Shalom, Halloween and Parsiaveera, well it turns out that every year right around Halloween time we read in the Torah parts of Vieyera which is most famous because of chapters 21 and 22 Genesis which are read on the first today’s of Rashashana. But the rest of the Parsia has some very important and fascinating stories and lessons for us including chapter 18 where the Parsia opens with three men coming to visit Abraham.
Now there is two important facets of this the first, is that Abraham it says is sitting in the door of his tent in the heat of the day. Now every Beta would know that as you sit in the middle of your tent in the heat of the dead it is cooler there, why is he sitting the door of his tent? Well according to Jewish tradition it was to fulfill the Mitzvoth of [Foreign Language] of welcoming guest. He is looking for people to provide hospitality again a good better one. Teaches us the Mitzvah of hospitality to guest.
Now the other piece which is more Halloweenish is this three trick or treaters. Now why do I say trick or treaters? Because they are angels dressed as men. Now according to Talmud each angel has one job to do. So what are the jobs for these three angels? Angel number one came to tell Abraham and Sarah they are going to have a baby. Now they are very skeptical, Sarah she is too old and then she says that Abraham is too old which of course gives rise to another very significant lesson that it is okay sometimes to tell little white lies to keep the peace. Because when Abraham asks God what Sarah said, God said she said she is too old. Neglected the part about she is saying that he was too old because she wanted to keep peace. God did between Sarah and Abraham.
But in any case she comes to tell them and they are skeptical. So how did God convince them, is just a simple miracle God said I do not care you are skeptical. We know the story sometimes about people who cannot have a child and then they adopt one for example and have natural children or something happens where and of course that is not all the issue with infertility and sadly some people can never have children. But we do know about their phenomena.
Well something happens to Abraham and Sarah even though they are old and then in their own minds they cannot have children to be able to have children, to have a son Isaac. I read this interesting little at by in a book and said that what God did was basically change their names, which is what happens in the text. Seryba comes Sarah which means princess and Afram becomes Abraham father of nations. And so, they kept hearing the names princes and father of nations and they kept hearing the name until they internalized it they changed their understanding of themselves. They had to make the word to speak for them, they had to understand to change their self image to be able to accomplish this goal. I think it is a beautiful little lesson.
Angel number two comes to tell Abraham about Sedom and how evil the city is and how it needs to be destroyed. And in his day and age were facing an onslaught of world wide terrorism from Radical Islam. Not all Muslims but the 10% or so that are bound to destroy the west, to destroy Israel, kill Jews, sermons you hear in mass I hear in mass all the time. Real evil has to be fought, there is real evil on the world. We wish there was not but there is that is why we need police and armies we have to maintain strength. It says at the end of Psalm 29 [Foreign Language] may God bless us with strength and may God bless us with peace.
So those are two of the angels of the three so what is the function of angel number three, angel number three comes in the purpose according to the tradition actually it is the first angel. It comes to offer healing to Abraham, why healing because Abraham just circumcise himself at the end of the last chapter. He is over 90 years old. He is in deep pain. So, the messenger comes to offer him Bicur Halim.
Now the Torah has no Mitzvah specifying [Foreign Language] welcoming guest or [Foreign Language] providing hospitality to the guest or Bicur Halim visiting the sick or [Foreign Language] comforting the dead. But these are things we learn from God. We learn from God to follow God’s ways and so by God sending his angels to comfort Abraham we learn about the importance of us doing the Mitzvah Bicur Halim.
So three important lessons from these three angels just in time for Halloween trick or treating their way through life to provide very important basic ideas of civilization.
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