Shabbat Experiment Week 4 - Openheartedness

This week's Torah portion begins with Abraham sitting at his tent. No sooner does God appear than Abraham runs off to greet three strangers and offer them the hospitality of his home. The Rabbis comment on this opening scene: Offering hospitality is greater than greeting God's presence (the Shekhinah)! For after all, God appears to Abraham but Abraham is more interested in greeting three travelers with water and food. Hospitality involves a willingness to be open to that which comes from the outside. It is not just about guests. It is a welcoming of the new and unknown. It requires an open heartedness.

Too often we think our hearts need to be protected lest they be broken. Over time there can be a hardening of our spiritual arteries. The word "no" comes too easily to our lips. We feel comfortable in familiar routine. In its extreme form our heart becomes hardened like Pharaoh's, unwilling to see what is unfolding right in front of you.

Like Abraham we need to be at times willing to embrace the stranger, to leave our homes and seek the unknown. Most of all, we need to open our hearts. Why? Sharon Salzberg writes: "A loving heart will give you more happiness than anything you crave."
An open heart is a better place to live than a place of fear or of envy.

A line from the liturgy:
Ve-taheir libeinu le-avdekha be-emet---purify our hearts to serve you with truth. Open our hearts to see the truth of our existence. An existence with challenges but also filled with blessings and the hearts of those around us.

The significance of hospitality and being open hearted is conveyed in the opening lines of this week's Torah portion as Abraham and Sarah greet three strangers.

Hospitality is greater than a visit to the House of Study; it is greater than welcoming the Shekhinah (God's indwelling presence). The hospitable person is rewarded in both worlds. [Shabb. 127a]

In the tradition, Abraham and Sarah are considered the models of hospitality. Their tent had doorflaps on each side so that visitors could enter from any direction. They would not wait for guests to "knock" but rather they would rush out to greet strangers and invite them to wash off their traveler's dust. It is striking that these people, the first Jews in the world, would be known particularly for this quality, for hospitality, of all possible good qualities--peace, humility, and generosity--this quality of hospitality was what characterized Abraham and Sarah.

Why? Why is hospitality greater than greeting the Shekhinah or visiting the House of Study? Perhaps because it is too easy to become isolated from the world and retreat into the world of study and intellect-or to retreat into the world of contemplation of the holy. Hospitality requires an interaction between people, a bringing together of souls, hearts, an opening up, a getting to know better, a connection to a world beside your self.

To be hospitable is to make room for others, to contract; to do tzimtzum, "contraction," as God did in creating the world, to open a space for others in your life. It is not a vacuum that is created by this contraction, but rather a space that bespeaks welcome, that makes others feel at home, that crosses across the vacuums in our lives and connects our souls to others. In that space both learning about others and yourself and the Shekhinah, God's presence, are there whenever we are really present to each other. In that contraction, making space, and welcome, we create new worlds as did God in that original tzimtzum--worlds of connection, meaning, stories, food, laughter and sharing. Thus, it is certainly true that hospitality is greater than study or even welcoming the Shekhinah.

One other aspect to think about. There is a danger that as we focus on these themes of our inner lives that we lose sight of the bigger picture. Services remind us that prayer is not an individual experience rather it takes place in the context of a minyan. We are to be connected to that which is larger than ourselves (traditionally God) and to each other (community). This week's theme of being open hearted particularly reminds us that the spiritual life is lived not in monastic isolation but rather in the daily interactions with the people in our lives.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Michael Strassfeld