PARASHAT VAYEIRA – GAINESVILLE
The Torah likes to talk in coded language, or at least we read Torah as if it’s speaking in a coded language. That’s what’s happening this week. Take a listen to opening verse:
וַיֵּרָ֤א אֵלָיו֙ יְהוָ֔ה
‘God appeared to him by the terebinths of Mamre.’
The ‘him’ in this case is Abraham. Now, remember last week’s portion. Remember Lech Lecha was Abraham was called by God to begin the journey of the Jewish people. Today’s parasha is one of the first steps in that process – it is Abram’s self-circumcision. And as Abraham is recovering in front of his tent at the heat of the day, the text tells us ‘God appeared.’ And that’s it…but God doesn’t appear. There is no burning bush, no grand epiphany, no voice from beyond. In fact, right after the text tells us God appears, Abraham is sitting outside his tent and three strangers show up, not God and surely no grand visitation by the Almighty. No, just three very dusty and sweaty desert travelers schlepping through the sand. According to the midrash, Abraham was the kind of man who always sought to welcome people into his home. This was his perfect opportunity to show some kindness to strangers, despite how dusty and sandy they were.
Of course, he probably didn’t know it at the time but these weren’t regular strangers. These are none other than the angels of the Most High as we learn a verse or two later. They all have names: Mikha’el– Michael, Raphael, Gavriel. In modern culture, angels are creatures that have little wings and appear frequently on car dashboards as reminders of divine protection. Sometimes they are invisible little creatures that have all sorts of jobs. But those aren’t Jewish angels. No, the Jewish idea of an angel is that they look like you and me and there is no way we can tell who the angel is by the way they look.
So our story revolves around a God that says He appears and, yet, doesn’t appear and then shifts the story into a new direction with Abraham welcoming three strangers – and the only thing Abraham knew about them is that they needed his help. Nothing more. He only learns that they are angels a sentence later when they tell him that his very old wife and he will have a son this time next year. It is at that time that Abraham knew that these were not regular visitors.
Each angel has one task. And with three angels, there were three tasks ahead. Michael – literally translated to ‘Who is like God?’ – will tell him that his very post-menopausal wife will give birth to a son next year. Raphael – literally ‘God heals’ – comes to heal the recuperating Abraham and Gavriel – literally ‘God is my strength’ – comes to tell Abraham about the impending punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The first two are easy to understand. But why Gavriel that tells Abraham about the destruction of those two cities? We don’t know but a midrash suggests that it was kind of a test for Abraham. You see, that revelation awoken something in Abraham that we had never seen before. It would be a defining trait of his descendants, the Jewish people and would become known as chutzpah klapei hashamayim chutzpah in the face of Heaven. Abraham’s sense of justice shone through and for the first time he resisted the decree of God through righteousness and the spine to stand up against God. And still, in all of this storytelling, God is missing!
Or is He? You probably see where I’m going with this. The text is telling us that God appears and usually does in the simple interactions with other people and not in the grand spectacles a-la Cecil B. DeMille. Revelation is more prosaic, more ordinary and unremarkable and yet, through this story we see clearly that God can be found in those spaces.
Martin Buber, the philosopher, also talked about the I-Thou relationship. The word ‘Thou” is important. Most times we interact with people as ‘Its.’ They are there to serve a purpose. The cashier, the mechanic, the guy, the gardner. They come, the do a job, we pay them. Goodbye. There is no holy interactions. Thou is completely different. The Thou responds to each person as Abraham responded to the angels. Dirty and dusty they create the space between us where God is found. Where God appears. Where God is present. This is how God appeared to Abraham and, the text is teaching us, is where we can find God in the everyday, everyday.
I have often said that Judaism cannot be defined. But if I were forced into a corner to define it I might say that Judaism is our response to the world, to other people, to unrighteousness, to injustice, as forth. Elie Weisel once said that the only thing God despises is being ignored. And God is ignored when we fail to respond to the people and situations that surround us. No, we can’t save the world and no, we don’t have the strength to treat each person as a Thou. There are just too many pressures on us and time is limited. Still, Jewish tradition begs us no never let up.
Listen to the words of the midrash: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said to Elijah: When will the Messiah come? Elijah said to him: Go ask him. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi asked: Where is he? Elijah said to him: At the gates of Rome. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi asked him: How do I know what he looks like? Elijah answered: He sits with the poor who suffer from illnesses.
And the midrash continues: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi went to the Messiah. He said to the Messiah: Shalom. The Messiah said to him: Shalom to you. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said to him: When will the Master come? The Messiah said to him: Today. Sometime later, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi came to Elijah. Elijah said to him: What did the Messiah say to you? He said to Elijah that the Messiah said: Greetings [shalom] to you. Elijah said to him: He thereby guaranteed that you and your father will enter the World-to-Come, as he greeted you with shalom. But Rabbi Yehoshua was not happy and said to Elijah: The Messiah lied to me, as he said to me: I am coming today, and he did not come. Elijah said to him that this is what he said to you: He said that he will come “today, if you will listen to his voice” (Psalms 95:7) – and by quoting that Psalm, Rabbi Yehoshua understood that each day can be the day of the Messiah, if we but listen for his voice, a voice of God that is found in the spaces we live in every moment.
The midrash is clear and the meaning of the Torah portion is clear. Maybe the angels of God are sitting right next to you. Maybe they are at the Circle K when you get your gas or in the checkout line at Publix or waiting to hear your voice when you protest injustice regardless of how many others join you as you seek to stand on righteousness. This is what it means that God appeared to Abraham and it is what it means that God appears to us. And so, on this Shabbat, I pray that each of us makes the space between us holy and that the Thous in our lives help us to see the face of God in the holy spaces we have created.
