Shabbos: Spreading the Light
Understanding Shabbos through the lens of Parashas Vayera
Starting 2013, the Shabbos Project is marked on Parashas Vayeira. It began with Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein in South Africa and grew into a global kiruv movement. Families across every sector of Judaism join Orthodox communities to bake challah and rediscover the gift of Shabbos. Rabbi Goldstein explains the connection to Vayeira through Avraham and Sarah’s tent, open on all four sides, a vision of hospitality and relief from the heat.
This is a beautiful idea, and I believe we can understand this on a much deeper level. Before the light of Shabbos reaches the guests, it must envelop the host. Parashas Vayeira shows how light moves from inside a person into the world through simple acts of chesed.
As I’ve been tracing the past few weeks: Adam struggled to live with the Ohr Ein Sof, the light of Shabbos. Noach lived with it but could not hold or translate it. Avraham discovered that real understanding begins within and then carries the light into ordinary days. That is the turn from abstraction to life, from a spark to Shabbos as lived wisdom. The question follows naturally: how do we practice this in real homes, with real people, week after week?
The parashah opens with Avraham after his bris milah. Hashem visits him, modeling bikur cholim. As Avraham sits with the Shechinah, he lifts his eyes, sees three angels appearing as travelers in the distance, and runs to greet them.
The Beis Yaakov1 teaches that through milah, Avraham set a lasting imprint of kedushah in the body and could now draw on the Ohr Ein Sof in this world to affect change in Creation. From there, his speech and tefillah gained new force, and he could work to tilt din toward rachamim.
The Sfas Emes adds that when the bris removes the outer covering, the inner Divine life in all things becomes visible. “Vayeira elav” means Hashem was present all along and now Avraham could perceive it. Our task, especially as Bnei Yisrael, is to witness that hidden truth in a world of concealment by accepting His kingship and aligning our will. Shabbos helps us draw joy from its holiness itself, which lifts us beyond pain and distraction.
The Apta Rav2 reads the three anashim as sham ayin (שם אין = אנשים) hidden within anashim—the signal of ayin, holy “nothingness.” Avraham runs toward that ayin, and by welcoming them and bowing to the ground, draws the Ohr Ein Sof down so the flow reaches Knesses Yisrael.
Rav Yoel Tordjman brings this down to earth. What does real vision look like in a human life? Avraham receives clarity from Hashem while he is in pain. His first choice is simple and hard: withdraw into himself, or turn outward. He stands, he runs, he welcomes three strangers. Vision here is not fireworks or images. It is the quiet certainty that helps a person make the right decision at the right moment with the right people. The proof of vision is what you do next.
Clarity rarely travels alone. It attracts interruption, discomfort, and characters who you did not plan to meet. These moments look like obstacles. They arrive at the wrong time and appear uninvited. These moments press on tender places. Rav Tordjman notes that the parashah says “vayar” three times, this is a training of the eye. First you receive a glimpse. Then you choose how to look. Only after that, do you learn what you are seeing. Avraham moves toward the interruption with generosity, and the “strangers” reveal themselves as malachim who carry a promise about his future and the future of his nation.
The pattern is simple and demanding.
Receive a spark of clarity.
Refuse the pull to retreat into pain.
Share what you have discovered by opening your tent to whoever shows up, even when they do not fit your plan for the day.
Treat the interruption as a messenger.
Act with steadiness and warmth. Do this, and your vision matures from private inspiration into a living message.
The very things that seemed to disturb you become the delivery system for blessing.
Think of it this way, when you connect to the ohr so deeply that Hashem visits, you then share that light. The light does not only descend. It rises within and then moves outward. If Hashem is here, what do you do with that light? You bring it to where your feet are. You carry it to guests, to malachim, to Sedom, to Lot.
This is the call to be an ohr la’amim. Avraham shares the ohr through chesed. That is the light of Shabbos entering the world. That is the secret of Parashas Vayeira.
A real encounter with Hashem overflows into chesed. You carry others into the light you just touched. The highest hachnasas orchim is when the guest no longer feels like a guest, the way Hashem makes us feel at home in His world.
The Maor Einayim writes that in fulfilling hachnasas orchim a person also receives the Face of the Shechinah. Bring people not only into your house but into your heart. Let them feel they dwell there. That is the light of Shabbos.
When we host guests on Shabbos, we reenact Avraham inviting the malachim into his tent. We draw the light down into a home.
Anyone with kids knows the Shabbos table can be a difficult setting, with bickering, sibling rivalry, and tension. But as soon as a guest walks in, the air changes. The kids sit up, they grow curious, the bickering quiets, and the room takes on a new tone. It feels natural. Presence steadies a home.
Last week we lost a hero, Effie Feldbraum, killed in Gaza. His commander, Oriah, said at the levayah that Effie was humming Shalom Aleichem as his soul flew upward, and the crowd answered by singing it together. His uncle, R’ Chaim Dovid Saracik, asked that we hold Effie in mind when we sing Shalom Aleichem this Friday night. It’s sung in nearly every Jewish home, yet it’s not an ancient niggun; Rav Shimon bar Yochai didn’t sing it—Rashi might have.
That sent me down a rabbit hole: why do we sing Shalom Aleichem at all?
It seems to stem from the Gemara3: two malachim accompany a person home. When he says Vayechulu, they place their hands on his head and bless him; anyone who says Vayechulu is a partner in Creation. The Gemara adds: two angels—one good, one “bad”—enter with him on Friday night. If the home is prepared for Shabbos, the good angel says, “May it be so next week,” and the other must answer amen; if not, the reverse.
Rav Moshe Shapiro4 explains that the world would have unraveled after six days, but Shabbos recharges reality for the next six. When we say Vayechulu and affirm Hashem’s Creation and the arrival of Shabbos, we give strength to the coming week and become partners in Creation. In Sodom, he says, this did not happen—there was no such affirmation—so the city collapsed, except for Lot.
The question lingers: why are the malachim accompanying us?
Rav Kook says to understand this you need to understand the concept of an os—a sign of the bris that draws the Ohr Ein Sof into daily life. The Torah gives three core osos:
Shabbos is an os in time: we step back from melachah, receive menuchah, and the week resets around a new center.
Milah is an os in the body: kedushah is imprinted in flesh so the soul can hold more light, not as a concept but as life lived.
Tefillin is an os for the mind and hand: thought and action line up with ratzon Hashem, and the day walks in one direction.
In practice, an os reminds us who we are while the world pulls us everywhere. It creates a vessel for the ohr, opening a path for kedushah to enter and then move outward—into the home and the street. When a person engages an os, he is surrounded by malachim, present where he needs them.
It is for this reason that there is a malach at the bris. Rav Kook explains that one who wears tefillin is protected by malachim as well. On Shabbos—when we do not wear tefillin because Shabbos itself is an os—the merit that tefillin provides is carried by Shabbos. That is why we speak of malachim on Friday night, and why we sing Shalom Aleichem.
The malachim help bring the light into our world. They give clarity so we can share it.
We say Shalom Aleichem, Bo’achem, Barchuni—to receive the light of Shabbos—and then we send them off, because they do not need to hear Kiddush.
The malachim are at the table, noticing whether we are ready to receive the light. If we are, and we have said Vayechulu, we are blessed with continuity into the coming week. If not, we resemble Sodom, where Vayechulu was never said.
If the malachim mark our readiness, the next move is simple: bring the light to the table.
Avraham Avinu understood this middah of chesed. After Shalom Aleichem, we wash for hamotzi and dip the challah in salt. There is a minhag to dip three times. I heard from my father, quoting the Kaf HaChaim, that this sweetens din: bread embodies chesed, salt embodies din.
Avraham tried to sweeten the din of Sodom through tefillah. Yet the city turned to salt, as Lot escaped with his daughters. The Kaf HaChaim teaches that we dip bread in salt to lift some din from the world and increase chesed, emulating Avraham’s path. Maybe that is why Avraham gave the angels bread, to draw down the middah of chesed. Lot, too, served the angels matzah, hinting that even in Sodom there was a vessel, however small, for chesed to cling to.
The parashah ends with the Akeidah. At first glance it looks like the antithesis of chesed. However, if you think about it, the nisayon of the Akeidah reveals what chesed really is. Chesed is not endless giving on my terms, rather it serves Hashem and protects the receiver. Sometimes the kindest act is to stop. When Avraham lifts the knife, the malach calls out, and he holds back. That restraint is chesed integrating its opposite so kindness can live here—like pulling a rubber band to the far end so it returns with greater strength. The stretch is not a denial of chesed; it is what allows chesed to return with force.
This also completes Rav Tordjman’s idea. First comes clarity. Then, almost immediately, interruption. With the angels, Avraham runs outward to greet the unexpected visitors. At the Akeidah, the interruption arrives inside the clarity itself: the voice says “Stop.” Avraham’s movement is the same—obedience to Hashem in the moment—but now the “running” is inward. He restrains. He holds the light rather than spending it. That is vision becoming precision.
So how is this chesed? Because real chesed is understanding, “What does Hashem want here, and what can this world hold?” Boundless light without form shatters vessels. The Akeidah teaches that to enter life, light needs a boundary. Avraham is ready to give everything for tikkun. Then he learns the form of giving that preserves life. He offers the ram, set aside from the very first Erev Shabbos, as it contains within it a glimpse of Shabbos itself . The flow is redirected, and blessing can rest.
This is the precise work: open your home, share your light, and learn where to stop. Where chesed meets gevurah, ohr becomes daily life. That is how Shabbos moves from idea to table.
Avraham once said of Avimelech, “There is no yiras Elokim here.” On Har HaMoriah he discovers that yirah, like light, rises from within when chesed accepts a boundary. When Avraham holds back, Hashem says, “Now I know that you are a yerei Elokim.” Yirah here is alignment with the tzimtzum of the ohr, which lets shefa enter vessels without shattering them. Boundless Ohr Ein Sof cannot enter the world unshaped. To be received, it needs form. It needs gevurah. It needs Yitzchak. By stopping, Avraham does not shut the light; he gives it form.
The arc comes full circle. Adam struggled to live with the light. Noach carried it but could not hold or share it. Avraham lets it remake him and then move outward as chesed, and at the Akeidah he learns the lines that guard it. Next week, we turn to Yitzchak, the shape that lets the light last.
Vayeira 4
Ohr LaShamayim, Vayeira
Shabbos 119b
Shuvi V’Nechzeh, Shabbos 3