42 | NOVEMBER 14 • 2019
T
he opening of this por-
tion is the well-known
narrative of Avraham
welcoming the three angels
into his home and displaying
the important Jewish value of
hakhnasat orhim, welcoming
guests.
Another Jewish
value that comes across
strongly in Avraham’
s
behavior, both here
and throughout the
descriptions of his life,
is zerizut — enthusi-
asm. Here, Avraham’
s
enthusiasm to do the
mitzvah of welcoming
guests comes out in the
speed with which he
reacts to their presence.
He runs to greet them;
he runs to ask Sarah to
prepare food for the guests; he
runs to his herd to choose an
animal for the meal. That is a
lot of running for an old man.
The truth is, all of
Avraham’
s running is only
one aspect of the zerizut he
shows in the story. A midrash
tells us that Avraham was
always on the lookout for
people wandering through the
desert. He was always looking
for the opportunity to per-
form the mitzvah of welcom-
ing guests.
If you look through the
narratives of Avraham’
s life
in the Torah, you can find a
variety of moments where
Avraham shows this. It is
displayed in the fact that
Avraham is always getting up
and on with his day early in
the morning: in the morning
the day after God tells him,
“Lech Lecha — Go forth from
your native land … to a land
that I will show you;” the day
after God says, “Take your
son, your only son … and go
to the land of Moriah.
” It is
this linking of Avraham with
morning time that led our
rabbis to say that our daily
morning service was fixed in
connection with Avraham.
Why is Avraham always
up so early? He is anxious to
do God’
s will, to fulfill
his purpose in life and
to do the mitzvot. This
sense of zerizut is not
tangential to living a
religious life; it is essen-
tial. Avraham shows us
a path toward moving
through our lives with
purpose.
When you see an
opportunity to help
someone, don’
t procras-
tinate; don’
t put it off.
Who knows how long
the opportunity will
be available to you? When
we procrastinate in the pres-
ence of a mitzvah, we show
it to be less than important.
It might seem that someone
else will come along to take
care of things. Maybe that is
true. When that happens, the
person who needed the help
will be OK. The person who
fulfilled the mitzvah will have
achieved something. But what
about us? We’
ll be the same
as we were before, but in an
unfortunate way. We will not
have achieved something. We
will not have helped someone
in need. We will not have
fulfilled that part of ourselves
which was made to fulfill
mitzvot.
Wouldn’
t it be better to
follow Avraham’
s model of
zerizut? Better for you, better
for others and better for our
world?
Rabbi Steven Rubenstein is rabbi of
Congregation Beth Ahm in West
Bloomfield.
Parshat
Vayera:
Genesis
18:1-22:24;
II Kings
4:1-37.
Rabbi Steven
Rubenstein
Spirit
torah portion
A Model Of
Get-Up-And-Go
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