Parashat Vayera 

Eavesdropping, while not my finest quality, is something I am embarrassingly good at.

About three years ago, in a crowded and noisy New York City restaurant, when I overheard the family at the neighboring table order a kosher steak – in a non-kosher restaurant – I felt compelled to start a conversation.

Lesley and Russell Selwyn and their daughter Suzy were visiting from London, England – where my daughter Sarah just happened to be moving later that year. When I mentioned that to the Selwyns, their immediate reaction was, “There is always a seat at our table. Please make sure your daughter contacts us so we can invite her over when she gets here.”

Right then and there, Suzy took Sarah’s Facebook address to “friend request” her, as I quickly texted my daughter to tell her she would be getting a very weird FB friend request that she should accept.

From that point on through the next five months, the Selwyns and Sarah were in constant communication through text and email, exchanging tips, suggestions, recommendations and information that would help facilitate her move. When Sarah ultimately made the move to London at the end of August, she received a text from Suzy telling her, “The holidays are very early this year (they were the first week in September) and you won’t have time to make any other plans. You are coming to our house for Rosh Hashanah.”

WOW! Sarah, a complete stranger whose crazy Jewish mother the Selwyns had met for all of five minutes in a NYC restaurant, was invited to their house to celebrate the Jewish New Year.

Sarah not only went to their house, she ended up staying overnight with a family she had not seen in the flesh or spoken to voice-to-voice before that day. She had the most wonderful time celebrating the holiday with them and for the past two years has spent more holidays and Shabbats at the Selwyns’ than she can count. The Selwyns have become close friends of mine, and Sarah’s British mishpocha.

I always knew the Selwyns were extraordinary people. However, it wasn’t until reading and re-reading and researching this week’s parsha, Vayera, did I realize how special indeed they are. By inviting Sarah, a total stranger into their home, they performed the great and divine mitzvah of hachnasat orchim, or hospitality.

Vayera is one of those huge, sweeping, epic Torah portions that describes many of the iconic stories of our faith that we learned as young children. It is full of violence, threatened violence, laughter and human weaknesses. The parsha tells the following stories:  Abraham’s three visitors, his bargaining with G-d over Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s two visitors and his bargaining with the Sodomites, the flight of Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, how Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt, how Abraham once again passed off his wife Sarah as his sister, the birth of Isaac, the expulsion of Abraham’s second wife, Hagar, and the binding of Isaac. As I said, there’s a lot here (no pun intended); however, I will only concentrate on the story at the very beginning of the reading.

At the start of the parsha, G-d appears to Avraham, who is recovering from his self-circumcision, while he sits in the searing heat at the entrance of his tent. As G-d speaks with him, Avraham lifts his eyes and sees three travelers a short distance away. Avraham asks G-d if he might excuse himself to go perform the mitzvah of hospitality to guests. G-d accedes to this request and Avraham runs after the travelers to invite them into his tent. Avraham then asks for water to be brought to wash the men’s feet and tells them to rest beneath a tree. Avraham instructs his household to prepare the finest flour into bread and to prepare a calf. He serves his guests milk and other dairy foods, followed by the calf (kashrut comes later, I guess).

Although Avraham is weak and advanced in age, when he sees the weary travelers he suddenly finds energy in the mitzvah of welcoming guests into his tent. Greeting guests to Avraham was more important than his own comfort. In fact, greeting guests was more important than continuing his conversation with Hashem!

The detail with which this mitzvah is described (quite unlike other descriptions in the Torah of Avraham’s good deeds) elevates this act above many other mitzvot. The Talmudic Sages suggest that hachnasat orchim is such a great mitzvah that it is more important to show hospitality even than it is to attend classes of study or to greet G-d in prayer.

This is one of the most important lessons that Vayera has to offer us. In today’s Jewish world being hospitable, charitable and adopting social justice causes is very much a part of our responsibility as leaders, groundbreakers and pacesetters of our Jewish communities.

Avraham’s behavior is a lesson for all of us in how to be a true ba’al chesed (master of kindness).

It is simply not enough to wait for a stranger to come knocking in search of a place to eat or sleep. It is not enough to offer support to a friend in need. A real person of chesed actively seeks out such opportunities to perform acts of hospitality and other kindnesses. As members of NWP there are myriad ways to perform this divine mitzvah – whether it be in our personal lives or in our roles as community leaders, at home, work, shul or abroad.

Since my dinner in New York when I eavesdropped on the Selwyns – true ba’al cheseds – I have asked myself over and over again the same question: If the tables had been turned and the Selwyns had been eavesdropping on me, would I have performed the same mitzvah that they did?

Honestly? Before that very fortunate, very b’sheret incident I’m afraid and almost embarrassed to say the answer would be no. It is unlikely I would have invited a complete and utter stranger from a foreign country, about whom I knew absolutely nothing, into my house. Since then, however, I answer the question with a resounding “yes!” I aspire to be a ba’al chesed like my cherished friends the Selwyns and am constantly looking for ways to pay it forward and perform the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim. As we all should in our capacity as members of NWP.

By the way, hospitality is not the only mitzvah the Selwyns have performed. They also made a shidduch between Sarah and her wonderful boyfriend, whom we all feel so lucky and blessed to have in our lives. But that’s another parsha for another Shabbat.

With best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom,

Barbara