Dvar Torah for Vayeira

    

     I had a very hard time deciding what to write about this week. This parshah is packed from beginning to end with famous questions and lessons which affect all aspects of Torah learning and religion. At the end I chose this one since I feel that there is a very important lesson here which affects all of us on a day to day level, which you don’t get necessarily with all the topics in this week’s parshah (not to say that they are any less important, G-d forbid). So let’s get down to it!

      The first pasuk in this week’s parshah says, “וַיֵּרָא אֵלָיו יְ־הֹוָ־ה בְּאֵלֹנֵי מַמְרֵא…” “And Hashem appeared to him (Avraham) in the plains of Mamre…” (18:1). The Ohr HaChaim asks a technical question on the pasuk which results in a beautiful thought. He asks that in all other places where it says “וַיֵּרָא יְ־הֹוָ־ה” “Hashem appeared”, including all the times it says it by Avraham, the pasuk writes the “seen”, in this case Hashem, before the “see-er”, in this case Avraham. According to the rules of Biblical Hebrew, that is the correct structure. So how come here the word “אֵלָיו”, referring to Avraham the “see-er” is written before Hashem, the “seen”?  

      There is a famous midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 82:6) which says that the Avos (our forefathers, referring to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov) were the chariot for the shechinah (Hashem’s “presence”) to come down to the physical world. Through their righteousness, we are able to have the presence of Hashem in our midst. The Ohr HaChaim explains that this started at this point in time. The reason the pasuk is written out of order is because the word “אֵלָיו” does not mean “to him” here like it usually does, rather it is translated as “עליו” “on him”. Meaning that at this time, Hashem placed his shechinah on Avraham to stay, in order that it should be in this world. If the pasuk had been written in its normal fashion, you could not have learned this out; I would have thought that Hashem revealed his presence to Avraham but not that it stayed with him afterwards.

      The Ohr HaChaim brings a proof to this from the fact that after this pasuk, the Torah never says again by Avraham that Hashem appeared to him, only that Hashem started speaking to him right away with no previous introduction. This is because that since Hashem was constantly with Avraham from this point on, Avraham was always ready to receive nevuah (prophecy). This continued through to Yitzchak and Yaakov.

      A second question can be asked. Why did Hashem decide to place his shechinah on Avraham now? What happened now more than before? The answer is obvious: Bris Milah. This meeting took place three days after Avraham had his bris. The Ohr HaChaim explains that according to the Zohar, the Bris Milah is the stamp of kedushah (holiness) on a person’s body. Anyone who has this stamp, the shechinah can rest on them.

      This applies to all of us. We have the mitzvah of Bris Milah! Therefore, we have the ability to have the shechinah rest on us! We must recall this mitzvah constantly as a way of reminding ourselves of our great potential to become physical vessels for the shechinah.

      May we all merit to reach the level where everything we do is for Hashem, where we can all be chariots for the shechinah like our great Avos.

Shabbat Shalom!