I want to welcome everyone from the newly established New Frontier Jewish Youth to Sacramento for your first ever Kinus. So wonderful to join with you for a Shabbat of prayer, learning, good food and of course fun. This experience will be as inspirational for us here at Mosaic Law as it will be for you.

Parshat VaYera begins rather strangely. Abraham, after being circumcised as the ripe old age of 99, has God appear before him at the opening of his tent at the heat of the day. All of a sudden Abraham looked up and behold-there were three men coming towards him. Abraham appears to stop his conversation with God in that moment and runs towards the men.[1] How could Abraham do this? God is fulfilling the Mitzvah of bikkur holim, visiting the sick, and Abraham is running off to greet others?

The Meor Einayim, the original Chernoblyer Rebbe, has a great teaching on this. He tells: this is what really happened to our Father Abraham. He was in the midst of “greeting the Divine (shekhinah),” as we learn from the phrase The Lord appeared to him. But when he saw the guests coming, he asked of God: “As I go out to fulfill the commandment of welcoming these guests, Pass not away, I pray You, from Your servant! May I remain attached to You in that act too, so that this not be an empty performative act (mitzvah)! Be with me so that I may perform this act (mitzvah) in such a state that it too will be a ‘welcoming of the Divine (shekhinah).'” Now Rav’s point that the welcoming of guests is greater than greeting the Divine (shekhinah) is proven by Abraham’s action. Were this not the case, Abraham would hardly have left off a conversation with God to go do something of less certain value, a situation in which he had to ask that there too the Divine (shekhinah) be present. This is especially true since “They appeared to him as wandering nomads”; to him they did not have a divine appearance. The deed (mitzvah) itself was very great even if it were not a “greeting of the Divine (shekhinah).” Abraham was seeking to fulfill this commandment with absolute wholeness. Therefore he said: “Do not pass away, I pray you, from your servant.”[2]

The lesson from Abraham’s example is that even if we are in the midst of something, we need to open our eyes to the situation around us. I want everyone here to turn to someone you do not know, say Good Shabbos, and introduce yourself. As we begin an exciting weekend together, I hope that, no matter what you are preoccupied with, you will take moments to life your eyes and to see how to respond to the moment at hand-whether it is someone in need or a moment you need to take for self-care. Be aware of the others around you and the limited time we have and make the most of it.

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[1] Genesis 18:1-3

[2] Meor Einayim Text 4. Translation by Rabbi Adam Gindea.