The Tree of His Sayings: Torah, Humility and Zeal

5Read another way, “Hashem appeared …” tells of Hashem appearing within the letters of Avraham's Torah. When it arose in Hashem's will to create the world, to do good to His creatures, the Holy One, blessed be He, contracted Himself. And where did He contract Himself? I heard from my teacher, zt"l,¹ that He contracted Himself into the letters of the Torah, with which He created the world. My teacher said that this is the meaning of Chazal's word kiveyachol, “as it were”: read as kaf-beis yachol (כ"ב יכול), it says that through the twenty-two (כ"ב) letters the Holy One “is able” (yachol) to be in this world. And the tzaddik who studies Torah for its own sake, in holiness, draws the Creator, may He be exalted, into the letters of the Torah, as at the time of Creation.

6That is “Hashem appeared to him in Elonei Mamre.” Mamre (ממרא) speaks of amirah (אמירה), saying; and ilan (אילן), a tree, the word heard in elonei (אלוני), is the Torah, and the mitzvos are its branches. The verse is saying that through Avraham's pure sayings as he studied Torah, he drew the Creator into the letters. That is “in Elonei Mamre”: in the tree of his sayings Hashem appeared to him. How did he earn this, that Hashem appeared to him through his Torah study? The verse answers: it came to him through the great humility in him. That is “while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent”: though he was a great tzaddik, he still held himself in great humility, as one who sits only at the entrance, the beginning, of holiness, for the “tent” hints at holiness. “In the heat of the day”: there are people who look humble, but inside they are not what they seem outside. The verse says that Avraham was truly humble, with a whole heart, and it was as clear to him as the sun that he was only beginning in the service of Hashem, blessed be He. That is “in the heat of the day.”

7“He saw, and behold, three men were standing alav, over him”:² this hints that Avraham saw it was laid alav, upon him, to rectify three worlds, namely fear, love and Tiferes, splendor. For the tzaddik must rectify the six extremities, the sheish ketzavos, which are the six weekdays,³ and they are three and three: three before Shabbos and three after Shabbos. That is why the verse speaks only of “three men”: the three take in all six extremities together, the three before Shabbos with the three after Shabbos. This is what we say in prayer, asking Hashem to put love and fear [two of the three] into our hearts: “to love and to fear.”⁴ Truly a person must put fear before love; but we pray for the fear that comes out of love. The three days after Shabbos are love, for they belong to the Shabbos just past; the three days before Shabbos are fear, and out of them one comes to the love that is Shabbos. So we pray “to love and to fear” in the order of the weekdays, which begin with love and then come to fear, to rectify the six extremities.

8“He saw, and he ran toward them …”⁵ Once the tzaddik has rectified these three worlds, the flow of blessing comes through them into this world. Yet the main thing must be the awakening from below, the first move made by man. That is “He saw, and he ran toward them”: with zeal, which is the main thing, as the Tanna said, “Zeal leads to cleanliness …”⁶ “Toward them” means toward the worlds, to rectify them; and that is the awakening from below. “And he bowed to the ground”: bowing serves to draw the flow of blessing down below, and artzah, “to the ground,” says that he drew it down.

9“He said, ‘Please do not pass on from your servant’”:⁷ he prayed a short prayer to Hashem, blessed be He: “Do not pass from us.” “Let a little water be taken, please”:⁸ that a little of the kindnesses be taken from above to below, for this is the way of tzaddikim: they say little and do much.⁹ “And wash your feet”: that the “feet,” that is, the outside forces, have no contact with holiness and no hold on it, to draw pleasure from it. “And recline under the tree”: that they have no flow of blessing except from the tamtzis, the residue, and that all the flow of blessing go to Israel. Understand this.