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Bereishis 18.1</div>
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And God appeared to him beneath the trees of Mamre, as he was sitting before the door of histent in the heat of the day.</div>
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Who could Avraham expect to come? Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch tells us in part of his commentary on this pasuk that is below.</div>
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Our Sages teach us that Avraham’s sole concern — and this is
<div class="ContentPasted1">what prompted him to sit before his door in the heat of the day —</div>
<div class="ContentPasted1">was that now, following his circumcision, people might avoid him: (Bereshis Rabbah 48:9). Our Sages teach us this so that, from Avraham’s example, we should learn that “Providing hospitality to guests is greater than standing before
the Divine Presence” (Shabbos 127a). <b>And who were the guests Avraham was expecting?
</b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Uncircumcised idolaters! (He could have expected no others.)
</span>[Emphasis added by me.]For their sake he left God’s Presence; he ran to greet them, to fulfill the duty of acting with</div>
<div class="ContentPasted1">lovingkindness toward one’s fellow man.</div>
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<div class="ContentPasted1">Note the manner in which he fulfills this duty. Avraham here</div>
<div class="ContentPasted1">pursues charity and kindness more eagerly than people pursue monetary</div>
<div class="ContentPasted1">gain! He seizes the opportunity, as the first circumcised Jew, to</div>
<div class="ContentPasted1">show kindness to his fellow man. He involves his wife and his son,</div>
indeed, his entire household, in the fulfillment of the mitzvah. He has</div>
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everything freshly prepared — as though he had no other refreshments
<div class="ContentPasted2">at home to offer three wayfarers. This is the reception that was given</div>
<div class="ContentPasted2">to the first guests to present themselves to the first
<i>nimol</i>.</div>
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<div class="ContentPasted2">The foregoing demonstrates Avraham’s joy and relief at the dismissal</div>
<div class="ContentPasted2">of his fear that he would be isolated from his fellow men. Our</div>
<div class="ContentPasted2">Sages Z"L are the ones who discerned this fear. Their insight reached</div>
<div class="ContentPasted2">into the depths of his heart.</div>
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<div class="ContentPasted2">This section is juxtaposed to the section on <i>milah</i>. The people of</div>
<div class="ContentPasted2">Avraham, isolated by circumcision, are to become the most humane of</div>
<div class="ContentPasted2">men. In essence they are a contrast to the rest of world; nevertheless,</div>
<div class="ContentPasted2">they are to be ready at all times to realize every universal human</div>
<div class="ContentPasted2">value. Toward this end they became a people that dwells apart — to</div>
<div class="ContentPasted2">foster within themselves this pure humanity. As the herald of this</div>
<div class="ContentPasted2">spirit, Avraham became an <i>Av</i> and a wing of <i>
hamon goyim</i>, a spiritual</div>
father and a force of moral uplift for a multitude of nations.</div>
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Does not the above tell us how we should relate to and deal with non-religious Jews and with non-Jews. Should not politeness and menschlichkeit be characteristic of how we deal with
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><b>all</b></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b></b> people? Yet, I have heard all too often stories of how supposedly frum people have treated non-religious Jews or gentiles as, at best, second-class people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Professor Yitzchok Levine<br>
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