Living in the Entrance
Dear friends,
Two years ago, a guest at our Shabbat service from Women for Afghan Women, Nilab Nusrat shared with us memories of how back in Afghanistan, her father used to invite poor people into their home for dinner. Susan Berger, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, echoed Nilab with stories about how her grandfather in Poland used to do the same on Friday evenings, seating the guest at the head of the table. No matter if the guest were smelly, in rags, or anything else, if any of the kids would do anything but show them respect, they would be sent away.
This was the state of affairs in many Jewish and Muslim communities until not that long ago. There existed a competitive spirit among Jews in the old country who wanted to make sure they fulfill the mitzvah of “hachnasat orchim,” or bringing in guests.
How far we’ve strayed! When was the last time you invited someone in from the street? Why, I ask myself, does that seem like an impossibility in today’s world? It’s not like there’s a shortage of homeless people in this city. In fact, the estimates are rising, close to 80,000 people. I walked around midtown yesterday. It’s impossible to ignore.
The Jewish drive to be hospitable comes in large part from this week’s parashah:
The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.
He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. Let me get you something to eat, so you may feast your hearts and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant.”
“Very well,” they answered, “do as you say.”
Abraham and Sarah spring into action, rushing and running to fix a full meal for the guests.
The opening image already points to a difference between how we live and how our ancestors did. A man sits at the entrance to his tent. Instead of sitting closed up in an air-conditioned apartment with the curtains closed, as we often do, he is facing the world, waiting to interact with it.
The rabbis understand him to be communing with God as he sits, some imagining him in prayer or meditation. Nonetheless, his outward facing position leads him to “raise his eyes” and see the three figures nearby. Although he is in the midst of a divine revelation, he wastes no time, ditches God and runs toward the passerby to invite them in.
“Receiving guests is greater than receiving the face of God.”
This is the lesson the rabbis learn from this chapter. Even though in their eyes experiencing the face of the Shechinah, the presence of God is the greatest thing that could happen to a person, “the goodness that nothing can beat,” the very purpose of the spiritual life, still greater than that is to be in the world, bringing those in need into your home.
Nechamah Leibovitz writes: “This receiving of guests is the best example of Ahavat Habriyot, loving other people, of helping others, it is the entire space of the world, the good deeds and acts of kindness between one person and another.”
That’s why Abraham and Sarah keep running and hurrying throughout this story. There is nothing more important to them.
If we can’t live like our ancestors there are other things we can do.
Yesterday I was proud to participate in the inaugural meeting of Tirdof, New York Clergy for Justice. After some opening words and blessings, we joined the meeting of Vocal NY, to hear about their efforts to ease the plight of the homeless and end it altogether in this state. There are a few campaigns they’re working on, including Free to Pee, in which they are demanding the city reopen hundreds of public restrooms. As if the humiliation of being homeless isn’t enough, we live in the city ranked 80th in access to restrooms in the US. They spoke of the tens of thousands of rent stabilized apartments in the city that sit empty, and of the renewed criminalization of homelessness by the current administration. Read more about their campaigns HERE.
We can live in the entrance to our tents instead of behind the blinds. We can face outward. We can look up and see the state of our city. We can live up to the call of our tradition by supporting the efforts of those on the front lines of homelessness.
“How great was the influence of these verses on our ancestors during their years in exile,” writes Leibovitz about this week’s Parashah, “that even a poor person among Israel would not want to sit down to their Shabbat dinner table if there were no guest in their house. So much so that even the poorest and most decrepit and isolated Jewish communities of Eastern Europe could pride themselves – unlike fancy capitals on both sides of the Atlantic to this day – on the great words of Job: “No stranger shall sleep outside.”
Insha’Allah we live to see that one day in our time.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha