Parshas Vayeira - Greater is Hospitality than Receiving the Divine Presence - Rabbi Asher Perkesh

00:02 In the time of the Tzemach Tzedek, there was a chossid named Reb Yisroel from the city of Polotsk, Reb Yisroel Polotsker. He was a shopkeeper: he had a store, and he was a simple Jew. Once he traveled to the Tzemach Tzedek and spent Shabbos Parshas Vayeira in Lubavitch. The Tzemach Tzedek delivered a maamar of Chassidus in which he spoke about the greatness of Avraham Avinu. He cited a midrash that Avraham Avinu was generous with his money, his body, and his soul, as brought in Orchos Tzaddikim. He also cited a midrash describing this as Avraham Avinu’s defining quality: he was generous with his money, his body, and his soul—the Hebrew initials of those three words spell magen, “shield.” The Tzemach Tzedek spoke about Avraham Avinu’s greatness and brought a midrash about Choni Hame’agel quoted in Sefer Habris. The midrash says: “The attribute of kindness said before Hakadosh Boruch Hu: From the day Avraham Avinu came into the world, I have not needed to do my work.” The attribute of kindness, the chessed of Atzilus, came to Hakadosh Boruch Hu with a claim: since Avraham Avinu had come into the world and begun practicing kindness, he had taken the attribute of kindness’s place and assumed its work. And the claim of the attribute of kindness was

01:51 that Avraham Avinu’s kindness was even greater than the kindness of the attribute of kindness Above. The Tzemach Tzedek explained that the chessed of Atzilus is spiritual kindness, Divine kindness, kindness in the higher worlds. Avraham Avinu’s greatness, as a soul in a body, was that he brought kindness down here, into the physical world. The chessed of Atzilus cannot do that: it cannot be here in this physical world and practice kindness here. This is a distinctive quality of souls in the process of birurim: souls have the Divine power to descend here below, to be in a body, and to engage here below in kindness and acts of gemilus chassadim. And so the Tzemach Tzedek spoke about the great virtue of gemilus chassadim. Reb Yisroel heard these words. He did not understand the entire maamar, which was a deep one. But he heard and understood this part of the maamar; it touched him deeply and stirred him greatly. When he returned home, people followed the custom of holding a farbrengen and welcoming someone back from the Rebbe. They asked him, “What did you hear from the Rebbe?” He said, “I didn’t understand the entire maamar, but I grasped its central point.” And he repeated what the Tzemach Tzedek

03:23 had said about the great importance of gemilus chassadim, of doing kindness. Then, the next morning after the farbrengen, everyone went his own way, to the market or to work. While at work, Reb Yisroel went to see his friends. Each had his own store. Other chassidim lived in the same area, in the same city. When he went into the store of one of his fellow chassidim, he asked him for a kindness. Although he did not need anything, because he had heard about the great virtue of gemilus chassadim, he wanted to give his friend the opportunity to fulfill it. That was why he came to ask him for a kindness. And because his friends knew about its great virtue and what the Rebbe had said, it became a custom. From time to time, one would ask another for a kindness, and in this way they established a regular practice of kindness and gemilus chassadim. Some time later, Reb Yisroel traveled to Lubavitch again. While he was in the beis midrash, the Tzemach Tzedek suddenly came out and began asking, “Who is that Jew?” Not everyone knew him, and people began to wonder why the Tzemach Tzedek himself was asking about him. Reb Yisroel trembled: What had happened?

04:50 Why was the Tzemach Tzedek asking about him? The Tzemach Tzedek wanted to know who he was, until they told him: that is Yisroel the shopkeeper. The Tzemach Tzedek asked him to come in for yechidus. When the chossid entered, the Tzemach Tzedek asked him about his daily routine and his activities, until he learned about the practice Reb Yisroel had introduced over the years—engaging in gemilus chassadim. And that was the yechidus. After the chossid left, the Rebbe Maharash, the Tzemach Tzedek’s son, asked his father, “What was that about? What did you see in Reb Yisroel? Why did you ask so much about him?” The Tzemach Tzedek answered that when he looked at Reb Yisroel the shopkeeper, he saw upon him a pillar of light from the chessed of Atzilus. This is the story the Frierdiker Rebbe tells at a farbrengen on Shabbos Parshas Vayeira in 5711. After all, this parsha speaks about Avraham Avinu’s attribute of kindness, and that is also one of the great things the Torah tells us. For Avraham Avinu is, in general, the embodiment of the attribute of kindness, and one of the main things about him was

06:16 hospitality. Within gemilus chassadim itself was the practice of welcoming guests. As the Rambam writes, welcoming guests is among the practices established by Avraham Avinu, among the things he was the first to institute. And the practice he established was passed down to Jews throughout the generations. What was distinctive about Avraham Avinu’s gemilus chassadim was that he devoted his money, his body, and his soul, as we said earlier, to welcoming guests and giving them food and drink—the finest foods and the finest drinks—and a place to sleep. And not only that: he also gave them [unclear] and so on, everything they needed, and he fulfilled the mitzvah of escorting them on their way. Avraham Avinu showed how one should act: food, drink, and escorting one’s guests. Of this the Gemara says, as does the midrash, and Rashi brings it on the verse as well: “Welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Divine Presence.” The hospitality to which Avraham Avinu devoted his money, his body, and his soul, giving himself over to his guests, is greater than receiving the Divine Presence. And where do we see the greatness of welcoming guests? We see it in the fact

07:47 that Avraham Avinu was standing there—Hakadosh Boruch Hu had come to visit him while he was ill, “And Hashem appeared to him.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu revealed Himself to Avraham Avinu, and Avraham merited a revelation of the Divine Presence. And at the same time, “He raised his eyes and saw, and behold, three men.” He saw the guests, said to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, “Please do not pass by Your servant,” and ran toward the guests. From here we see that welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Divine Presence. This shows and highlights the great virtue of welcoming guests. Although Avraham Avinu stood there with the Divine Presence before him, welcoming guests was so important that Avraham Avinu asked Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, to wait; he wanted to devote himself to the guests. This also comes down to us as halachah in the Rambam. When the Rambam discusses the laws of the mitzvos of Ahavas Yisroel and all these mitzvos, he brings, at the end of Hilchos Avel, the details of how one should devote oneself to another person, along with the various aspects of gemilus chassadim and Ahavas Yisroel. The Rambam discusses this at length: this is the practice established by Avraham Avinu. We must act like Avraham Avinu. He also cites the teaching of our Sages that “welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Divine Presence.”

09:15 There is an interesting point here, a question the Rebbe once discussed. The Gemara states that “welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Divine Presence,” and brings the verse “And he said, ‘Hashem, please do not pass by Your servant’” as proof. What is the proof? That welcoming guests is greater because Avraham Avinu addressed Hakadosh Boruch Hu by a sacred name. “Please do not pass by Your servant”—he is speaking to Hakadosh Boruch Hu and telling Him, “Please do not pass by Your servant.” In other words: Wait for me; I want to go and take care of the guests. From here we see the greatness of welcoming guests. That is the verse the Gemara brings. Interestingly, the Rambam, citing the same ruling, the same halachah, quotes an entirely different verse. The Rambam writes: “As it says, ‘He saw, and behold, three men.’” That is interesting. The question is, first, why does the Rambam depart from the Gemara? And second, what, seemingly, is the proof from “He saw, and behold, three men”? What proof did he see in that? The Gemara, it would seem, brings a more explicit proof from “Hashem, please do not pass by Your servant.” But the verse “He saw, and behold, three men”—where in that verse do we see that welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Divine Presence? The answer, the central point of the explanation—the Rebbe gave a wonderful explanation of this—is

10:41 Like this: Regarding the verse “And he said, ‘My lord,’” there is a disagreement over whether “my lord” is a sacred name or an ordinary form of address. If we accept that it is a sacred name, then it is clear that he was speaking to Hashem. But according to the opinions that hold it is an ordinary form of address, he said it to the guests. If so, what proof is there from this verse? And there are several other questions. Why did the Rambam choose specifically the verse “He saw, and behold, three men”? But there is a wonderful explanation: the point lies in “He saw, and behold, three men.” Seemingly, Avraham Avinu is standing there, and Hashem is before him. Hashem is with you. When Hashem is with you, your entire focus, the feeling in your heart, your whole being, is nothing but standing before the King. How could Avraham Avinu even notice that there were three men there? He was standing before the Shechinah. As halachah rules, in the middle of prayer one may not occupy oneself with other things—in the middle of Shemoneh Esrei, and even in the middle of Shema, and so on. One must stand “with awe, with fear, trembling and perspiration.” One must stand as though before the King, and must be careful about how one moves, what one does, [unclear]. Here Avraham Avinu is standing. The Shechinah is

12:04 there; it had come especially to visit him, and he is standing face to face before the Shechinah. Seemingly, when a person is in such a state, it is inconceivable that he would notice anything else. Yet here, “He saw, and behold, three men”—he sees three men. And from this very phrase, “He saw, and behold, three men,” the great Rabbi Moshe learns: Welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Shechinah. Although the Shechinah is there and he is standing before it, Avraham Avinu knows the great virtue of welcoming guests, which is greater than receiving the Shechinah. So he notices that there are three men, and tells Hashem that he wants to welcome them. When we approach the [unclear] of “Welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Shechinah,” how do we explain this teaching of our Sages? There is a teaching of the Baal Shem Tov about it, and an explanation from the Tzemach Tzedek. The Baal Shem Tov explains: What does “Welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Shechinah” mean? He says that the Gemara states that one who [unclear] speaks lashon hara—the Gemara says, “They do not receive the Shechinah.” We see, then, how serious it is to speak lashon hara and gossip. So a person may be a good person, very G-d-fearing, who [unclear] lashon hara and gossip and all those things. And he says: There is a virtue in welcoming guests into one’s home. Because when guests are brought into the

13:30 home and people sit around the table, sometimes they talk about idle things, and idle talk can turn into gossip, lashon hara, mockery and all sorts of things about which the Gemara says there is no receiving the Shechinah. So he wants to avoid bringing guests in. To this the Gemara says: “Welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Shechinah.” One must know that welcoming guests is important—even more important than receiving the Shechinah. So, G-d forbid, one should not refrain from welcoming guests out of concern that perhaps people will stumble into lashon hara and thereby miss out on receiving the Shechinah. Welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Shechinah. The Tzemach Tzedek has a very rich explanation of this teaching of our Sages: What is the deeper meaning of “Welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Shechinah”? The Rebbe once spoke about this in a maamar, when large groups of guests arrived, in the year [unclear]. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah the Rebbe held a farbrengen, and the eve of Rosh Hashanah is the Tzemach Tzedek’s birthday. The Rebbe said then that he would deliver a maamar on a teaching of the Tzemach Tzedek concerning welcoming guests. It was a special farbrengen to welcome the guests. And the Rebbe delivered

14:56 a maamar on the subject, connected to the teaching of our Sages, “Welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Shechinah.” The Rebbe said that there is an explanation based on a maamar of the Tzemach Tzedek: To understand the greatness of welcoming guests, we must first understand the greatness of receiving the Shechinah. What does receiving the Shechinah mean? What happened with Avraham Avinu? Rashi quotes: “Rabbi Chama bar Chanina said: It was the third day after his circumcision, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu came to inquire after his well-being.” Avraham was ill, and Hashem came to visit the sick. But, as Rashi says, He came “to inquire after his well-being.” What was this visit to the sick about? The Tzemach Tzedek explains that Avraham Avinu was not physically ill; rather, his illness was spiritual. At the age of ninety-nine, Avraham Avinu had reached the highest level of holiness, the forty-ninth gate—the forty-nine gates of holiness, or the forty-nine gates of understanding. He stood at the highest level of holiness a person can reach by his own efforts. The fiftieth gate is the loftiest level of holiness, a level of G-dliness that one cannot reach by one’s own efforts. About this the verse says, “You made him slightly less than G-d.” A person can reach only the forty-nine gates of holiness, the forty-nine gates of understanding, while the fiftieth gate remains

16:19 above. It is beyond human comprehension, beyond what a person can grasp. Avraham Avinu came to his circumcision after reaching the highest level he could attain. And then he was ill. What does “ill” mean? The Tzemach Tzedek points out that the numerical value of the Hebrew word for “ill” is forty-nine. In other words, the very fact that he was at the level of the forty-nine gates of holiness was, for him, an illness, a weakness; he wanted to reach the fiftieth gate. He wanted to reach the loftiest level of connection to G-dliness, which is called the fiftieth gate. The fact that the fiftieth gate had not shone for him—that this was what he lacked—made him ill. He wanted to be at the loftiest level of love, the love of the fiftieth gate. And this lack—his lack of the fiftieth gate, the revelation of the Essence, the revelation [unclear]—was his illness. About this the parsha says: “Hashem appeared to him.” The fiftieth gate was revealed to Avraham Avinu. Through his circumcision, while he was in this state of illness, Avraham Avinu merited an understanding of the fiftieth gate. The deepest, loftiest level was revealed to him—a level a person cannot reach through his own intellect, but from Above he was granted “Hashem appeared to him.” And this was in the merit of circumcision. And with his...

17:41 [unclear], through love of Hashem and through the entire Torah, the fiftieth gate is granted from Above. What, then, made welcoming guests greater than this? The Maharal comes and says that even “Hashem appeared to him,” receiving the Shechinah, is the revelation of the fiftieth gate, the highest revelation of G-dliness, and nevertheless welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Shechinah. When one enters another person’s home and performs acts of kindness with one’s body, one’s money and one’s soul, here below in this world, one thereby reaches far higher levels in the matter of the fiftieth gate. For here one fulfills Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s ultimate intention: that He should have a dwelling in the lower realms. And this is fulfilled specifically by actually performing acts of kindness with one’s body. This is the great insight in the Maharal’s words: Welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Shechinah. Even when we speak of receiving the Shechinah in its loftiest form, of the revelation of the fiftieth gate, welcoming guests is nevertheless greater even than that receiving of the Shechinah. The Rebbe added that this can be understood in light of what is known from the Frierdiker Rebbe’s sichos, where he cites what the Tzemach Tzedek writes about the Alter Rebbe: When the Alter Rebbe was engaged in Chassidus and contemplating Chassidus, from time to time he would enter a state of the most profound deveikus.

19:19 And this cleaving would awaken in him a love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, until, out of his longing, he would say: “Master of the Universe, I do not want Your Gan Eden. I do not want Your World to Come. I want nothing but You Yourself.” He cited the verse, “Whom have I in heaven? And with You, I desire nothing on earth.” I do not want anything else. He says: I do not even want Your Gan Eden; I do not want the World to Come. In other words, because of the greatness of his love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, all these revelations, all these levels, all the rewards of Gan Eden and the World to Come—they did not satisfy him. What did he want? “I want nothing but You Yourself”—a revelation of the Divine Essence. For this is the avodah of the fiftieth gate. Avraham Avinu’s longing for the fiftieth gate is the same avodah as the Alter Rebbe’s when he said, “I want nothing but You Yourself.” The Frierdiker Rebbe once spoke about this at a farbrengen and said that all the mesirus nefesh and great love for G-dliness that the Alter Rebbe had—the love expressed in “Whom have I in heaven? And with You, I desire nothing,” in which he wants nothing but the Divine Essence itself—do not come close, have no comparison at all. Compared to what? To the Alter Rebbe’s true mesirus nefesh: to come down and leave behind his love, his “Whom have I in heaven,” to leave behind that revelation, that great love and longing, and come down here below in order to

20:42 do a favor for a Jew, simply in the physical sense. The Frierdiker Rebbe once spoke about this at a farbrengen and said that this is the meaning of our Sages’ teaching: “Welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Divine Presence.” And this is what today’s lesson teaches us, because everyone knows how much devotion and giving, how much love and delight, there should be in doing a favor for a Jew—materially, and especially spiritually. And the matter of welcoming guests [unclear] welcoming guests among us, yes, this is how we do it: with our bodies, our money, and our souls. And we must do it in a way that makes clear that welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Divine Presence. Through this, we make the world a dwelling place for the Creator. This is what welcoming guests means: bringing guests in and giving them food and drink. It is an act of kindness with one’s body, one’s soul, and one’s money. And through this, one can reach a level of chesed even higher than the chesed of Atzilus. On the contrary, the chesed of Atzilus itself is envious of what a Jew down here can accomplish when he does a favor for another Jew materially, and especially spiritually. And this is connected to the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching, as is well known from what is quoted in the name of Reb Mordechai HaTzaddik, who heard from the Baal Shem Tov that a soul comes down here for seventy or eighty years in order to do one favor for a Jew materially, and especially spiritually.