RABBI WEIN NICE PEOPLE

Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin in his introductory commentary to the book of Bereshith remarks that the outstanding quality of the heroes and heroines of that holy book, our fathers, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, and our mothers, Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah was that they were straight, good, nice people. In reading the sections of the Torah describing them one is struck by how the Torah concentrates on the strains of their personal behavior with others and how very little attention is paid, if any at all, to their theology, philosophy and piety. The rabbis of Midrash and Talmud emphasized this by stating that we see that our father Avraham interrupts a conversation with God, so to speak, in order to welcome and tend to the needs of his three guests whom he believes at that moment to be human itinerant wayfarers.