A Thought on Parshas Vayera

"...v'he'nae shlosha anashim..." "...and Avraham beheld three men..." (18:2) The episode of Avraham's three desert visitors is a very familiar one. Many of us know also that there are two views as to the identity of those wayfarers: they were either actual people, or they were malachim - angelic emissaries. In theological terms, Avraham's encounter with these three was either a visit, or a visitation. The Gan observes that the overt meaning of the passage would be that these visitors were actual people, and that Avraham had an actual encounter, as opposed to a spiritual vision, which is known as a visitation from Above. After all, these three visitors ate the tangible food which had been prepared for them, and eating food is not something which we would associate with heavenly entities. He cites Shoftim 13:16 - angels do not eat food. However, the Gan stresses, our sages, in many sources, have taught that these were in fact three angelic messengers. With that premise, we have to deal with the difficulty presented by those same verses, which describe how the angels ate real food. The Gan is less concerned with reconciling those verses than he is militant against the misuse of this passage by those whom he refers to as "the Minim", which is a euphemism for the host religion which dominated France in his day (they are no longer the majority religion in France). They used this passage, which they assert was talking about divine creatures who descended and materialized in human form, then talked, walked, ate and drank, as support for their doctrine of how "god" can morph into a human being. Those minim held the belief that god is supernal yet can emerge from the transcendent into the corporeal. The way they view our verses, the Torah is describing how "god" comes down to earth and becomes a human creature when he wants to. The Gan asserts that it is forbidden to concede to them that our verses are attributing human actions and behavior to a deity. He writes that "many rebuttals are obvious." Firstly, verse 5 says "eat so as to sustain yourselves." The Gan reminds us that "god" would not be weak or hungry and would not need to sustain himself with food. Secondly, our verse enumerates three entities yet in 19:1, only two remain. The Gan points out that if the passage was an allusion to the belief of the minim that their god is a trinity, then their whole premise in refuted the moment the Torah tells us that one of the three disappeared. That could hardly happen to a "god." Thirdly, in 19:13 the angels declare that they were "sent on a mission by HaShem to destroy the region". The Gan notes that according to the minim, the three entities are all facets of one "god". Who sent whom? They were all equal "parts", so why would they (which according to the minim is really an "it") say that they had been sent from HaShem, the Higher Power? Clearly, the angels were not god, were not gods, and were not parts of god. G-d is One, is not divisible, and does not take on any form at all. But, HaShem can send angels or emissaries to do His bidding. That is what the three malachim were, and they were sent by HaShem, but were not Him nor a part of Him. And with the Gan's words, the minim have been minimized. Good Shabbos. D Fox