Digital Maggid
When he had served the guests, Abraham forgot about his pain and ran to the cattle with his son Ishmael to get three oxen, and he put Ishmael in charge of them, to bring them into the house and he went alone to take yet another ox. The angel Refoyl appeared to a fat, healthy ox and when the ox saw Abraham approaching, he escaped and fled, running until he came to the Cave of Machpelah. Abraham chased him and caught him. Abraham saw that Adam and Eve were buried there, and had the appearance of people who slept a sweet sleep, and around them shone many lights that illuminated the entire cave, and it smelled of the fragrance of Gan Eden. Abraham thought to himself, “When the time of my death approaches, I will buy this very cave and I will pay whatever they want for it.”
Hashem saw the utter selflessness which Abraham showed toward the visiting angels and did not want him to be troubled, so he made a miracle so that the angels, this particular time, ate like people and derived pleasure from the efforts of the tsadik. The angels ate and Abraham’s joy was boundless.
Gd said to Abraham: “Because you have given your guests water, meat, bread, butter and milk, and you have also invited them into the sheltering shade of the tree, due to this, I will do good by your children in the wilderness and I will reward them goodness for goodness: a well of water will follow them; a cloud will cover them, making a shade against the sun; manna will descend from heaven, and quail will descend for them on the earth; and when they enter the Holy Land, they will have springs and cliffs and many sheep and cattle and their homes will be filled with everything good.”
When the Angels finished their feast, one of them stood up and said to Abraham: “You should know that next year your wife will give birth to a son.”
When Sarah got word that she would give birth to a son, she prayed to Gd and asked: “Master of the Universe, if you are giving me a son, why will you punish my children that they should be slaves for four hundred years?” Gd said to her: “Because you have prayed to me and you have compassion for your children who will be in exile, I will take away from the four hundred years the sum of your years and the sum of your husband’s years, which are together 190 years and the Jews will be in Egypt only 210 years.”
After the news about Yitzik’s birth, the angels revealed to Abraham the bad deeds of the people in Sodom, and the punishment that was in store for them. Because Gd had said: “When a man wants to inform another of something bad, let him begin with a good thing and end with the second.” The angels began with the news of Yitzik’s birth and ended with the punishment of Sodom. The whole time the angels were talking to Abraham, they were standing before him in dread and fear, quivering from his great holiness. When the angels turned to leave, Abraham accompanied them. Thus did Abraham behave with his guests: After he had given them to eat and to drink, he would accompany them on the road, because the mitzvah of hospitality-to-guests is greater than receiving-the-Divine-presence, and the mitzvah of accompanying is very great. Abraham accompanied them until they came to a fork in the road, and there the two angels who had turned toward Sodom bade him farewell: Gavriyel — who would overturn Sodom, and Refoyl, whose task was to save Lot. But Mikhoyl, because he had already done his penitential prayers and broken the news to Sarah about her giving birth to Yitzik, he went back to heaven to be with his folks.
THE END
