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by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar
I want to share with you the D’var Torah I delivered this past Friday night at our Open House Shabbat, when we welcomed more than 250 people into our synagogue for the return of our weekly Friday night TGIShabbat musical services:
Tonight, I have three secrets I want to share with you.
Secret number one is that the theme for this event’s D’var Torah, this event’s word of Torah, teaching of Torah, is always the same as regular attendees of our annual Open House Shabbat at Society Hill Synagogue know. That’s secret number one. The theme for this special annual D’var Torah is always the same.
Secret number two, which is related, is that our annual Open House Shabbat is not an annual event at all. It’s a weekly event. Every Shabbat at Society Hill Synagogue, and I would venture to say, at essentially every synagogue everywhere, is an open house Shabbat. If by open house we mean, anyone is welcome, the secret, which shouldn’t be a secret, is that that is true every single week. Every single week, anyone — and I mean anyone — is welcome and encouraged to join us for Shabbat, this sacred moment of rest and reflection, of community and nourishment, of learning and deepening our souls.
This is true, in part because of the theme for this week’s D’var Torah, which is the mitzvah, the sacred act, the sacred practice of hakhnasat orhim, of welcoming orhim — newcomers, explorers, guests.
One midrash, one interpretive teaching, for the origin story for the mitzvah incumbent upon us to practice hakhnasat orhim, welcoming those who are new to a place, comes from Sefer Bereshit, the book of Genesis, the first book of the Torah, our most sacred text.
There we find our foremost ancestor, Abraham, sitting at the entrance of his tent as the day grew hot. it says:
God appeared to him there.
Vayera elav Adonai
וַיֵרָא אֵלָיו יְהֹוָה
And then, “Looking up, Abraham saw three figures standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them and, bowing to the ground, he said, “Adonai,” which can mean “My Lord,” as in “My God,” but it can also mean, “my lord,” as in a formal, deferential way to be speak to someone:
My lords! If it please you,
do not go on past your servant.
Im-na matzati hen b’eynekha,
al-na ta’avor me’al avdekha
,אִם־נָא מָצָאתִי חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ
אַל־נָא תַעֲבֹר מֵעַל עַבְדֶךָ
“Let a little water be brought; bathe your feet and recline under the tree. And let me fetch a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves; then go on — seeing that you have come your servant’s way.” They replied, “Do as you have said.” And Abraham rushed around to the rest of his household to get not only a morsel of bread, but cakes baked and meat and drinks prepared.
Now, this in and of itself could be a sufficient origin story for the Jewish practice of hakhnasat orhim, of welcoming those who are wandering through. But the midrash teaches that the practice of welcoming actually goes deeper than that. The ambiguity of that word “Adonai” — does it mean Adonai as in “my God,” “my Sovereign,” or as in, “my lord,” “my liege,” “my honored guest” — offers an opportunity for raising the stakes of the importance of being welcoming even more.
According to the Talmud, the sacred collection of rabbinic teachings, the text is not about Abraham saying to the representative of the three men, “my Lord, do not go on any further, please stop to wash your feet and have some food.” Remember, instead, that the story begins with a verse which says:
God appeared to him there.
Vayera elav Adonai
וַיֵרָא אֵלָיו יְהֹוָה
God appeared to him, to Abraham, sitting at the entrance of his tent, and the text then describes Abraham seeing the three figures wandering. Therefore, according to the Talmud, when Abraham says, “Adonai, my Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, please pass not from Your servant,” Abraham is not talking to the three men, saying don’t don’t leave, Abraham is talking to Adonai, to God, saying, “God, I know you have appeared to me, I know you are here, please don’t leave, but I have to go and tend to these three figures wandering in the wilderness. My open arms and heart could make a real difference to their weary bodies and souls.”
Abraham is in effect saying to God, God, I’m sorry, I’ll be right back; I have to go fulfill the mitzvah of hakhnasat orhim, of welcoming those who are wandering.
I love this teaching because of the ambiguities present. The ambiguity of whether Abraham is telling the wanderers, or God, to wait, and perhaps even more importantly, the ambiguity of who the wanderers are. Remember that these wanderers, these figures, according to one translation, are the same ones who deliver the message to Abraham and Sarah that she will, incredibly, at the age of 90 give birth to her first son, Isaac. When the text begins with the phrase, “God appeared to him,” and then immediately proceeds to describe the three figures showing up on Abraham’s doorstep, it suggests something Divine about the presence of these figures themselves.
One possible implication here is that we should always look for the Divine spark present in anyone we encounter. That it’s not about choosing between welcoming God and welcoming guests. Rather, when newcomers, when wayfarers, when people exploring are in our community, each of us is to see one another as though we have that flash of the Divine in us. Because, according to Jewish tradition, it’s not an “as though.” We do. Each of us is worthy of being welcomed as though the image of the Divine is present in us, because it is.
So, everyone is welcome here at Society Hill Synagogue, and everyone has the duty to welcome others. Because it’s sometimes ambiguous what I mean by everyone, even though it shouldn’t be, I like to provide a non-exhaustive, illustrative list of who I mean: everyone is welcome, whether you are Jewish or not Jewish, whether you were born Jewish or chose to become Jewish, whether you are exploring Judaism or just supporting a loved one, whether you come to services every week or haven’t been in years, whether you are fluent in Hebrew or don’t recognize a single letter, whether you are used to a Conservative prayer book, an Orthodox one, or a Reform or Reconstructionist one, or have no real understanding of what the differences are or what those terms even mean; you’re welcome whether you pray to God every day, or consider yourself an atheist; you’re welcome whether you wear a suit and dress shoes, or jeans and sneakers; you’re welcome whether you are early, late, or on time, which, let’s face it, in a Jewish context means late. You are welcome whether you are gay or straight, cis or trans, Democrat or Republican, you are even welcome, as I said last year, if you are a fan of the Dallas Cowboys. You are welcome here.
It doesn’t mean you’ll always get what you want. Part of being part of a pluralistic community means finding compromise where not everyone gets what they want. We don’t pray with a mehitzah, a divider between men and women. We do use a Conservative siddur. We have flags in our Sanctuary of these two countries that I love and that occasionally make my heart hurt. We have had women lead services since the 1960s, before that was welcome in many congregations; interfaith families take active roles in B’nei Mitzvah celebrations on our Bimah. So everyone being welcome is not the same as saying we don’t stand for anything. We do: our mission, vision, and values articulate what we stand for. And one of the things we stand for that is woven into these values is to practice the sacred act of hakhnasat orhim, of welcoming those who are orhim — are wayfarers. Travelers. Guests.
Which brings us to the final secret, secret number three, flowing from a story of the famous Hillel, Hillel hazaken, Hillel the Elder.
After concluding a session of study with his students, Hillel would walk with them. They asked him, rabbeinu, our teacher, where are you going? He answered, to perform an act of love and kindness to a guest in my house. They said to him, “you seem to have a guest in your house every day,” you seem to do this a lot. To which he answered, “is not my poor soul a guest in my body — here today and tomorrow here no longer.”
Secret number three: we are all, in this world, travelers, wayfarers, guests. We all deserve to be treated with love and kindness, and if the mitzvah of hakhnasat orhim means anything, it means that we all have a duty to extend that love and kindness toward those around us, and that we are all deserving of it in turn.
So here tonight at Society Hill Synagogue, and in the spirit of secret number two, every Shabbat here and elsewhere, let’s ensure that when we encounter someone else, we extend that welcoming spirit, and let’s give ourselves permission to extend that spirit of welcome here to ourselves as well.
Wishing you a profoundly welcoming Shabbat now and always.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi K.
