The Glass Is Ours, the Well Is His, on Vayera

There is something I have felt and wished for since I was a child. When I hand even a glass of water to someone who comes into my life, I want to be able to give it as though I were serving HaShem. How much can a glass of water really be? Reading Parashat Vayera this week, I noticed that the very first thing Avraham offers his guests is a little water. Yukach na me’at mayim. Let a little water be brought. And I began to think that the whole parasha is a story about how far that little water can flow.

The parasha opens at the height of a hot afternoon. Avraham is sitting at the entrance of his tent. Rashi tells us it was the third day after his circumcision, the day the body hurts most. HaShem had come to visit the sick. In the Talmud’s words, HaShem drew the sun out of its sheath that day, so that no one would set out on the road and Avraham would not be troubled with guests. Avraham, for his part, was saddened that no one came. An old man in pain, with HaShem Himself beside him, was waiting for a stranger to pass by his door.

Then Avraham lifts his eyes and sees. Three men are standing before him. The parasha takes its name from this moment. Vayera, and He appeared. Ninety nine years old, his wound still fresh, he runs from the door of his tent toward them. And he leaves his conversation with HaShem in the middle. According to the Talmud, welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Shechinah. The first time I read that sentence, it filled me with wonder. To rise from the presence of the Shechinah and run toward dusty strangers on the road. He was not turning away from HaShem. He was receiving Him in the faces of those strangers.

He says very little to his guests. Let a little water be brought, wash your feet, rest under the tree, I will fetch a morsel of bread. A morsel of bread. And then what happens? He tells Sarah to knead three measures of fine flour. He himself runs to the herd and chooses a calf, tender and good. First he brings the butter and milk that are ready, then the meat once it is cooked. The Talmud notes this too. The righteous say little and do much. What began as a morsel of bread becomes a feast. Most of the time we do the opposite. We say a lot and do little. We make what we are going to give sound big in advance, and then what we actually give falls short. There is humility in Avraham’s generosity. He speaks of what he will give as something small, so that the one receiving it will not feel indebted.

One of the guests says that a year from now Sarah will have a son. Sarah, behind the tent, laughs to herself. After I have grown old, and my husband is old too? When God asks Avraham why Sarah laughed, He changes her words. He does not say my husband is old. He says she said I am old. Rashi learns from this that words may be altered for the sake of peace. To me this detail shows God behaving like a member of the household. Like someone passing a message along and softening it, so that a hurtful sentence does not come between a husband and wife.

That evening the same men reach Sedom. And the parasha takes us out of Avraham’s tent into a city that is its exact opposite. What was the sin of Sedom? Terrible scenes usually come to mind, but the prophet Yechezkel puts it in a very plain sentence. She had pride, plenty of bread and careless ease, but she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy. Pirkei Avot says something even subtler. One who says what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours has an average character. Some, however, say this is the character of Sedom.

That sentence weighs on me, because the first time you hear it, it sounds perfectly reasonable. I take nothing from anyone, I give nothing to anyone. I do no one any harm. Many people live this way today and consider themselves good. It is easy to think of Sedom as a city of cruel people. It was also a city of people who closed their own doors and guarded their own bread. According to Rashi, the outcry that rose up to God was the cry of a young girl. A girl who was put to death for secretly giving bread to a poor man. When a society begins to treat giving as a crime, it has already collapsed from within. The fire that came down from heaven was only the visible result.

And here is what strikes me most. The one who bargains with God for this city is Avraham. For a city that treats giving as a crime, a man who has devoted his life to giving pleads. If there are fifty righteous people, forty five, forty, thirty, twenty, ten. Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice? he asks. And immediately he adds, I am but dust and ashes. Avraham’s chesed was not only for those who loved him, for those who came to his door. He could pray even for people who would never have cared for him. Isn’t true kindness being able to reach even those who will never repay it?

In Sedom, only one door opens. Lot’s door. Lot insists on bringing the guests into his home and bakes them unleavened bread. Where did he learn this? In Avraham’s tent. Even living in the middle of Sedom, he had not forgotten what he saw there. Kindness witnessed in one home is something a person carries even into the darkest city.

There is a secret in Lot’s name as well. In Hebrew, Lot’s name is written with the same letters as the word for a covering. Yeshayahu says that in days to come the covering cast over all the nations, the lot, will be removed. The numerical value of Lot is 45. The numerical value of Adam is also 45. It is as if something the first human being lost lies hidden under a covering in the heart of Sedom. After the city burns, Lot’s daughters, in a cave, say let us preserve seed from our father. The Midrash points out that the verse says seed and not son, and says this seed points to the King Messiah. The elder daughter’s son is named Moav. And generations later a Moabite woman, Ruth, comes to Bethlehem. In the parasha, Avraham had stopped at ten righteous people for Sedom. Ten were not found, and the city burned. Boaz, wishing to marry Ruth, gathers exactly ten elders at the city gate. The Talmud learns from this that ten are needed for the wedding blessings. The ten who could not be found in Sedom are found, generations later, at the wedding of a woman who came out of Sedom. And from that wedding comes the line of David. The spark beneath the covering comes to light by passing through the ruin.

Then the parasha brings us back to Avraham’s own home, and here the water appears again, this time painfully. Yitzchak has been born and has grown. Sarah asks that Hagar and Yishmael be sent away. Avraham is deeply distressed, but God tells him to listen to Sarah. And Avraham rises early in the morning. He takes bread and a skin of water, places it on Hagar’s shoulder and sends them away. The letters of the Torah, though, seem to refuse this parting. The numerical value of Hagar’s name is 208. So is Yitzchak’s. The woman sent away from the house and the child who stays in it carry the same number. And here I find myself thinking of something else. Yitzchak does not come until Yishmael has come. In Avraham’s story there is first a long wait, then Hagar, then Yishmael, and only after that Yitzchak. When Sarai gives Hagar to Avram, she says, Ulai ibaneh mimenah. Perhaps I too will be built up through her. Rashi puts it in Sarah’s own words. By the merit of bringing my rival into my home. So the road to Sarah’s own child passes through Hagar’s entering that tent. This is my reading, but I believe Yishmael was never meant to take Yitzchak’s place. And Yitzchak’s story did not begin apart from Yishmael’s.

When I read this verse, my throat tightened. The man who slaughters a calf and kneads three measures of flour for strangers gives his own son a loaf of bread and a skin of water. In this scene I see the limit of Avraham’s chesed. Perhaps God set that limit, perhaps Sarah, perhaps life itself. The result is the same. The water one person can give fits in a single skin. And that water runs out. Hagar wanders in the desert and the skin empties. She leaves the child under a bush, sits down a bowshot away, and weeps.

And here the Torah says something very delicate. God does not create a well. He opens Hagar’s eyes, and she sees a well of water. The Midrash says it too. All are considered blind until HaShem opens their eyes. The water had been there all along. What was missing was the seeing. The skin runs dry, the well does not. This is the lesson of the parasha that touches me most. Human chesed is a skin of water. However generous it is, it runs out somewhere. Even Avraham could give no more than a skin. His chesed, though, is a well. When we give someone a little water, we are really taking a handful from a well that never runs dry and holding it out. That is why giving water as though to Him is not arrogance but humility. It is remembering that what I give was never mine. The glass is ours, the well is His.

Right after this, Avraham plants an eshel in Be’er Sheva. The Talmud debates what it was. One says an orchard, the other an inn open to travelers. Rashi says that there Avraham called on the name of God, and after feeding his guests he taught them to whom they owed what they had eaten. You have not eaten my bread, he would tell them. You have eaten the bread of the One who created the world. Avraham’s generosity was not meant to make himself greater. At every table he stepped back and left the bread with its true Owner.

And then comes the last and heaviest scene of the parasha. God says to Avraham, Kach na et bincha. Take, please, your son. Rashi draws attention to this small word. Na is a word of request. God is not commanding, He is asking. And here I noticed something, and I sat with this verse for a long time. At the beginning of the parasha, Avraham had addressed his guests with the very same word. Yukach na me’at mayim. Please, let a little water be taken. The man who spent his whole life saying please, take, now hears please, give. The host who said please take to his guests now stands before a Guest who has come to ask for the most precious thing at his table.

Kabbalah associates Avraham with chesed. The prophet Micah says You will show chesed to Avraham. Yitzchak, in the Torah, is called pachad Yitzchak, the fear of Yitzchak. Kabbalah identifies him with gevurah, with limit and severity. At the Akedah these two meet on the same mountain. The man who gave his whole life without limits is made to bind his own son. This is my reading, but I believe what was asked of Avraham at the Akedah was to bind his chesed to Him as well. To accept that even his giving was not his own. Sedom had said what is mine is mine. On Moriah, Avraham learns that not even his son is his.

And just as at Hagar’s well, at the last moment eyes are opened. Avraham lifts his eyes and sees a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. He names the place HaShem Yireh, HaShem sees. Yitzchak is given back. What Avraham was ready to give is given to him again. This makes me think that perhaps we lose what we try to hold on to. What we give to Him comes back to us, but no longer as ours. As something entrusted.

I still carry that wish. What is mine is mine is the easiest sentence a person can say. This parasha reminds me where a glass of water comes from. Avraham’s skin ran dry. Hagar’s well did not. And at every table, with every glass, the hand we hold out may in truth be His. A little water. This is where Avraham began. Perhaps it is where we begin too.

Sources

1. Bereshit 18 to 22, Parashat Vayera. https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.18
2. Rashi on Bereshit 18:1, the third day after circumcision and visiting the sick. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.18.1
3. Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 86b, the sun drawn from its sheath. https://www.sefaria.org/Bava_Metzia.86b
4. Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 127a, welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Shechinah. https://www.sefaria.org/Shabbat.127a
5. Rashi on Bereshit 18:5 and Bava Metzia 87a, the righteous say little and do much. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.18.5
6. Rashi on Bereshit 18:8, bringing first what was ready. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.18.8
7. Rashi on Bereshit 18:13, altering words for the sake of peace. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.18.13
8. Yechezkel 16:49, the sin of Sedom. https://www.sefaria.org/Ezekiel.16.49
9. Pirkei Avot 5:10, what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours. https://www.sefaria.org/Pirkei_Avot.5.10
10. Rashi on Bereshit 18:21, the cry of the young girl. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.18.21
11. Bereshit 18:32, ten righteous people. https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.18.32
12. Rashi on Bereshit 19:1, Lot learned to seek out guests in Avraham’s home. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.19.1
13. Yeshayahu 25:7, the covering over all the nations. https://www.sefaria.org/Isaiah.25.7
14. Bereshit 19:30 to 19:37 and Bereshit Rabbah 51:8, Lot’s daughters and the seed that points to the Messiah. https://www.sefaria.org/Bereshit_Rabbah.51.8
15. Ruth 4:2 and Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 7b, the ten elders of Boaz. https://www.sefaria.org/Ketubot.7b
16. Bereshit 16:2 and Rashi, ulai ibaneh mimenah. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.16.2
17. Bereshit 21:14 to 21:19, the bread, the skin of water and the well. https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.21
18. Bereshit Rabbah 53:14, all are considered blind until HaShem opens their eyes. https://www.sefaria.org/Bereshit_Rabbah.53.14
19. Rashi on Bereshit 21:33 and Sotah 10a to 10b, the eshel. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.21.33
20. Rashi on Bereshit 22:2, na as a word of request. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.22.2
21. Micah 7:20 and Bereshit 31:42, the chesed of Avraham and the fear of Yitzchak. https://www.sefaria.org/Micah.7.20
22. Bereshit 18:2, Avraham lifts his eyes and sees. https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.18.2
23. Bereshit 22:13 and 22:14, the ram and HaShem Yireh. https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.22.13