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Chapter 7
Lord of the Angels
The Torah Koan of Avraham’s Angel Food
Following Avraham’s circumcision the Torah tells us that on his 3rd day of recovery, despite his weakness and the unbearable heat, Avraham was saddened that no guests arrived at the door of his tent. The Torah says that when he saw three "men" approaching, he ran to them and invited them in. The aggada and midrsah relate that these three men were, in fact, angelic entities. The Torah further describes the food that he prepared for them and served them.
God appeared to [Avraham] in the plains of Mamre while he sat at the tent entrance in the hottest part of the day. He lifted up his eyes and saw and behold – three men were standing near him. He saw and ran to greet them… and bowed down to the ground. He said. “My Lord, please, if I’ve found favor in your eyes, please don’t pass by your servant. Let a little water be taken and wash your [the three men’s) feet… and [Avraham] took butter, milk and meat he prepared and placed before them as he stood by them under the tree, and [the angels] ate. (Genesis 18:1-8).
The phenomenon of Avraham’s strange encounter with angels and their eating habits contains a great spiritual riddle. There are three apparent difficulties in this biblical event. First, did Avraham know who these “men” were? Second, whom does Avraham think he is talking to when he calls out the name “Lord”? And third, did the angels really eat and if so what exactly was it that they were digesting?
Did Avraham know who these “men” were? From the primary sources (and in the commentaries written over the last 1000 years) it appears that Avraham is in doubt if these entities are human or angelic. There are logical and textual proofs to support both views. The approach being taken here is that if Avraham knew they were angelic beings what did he think he was doing by giving them earthly food to eat? He certainly knew that spiritual entities don’t require physical sustenance.
On the other hand, if Avraham did not know they were angels then we are confronted with a hermeneutical principle employed by the rabbis, “Are we dealing here with fools”?! Avraham was not only a prophet, but also a divine-like being himself who frequently saw and interacted with angels. Moreover, he was a vessel in which the divine Presence literally dwelt. “The Patriarchs are the divine Chariot”,[1] is a rabbinical formula that alludes to the level of consciousness they had attained. Each of the three patriarchs became an incarnation, i.e. a vehicle or chariot of the three foundation sefirot – the right, left and middle columns of creation. Avraham was a conduit for chesed, Yitzchak for gevura and Ya’akov for tifferet. (There is no word in the English language to describe their state of being and level of consciousness. An approximation is the Oriental term “avatar”, a god incarnate). Therefore, it is impossible for Avraham not to have known what these entities were and yet, if he tried to feed them human food he was relating to them as if he believed them to be humans. What is going on?
Secondly, whom is Avraham talking to when he calls out the name “Lord”? This is another well-known machlokes (rabbinical discussion) concerning the appellation “Lord” that Avraham uses. The original text is unvoweled and the Hebrew word A-D-N-Y can be pronounced three distinct ways all depending on the vowel sign placed under the last letter -- Yud. The Hebrew term for “my sir” or “my lord” is adoni (singular), “my lords” is adonay (plural) and “the Lord” is Adonoy (one of God’s names). So whom is Avraham talking to? Is he speaking to one of the angels (the leader of the group), is he addressing all three angels together or is he speaking directly to God? If Avraham is talking directly to God then he is being rude to his guests to be talking over them.
Lastly, did the angels really eat or were they only feigning courtesy to Avraham? Certainly Avraham would have been aware of the charade and it would have been an insult to him especially since the angels had ostensibly come to comfort him and offer him the opportunity to perform the mitzva of hachnasat orchim – entertaining guests. Yet, the Talmud derives an ethical lesson from here and states “One should not deviate from the local custom. We see this from Moshe when he ascended above [during his 40 days upon Mt. Sinai] he did not eat [per the local custom] and when the angel descended below [as guests of Avraham] they did eat”.[2]
The midrash Tanna D'vei Eliyahu, however, states that although angels do not ordinarily eat, in this case Hashem opened the "mouths" of the angels who came to Avraham's house and they did indeed eat.[3] Moreover, the same midrash proclaims, “Anyone who declares that the angels did not actually eat has said nothing”! In contrast the rhetorical question of the Talmud is also explicit, “Do you think that they [the angels] really ate?! No, they only appeared as if they ate and drank”.[4] Did the angels really eat or not? This is the Kabbalah Koan of Avraham’s Angel Food.
We now have three problems each one with two perspectives oscillating from one extreme to the other. Yet, from a Kabbalistic perspective it is impossible for the Oral Torah to argue with itself. Rather, the apparent conflict is due to our limited vantage point. A Kabbalistic vantage point begins with first asking the greater question: What did this relativity minor event in the life of Avraham have to do with his greater mission and purpose in the world, i.e., the tikkun for the chait of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Avraham, like all the masters before and after him, was an incarnation of an aspect of the original Adam. A finger was not moved nor a moment passed that Avraham was not involved – overtly or covertly – in cosmic tikkun.
In order to understand Avraham’s intention we must begin with a short explanation of angels. Yes, they exist, not as “angels”, however, but as malachim. Malach is the Hebrew for angel and it means messenger (as does the Greek root for angel). However, it also shares the same root with the word for a work-action, malacha. This is because in Torah cosmology a malach/angel is nothing more than a pulsation of divine energy, a current of spiritual electricity. “The spiritual world is modeled after the physical world”. Nothing just happens magically. Everything operates through a cause and effect relationship. Moreover, as with the earthly government, one cannot go directly to the King but must first approach one of the ministers and their secretaries and receptionists, so is it in the divine realm. The ministers, the secretaries and the receptionists are the malachim – the angelic forces that are behind and animate the operational forces of the world.
“Who are these three individuals”? Asks the Talmud. “[The archangels] Michael, Gavriel and Rafael. Michael came to inform Sara [that at 90 years old she would become pregnant with Yitzchak], Rafael to heal Avraham [from his circumcision] and Gabriel to destroy the city of Sedom”.[5] Michael, the leader, was in the middle, Gavriel was to Avraham’s right and Rafael was to Avrahams’s left.[6]
The three angels who visited Avraham are different because they are Archangels, the source and archetypes of all the other angels. They are the “circuit providers”, the trunk from which all the other angelic circuits receive their spiritual current and branch out.[7] As is known in the Kabbalah the world of angels is a lower dimensional replica and outer covering for a higher dimension, the world of the Ten Sefirot. Thus, these three archangels are garments for the three foundation sefirot: chesed, gevura and tifferet. There is still yet, however, one more level up – the root of the trunk, the meta-archangel. This is Metatron, the master channel, and the “backbone” of the whole operation and the direct link to the Ineffable. As known, Metatron is the second in command to God and therefore is also referred to as Lord.[8]
So who was Avraham addressing? From a Kabbalistic perspective the word ADNY (pronounced either Adonoy or Adonai) is multidimensional. It is simultaneously singular and plural (both secular references) and the name of God (a sacred name). Avraham is effecting cosmological restoration and reunification with each aspect of ADNY. The singular “my lord” is the leader of the group and Avraham is effecting a tikkun in the central column of the merkava, the archetypal root of the sefirot. The plural “my lords” refers to all three and Avraham is effecting a tikkun in the collective body of the merkava – chesed, gevura and tifferet. The third tikkun is with the master channel referred to as the Lord. And who is the Lord? Certainly God but there is also another phenomenon called Lord. This is Metatron the Prince of the Universe, the Servant of God “who is called by the name of his master”, as is well known in rabbinical literature. This is because the supernal nature of Metatron is so encompassing and transcendent that he is also called a Lord. The Shechina, the temporal-spatial manifestation of Divinity is actually the feminine aspect of Metatron. This is the ADNY (malchut/feminine) that Avraham called upon in order to reconstruct a bridge between the higher and lower worlds.[9]
When the sages ask a question, it is often a type of rhetorical question that contains a shorthand what in reality is a complex formula. What functions as the “question” is actually a statement only being qualified by the answer.[10] What functions as the “answer” continues to remains open to be questioned. Hence, the “answer” loops back into the “question” – “The end is rooted in the beginning”.
The formula, “Do you think that [the angels] really ate?! Rather, they only appeared as if they ate and drank” can also be reworded, “Do you think that the angels only appeared as if they ate and drank?! Rather, they really did eat and drink [but not from the physical world].
Were the archangels eating or not? Both views are correct. As the sages state, on the pshat level, i.e., from an earthly perspective it did appear to Avraham that the malachim were eating. But they were not eating the physical substance of the earthly food. Rather each morsel, each molecule, was consumed by a divine “fire” from Above as it entered their mouths. From this perspective then the sages reference to the “courtesy of conducting themselves according to the local custom” was that the sparks of divinity within the food was consumed via their mouths when, in fact, it could just as easily have been consumed when they touched it with their hands! This is because their entire entities were portholes absorbing Avraham’s chesed energy via his consummate act of chesed and the offering of food. Their fingers as well as any part of their “bodies” could do the eating.
This then would be the intent of the midrash Tanna D'vei Eliyahu which states that although angels do not ordinarily eat, Hashem opened the "mouths" of the angels who came to Avraham's house and they ate. “Hashem opening the "mouths" of the angels is a code language for this arcane process of divine consumption and the “eating from above”. This also explains the strong language that, “Anyone who declares that the angels did not actually eat has said nothing”! That is, he doesn’t understand at all the spiritual processes at play.
It is also now apparent the esoteric concept that the sages concealed within another midrash: “Avraham's descendants received the mahn (manna) in the desert as a reward for the bread which Avraham offered to the angels. Because Avraham fed human food to the angels his descendants survived on the mahn, which was not human food, but "bread of angels."[11]
Avraham not only knew from the beginning what these entities were but in all likelihood he witnessed their very “entry” into the earthly realm as they concretized and became corporeal “humans”. There never was a question as to their nature. Yet, he then proceeded to relate to them as men! Precisely, because this was the manner in how Avraham – the vehicle for the chesed from below – would now reconnect the fallen physical/human aspects back into its source. From a kabbalistic perspective the only “doubt” on Avraham’s part as to the identity of these men was whether the tikkun was to be made first from the “outside in”, i.e. from the physical/human dimension or from the “inside out”, i.e. the spiritual/angelic/sefirotic dimension. In fact, it was both and Avraham was engaged in both sides of the tikkun simultaneously – two sides to one surface![12] The singular surface being the soul of Avraham, which in turn was a part of the grand soul of Adam. The two sided-one surface model explains why there appears to be contradictions in the oral traditions. The different “opinions” are simply two sides to one surface.
Avraham’s hospitality towards his guests was one of the most important events in the history of the tikkun of Adam. Avraham had reopened the channel that had been plugged up from the time of the Fall. When the sefirotic archangels ate from Avraham’s table they eat from the essence of Avraham’s own soul, the embodiment for the divine attribute of chesed. He offered the essence of his chesed as food that was consumed by a divine fire from above just as occurred in the Temple with the various sacrifices when a divine fire came down from above and consumed the offerings. Till Avraham this conduit was blocked and he removed the q’lipa/shell that covered and concealed it. For this reason the angels could not reveal them selves until Avraham had performed milah on himself to remove the q’lipa/shell from the source of divine chesed.
Avraham was a cosmic Torah technician and the first of the three major circuits was now restored. His son Yitzchak was to follow with the numerous “wells” he dug and uncovered in the mystery of the sefira of Gevura. Ya’akov, Avraham’s grandson, would complete the process by reconnecting the middle column of the sefira of Tifferet via the ascent and descend of Jacob’s ladder. The adamic tikkun began with Avraham in the mystery of angel food. But the Kabbalah qashe and Torah Koan always remains, “Did the angels really eat or not”? Only the Lord of Angels knows for sure.
[1] Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzzatto in his classic work The Path of the Just writes (p.329), “Such a person is himself considered a tabernacle, a sanctuary, an altar. As our Sages of blessed memory have said (Bereshith Rabbah 47.8), " 'And God went up from him' (Genesis 35:13) -the patriarchs are the Divine chariot" and, "The righteous are the Divine chariot." The Divine Presence dwells with the Holy as it dwelt in the Temple. it follows, then, that the food which they eat is as a sacrifice offered upon the fire. There is no question that what was brought up upon the altar was greatly elevated because of its being sacrificed before the Divine Presence, elevated to such an extent that its entire species throughout the world was blessed, as our Sages of blessed memory indicate in the Midrash (Tanchumah Tetzaveh). In the same way, the food and drink of the Holy man is elevated and is considered as if it had actually been sacrificed upon the altar.”
[2] Baba Metzia 86b
[3] Torah Temimah (R. Baruch HaLevi Epstein, 1860-1942) draws attention that the Tososfot commentary on the Talmud here points out the apparent contradiction between the Talmud and the midrash without a resolution. He offers, however, a simple pshat explanation to reconcile the two sources.
[4] Baba Metzia 88b
[5] ibid.
[6] Midrash Rabba and see Torah Temima. “One appeared in the guise of a baker, one in the guise of a ship’s captain and one in the guise of an Arabian nomad”. “Arabian nomad” or Arab here is a pagan native of Arabia. This was long before they converted to Islam. These three physical forms obviously need to be explored as to their deeper significance.
[7] It is interesting to note that, based upon Ezekiel’s vision, secular Israeli scholars chose that the modern Hebrew word for electricity would be chashmal, one of the higher level categories of angelic entities.
[8] In fact, since Metatron is literally the cosmic backbone extending from one end of the universe to the other (“min haolam ve’ad haolam”) and holding up the entire body of creation he is sometimes called “God” -- “Lord”, “Almighty” and even “YHVH the Lesser. See also Sefer Halikutim of the Ari where the word in our text eved, your servant, is identified as Metatron.
[9] “God appeared here to Abraham in the guise of the merkava consisting of the angels and God’s Presence, the Shechina which 'rode' above those angels. It also rested on Abraham, seeing the Torah had said that He appeared to him. When the angels arrived Abraham realized that they were the merkava, the carriers of God’s Presence…[and]…we hear Abraham say one set of words from which we get two messages.” Shela HaKodesh parashat VaYera.
[10] In Talmudic methodology this is known as the hava ameena, the presumption to ask the question in the first instance.
[11] Lev Shalom p.145
[12] This is the Mobius strip model refered to in other Kabbalah Koans.
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