The Lord appeared to him by the terebinths of Mamre; he was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot. (B’reysheet / Genesis 18:1)
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Krengil (1) echoes the question asked by centuries of biblical commentators regarding the unusual phrasing of the first words of our verse which, unlike the standard translations, reads “To him God appeared”, placing Abraham ahead of God in the sentence. Rabbi Krengil cites Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed wherein Rambam writes that “the immutability of God precludes any suggestion of motion on the part of the Holy One or sudden appearance to a human being. Rather, it is the individual who draws closer to the Divine Presence which fills the world. Building on Rambam, Rabbi Krengil teaches that if we wish to encounter the Holy One, if we desire being uplifted by our engagement with the sacred, it is all predicated upon our preparation for that possible moment.
In our narrative, Abraham is sitting at the entrance of his tent, a routine activity for Abraham as he watched for travelers to welcome into his home. What was different on this day that merited God appearing to our patriarch? At the end of last week’s Torah portion, the text tells us that Abraham and all the males in his household had undergone the circumcision ritual. Abraham had yet again demonstrated loyalty to God and a willingness to go to great lengths to serve God. Our patriarch serves as a paradigm for encountering God; that revealing our essence is a necessary precursor to engaging with divinity.
For many of us today, prayer and worship are the forum in which we aspire to such encounters. We are reminded that success requires much preparation on our part; familiarity and understanding of the liturgy; comfort with the melodies used during worship, and perhaps most consequentially preparing ourselves emotionally and mentally for the experiential process.
Shabbat Shalom –
Rabbi David M. Eligberg
1 Rabbi Menachem Mendel Krengil, 1847–1930, Poland is the author of D’vash v’Chalav, commentary to the Torah, published in Krakow in 1911.
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