes to reveal to the Jewish people that He loves them, and that the main principle of emuna is to believe that Hashem is a good Father, Who loves every Jew and does only good for him and wants to make things even better and even better. In light of this, one can glean from this behavior a completely different and deep idea. 

But first – an introduction: 

Hashem yitbarach created the world to reveal his aspect of rachamim (mercy)⁴. How does one discover that Hashem is merciful? When human beings show rachamim to others, it is revealed that this world is a world of rachamim, and that makes it obvious that the Creator who created them is a merciful being, full of rachamim, Who is merciful towards all His creatures. So, besides the mitzvah and the chessed of being merciful and the mitzvah of emulating Hashem, there is also a revelation of the true and real emuna. 

On the other hand, when human beings are cruel towards one another (may this not happen to us), it is hard for human beings to believe that Hashem is merciful because they see cruelty in the world. And so, besides the severe transgression of causing pain to others and defrauding them – there is also a great hastara (hiding) of Hashem’s rachamim, Hashem’s light, because people think that Hashem is not rachman, chalila, and so, human beings do not know Hashem and do not really believe in Him.  

And that was the goal of Avraham Avinu’s hospitality. When Avraham Avinu, the pillar of emuna, busied himself with giving endlessly, and just doing good – this was not only a means, but actually was in itself an act of teaching emuna, because that way he provided his guests with the feeling that the world is all goodness and chessed, and his guests came to the conclusion that Hashem is good and does good, and then not only did they thank Hashem and evoke His name, but they knew Him truly; they became familiar with His middot (traits) and especially His middah of goodness and rachamim and His great love for all creatures. 

Hashem Loves ME 

That is why Avraham slaughtered a separate calf for each of the three guests. Because he wanted their emuna to be correct – that it is not only that Hashem is good and does good, but that Hashem loves each and every person in particular: Hashem yitbarach always loves me and I will always have only good. 

If he would have slaughtered one calf, the guests would have thought that he had slaughtered it only in honor of the greatest of the three and that it was in his merit that they ate as well – but then one could not have learned from this that Hashem loves each and every one personally. But Avraham wanted to reveal to them the complete and full emuna that Hashem loves each and every person in particular, and that is why he slaughtered a calf for each one and prepared a complete se’ah of flour for each one (each se’ah in itself is a tremendous amount – over seven liters of the finest white flour). 

And so, hospitality is in itself a revelation of emuna and teaches the heart emuna: Not only did Hashem create the world and everything is His, and not only is Hashem good and merciful and does much chessed, but Hashem loves me and loves each and every human being and wants to do good to each person personally, and Avraham Avinu’s working so hard on his hospitality, quickly and with a glad heart, showed his guests how good Hashem is and how much Hashem loves me and each and every human being.  

Editor’s Notes: 

¹ Tanna D’vei Eliyahu Rabbah 25 

² Bereishit (Genesis) 21:33 

³ Halachot of Idolatry (“Worshiping Stars) 1:1-3 

⁴ Likutei Moharan 64:1 (quoting from Etz Chaim, Heikhal Adam Kadmon 1:1, p. 24). See also Hashem’s Mercy