These last two Torah portions form the heart of our teachings about kindness. Abraham, a man who is disturbed by the injustice all around him, sets out on a journey – a journey that we are still on today.
By the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Abraham has journeyed to Canaan. He’s lived through a famine and journeyed to Egypt and back. And perhaps, most importantly, he has circumcised himself – a painful, life-threatening experience to show his commitment to God.
At the beginning of the Torah portion, God appears to Abraham while Abraham is sitting at the door to his tent. The words go by quickly, but suddenly, it seems, three strangers appear, and Abraham rushes to greet them.
A simple story – just couple a of verses. But the Midrash fills in the details. It was the eighth day after Abraham’s circumcision, the rabbis tell us, the day when the pain was at its worst. And God himself came to visit the sick.
And according to the Midrash, Abraham too was performing an act of kindness. He was sitting at the door to his tent, in the heat of the day, waiting to welcome the stranger. And when the three men appeared, Abraham had to make a choice. He could continue to sit in God’s presence. Or he could welcome the men with food and water.
“Please, my lord,” says Abraham, “if I have found grace in your eyes, please to not turn away from your servant.” But in Hebrew the word for “my lord” is Adonai. And there are no capital letters. We have no way of knowing who Abraham was talking to – whether he was asking the men to wait or whether he was, in essence, putting God on hold.
But the rabbis were insistent. Abraham was talking to God. “Welcoming the stranger,” they said, “is more important than beholding the divine presence.” This simple sentence about welcoming the stranger contains one of the deepest insights of Judaism. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks puts it:
Abraham, father of monotheism, knew that paradoxical truth that to live the life of faith is to see the trace of God in the face of the 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 three anonymous passers by. This was Abraham’s greatness. He knew that serving God and welcoming strangers were not two things but one.
Abraham avinu, Abraham our father, certainly had his flaws. During the famine, he lied to protect himself and told Pharaoh that Sarah was his sister. And at the end of this week’s Torah portion, he almost kills his own son. But he is known in our tradition for his incredible kindness.
In next week’s Torah portion, we will read of Sarah’s death and Abraham’s old age. “Abraham was old and long in days,” the Torah tells us. But the Soloneme rebbe teaches that being old and being long in days are not the same thing. Being old, he says, refers to our age. And “long in days” refers to how we spent our lives. Did we spend our lives as members of a community, celebrating with others and sharing their pain? Did we work to make a kinder, better world? Or did we live empty lives, going through the motions or stuggling to stay afloat?
“The Shulchan Aruch,” the Soloneme writes, “says that for a Jew, a day without kindness is not counted as a day of his life. This is why the Torah looks back on the life of Abraham and teaches ‘Abraham was old, and his days were many’ For a Jew, it is not enough just to get old. Instead, a Jew must live every day of his life, and the only way for Jew to be fully alive is through acts of kindness.”
The Psalmist wrote “olam chesed y’vaneh,” you shall build a world of kindness. This is the work that we were sent into this world to do, and this is the reason that God chose Abraham to be the father of the Jewish people.
May we all live lives that are fully alive, and may we build a world of kindness.