Parshas Vayera
God Sends Messengers to Avraham and Sarah
God appears to Avraham in the opening verse of this week’s parsha. How does
God appear to him? The rabbis teach us that He appears to him in the form of
a visitor there to cheer him in his illness and pain after the rite of
circumcision. The Jewish value of visiting and cheering the sick stems from
our imitation of this Godly virtue as first revealed to Avraham. In this
instance, God reveals Himself to Avraham through three Bedouin Arabs who are
apparently searching for a place to rest, eat and drink.
The apparent Arabs are angels and messengers of God. It is one of the great
attributes of the house of Avraham and Sarah that visitors can enter their
home as Arab desert dwellers and leave as angels. It is these wayfarers that
deliver to Avraham and Sarah the message of continuity and eternity of
Jewish life. Sarah will give birth to Yitzchak after decades of being a
barren woman.
Earlier, God informed Avraham of this momentous news directly. Yet Sarah,
the direct recipient of this blessing, He somehow chooses to inform in an
indirect manner through the unknown strange visitors that arrive at her tent
and that she hospitably feeds. There is a great insight in this chosen
method of God, so to speak, in delivering the message to Sarah through
seemingly human auspices. God often, if not constantly in our times, talks
to us through seemingly human messengers. If we are able to listen carefully
to what others say to us, oftentimes we will hear a divine message
communicated to us through a human conduit.
I think that this also explains why Sarah was initially bemused by the words
of the angel. She evidently thought that it was just a throw-away promise of
a wandering Bedouin Arab and reacted accordingly. At the outset she did not
hear the voice of God in the words of the angel that addressed her.
Therefore she did not take those words seriously. God reprimands her for
this attitude and asks “Why did Sarah not take these words seriously?”
Avraham who heard the tidings from God directly realized that the message
was true and serious. Sarah had to believe what she thought was a human wish
and therefore discounted it. But God demanded from her, as He does from each
of us, that we pay proper attention to what other humans say to us. Perhaps
in their statements and words we can realize that God Himself, so to speak,
is talking to us.
God has many messengers and many ways of reaching us individually but we
must be attuned to hear the messages that emanate from Heaven. They should
never be allowed to fall on deaf or inattentive ears and minds. To a great
extent this ability to listen to the otherwise unheard voice of Heaven is
the measure of a Jew and of his ability to accomplish in life. Eventually
Sarah hears and believes - and through this Yitzchak is born and Jewish
continuity is assured and protected.
Shabat shalom.
Rabbi Berel Wein
