Hashem appeared to him in the plains of Mamrei[2]
Chazal[3] relate that Avraham had voiced concerns to HKBH. “Before performing bris milah, passersby used to come to me. Now that I’ve performed the mitzvah of milah, I fear that they will no longer come.” Avraham sensed – quite accurately – that circumcision would project him as belonging to a different specie of humankind, as if he took this dramatic step to set himself apart. They would react to that message with hostility and distance.
Hashem responded to him. “Before, only the uncircumcised came to you. Now, after your bris, I Myself come to you!” To be sure, Avraham appreciated the unexpected visit. But did Hashem really address Avraham’s concerns? Avraham was the paragon of chesed. He not only cherished opportunities to host strangers in his tent, he would be dejected and deflated if a day passed by without doing so. (On the third day after the bris, when his pain was the greatest, he still sat at the entrance of his tent looking for people to host. Not finding them would have been more painful to him than the aftermath of his milah!) G-d’s response to Avraham does not reassure him at all about the potential visits of strangers, that had become an important part of his daily routine.
We will find the explanation of this maamar Chazal if we examine Avraham’s motivation in hosting random strangers. Certainly, his chesed was at the beginning, middle, and end of it. People passed by, hungry, thirsty, tired. Avraham ministered to them. But his chesed did not stop with their physical needs. He understood how spiritually empty they were, how they thirsted for meaning. Avraham sought to slake their thirst by conveying emunah to them.
Telling them about the existence of One G-d, and that their thanks for their food should be directed to Him, was not going to be sufficient to spread the word to the world. People would resist the message. They would attempt to refute his arguments with their counter-arguments.
This is exactly what Avraham wanted. He hoped for open and thorough debate – which he was more than prepared for. Avraham’s complaint to Hashem is that he would now lose his most important tool is spreading his message to the world. People had previously regarded him as one of their own, and worthy of engaging is serious disputation. After his bris, Avraham argued, he would be seen as a distant foreigner to mankind, someone to avoid rather than engage.
What was Hashem’s response? “Until now, the uncircumcised came to you. Your debates were intellectually limited by what your opponents could process, understand, and object to. Yes, they might very well regard you as an outsider, and be reluctant to debate you. But you’ve gained something that will replace the tool you’ve used in the past. I have come to visit you Myself. You have gained a level of closeness to Me, and familiarity with Me, that you did not have previously. A Divine sechel has been gifted to you, and will be manifest through you. That deeper understanding will be attractive to people. Many will flock to you, despite your apparent statement of separation. That will empower your mission of spreading My word.”
Over four millennia later, they are still attracted.
- Adapted from Divrei Shaul, by Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson, the Sho’el U-Meshiv ↑
- Bereishis 18:1 ↑
- Bereishis Rabbah 48:9 ↑