Resting Beneath the Tree
This Dvar Torah was written by Orot Center for New Jewish Learning cofounder Rebecca Minkus-Lieberman.
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
Life is Torah and Torah is life. Two streams of aliveness in conversation, speaking in dialogue in the spaces between…
In this week’s parsha, Vayera, we are brought into a story midstream. At the conclusion of last week’s parsha, Lech-Lecha, we hear of Abraham’s and Yishmael’s circumcisions - Abraham at the age of 99. We hear of the procedure, and then the parsha ends.
Vayera begins with the sudden appearance of God:
The LORD appeared to him by the terebinths of Mamre.
He was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot.
God is present. God makes God’s self visible to Abraham.
God has come to visit the recovering Abraham as he recuperates from what must have been a not-small procedure for a man of 99 years.
And the second half of the verse is gorgeously ambiguous, grammatically speaking: “He was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot.”
Who is the ‘he’ in this verse? Is Abraham sitting in the tent opening, or is the Divine sitting there? Is the enigmatic structure of the verse inviting us to imagine that it could be either?
Perhaps God comes to sit beside Abraham as he rests in the doorway of his tent, regaining his strength. A beautiful image to envision.
And in that moment “three men” arrive. The verse does not name them as angels or Divine emissaries - only men. Does Abraham sense that they are more than regular travelers, making their way through the desert? We do not know.
And yet - despite his physical discomfort and lack of any knowledge of these individuals’ identities - Abraham rushes to welcome them, to give them rest and water and food to eat before they continue on their way.
Looking up, he saw three men standing near him.
As soon as he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them, and bowing to the ground, said: “My lords, if it please you, do not go on past your servant.
Let a little water be brought; bathe your feet and rest beneath the tree.
“Rest beneath the tree”--according to Rabbi Dov Baer of Mezeritch, this tree is the Tree of Life, the Source of all life-force. This tree is the presence of God, as he teaches:
Earlier we have taught that this name of God is clothed within all of speech. It has endless masks and degrees of hiding... So Abraham was saying to them: Rest beneath the tree.
Pay no attention to the garments; look to see what is underneath the tree.”
While this story is clothed in narrative details and actions, the Maggid of Mezeritch’s teaching urges us to focus our gaze beneath all that appears on the surface, to dig more deeply under the material garments of our comings and goings.
To open our awareness to the immanent presence of the Divine in every place, however small and seemingly mundane.
Read simply, this story tells a warm-hearting tale of Abraham showing hospitality to strangers who are in need of food and drink.
Read more deeply, it is a story of opening ourselves to the lived presence of God in our everyday lives and showing that Holy Presence to others. Inviting them to rest beside you in the shade of God’s love.
In a teaching on a later parsha, Vayetze, Rabbi Shefa Gold speaks of this awareness of the Divine:
Jacob's journey is blessed at its outset with a dream and with a moment of awakening.
In the dream, God shows Jacob the stairway that connects the realms of Heaven and Earth and then gives him a promise.
Through this blessing, we ourselves become that stairway, that connection, with our feet planted in the foundation of Earth and our crowns open to the expanse of Heaven.
Through us, the Divine flow pours down into the earthly realms.
Through us, the pleasure and miseries of earthly experience are offered up to The Divine Expanse.
When I become available to this flow, I am awakened to the most awesome and transformative truth.
God was here all along and I didn't know it.
THIS is none other than the House of God.
THIS is the Gate of Heaven.
This very moment and this place here where I stand is at once God's home and the doorway to all realms.
Our journey brings us the blessing of zeh- "This."
In becoming fully present to this moment - Here and Now - the Presence of God is revealed.
Kavannah
This week, may we find opportunities to look “beneath the tree” and become available to the flow of the Divine, uncovering the life- nourishing presence of God in the routine of our lives: in our trips to the grocery store, in the reading of books to our children/grandchildren at night, in our phone calls with friends and family, in greeting the mail carrier who brings our mail, in the first breath of a new morning.
Shabbat Shalom
