Parshat Vayeira: Dust Under Their Feet

I am writing this article on erev the Israeli elections. The gedolei Torah have been stressing the importance of voting, as the future of Torah in Eretz Yisrael is very much dependent on the outcome. But since you will be reading this after the elections, I won’t focus on them. Instead, I would like to share an important idea that is very applicable to our times.

Parshat Vayeira begins with Avraham Avinu inviting three passing travelers who looked like Arabs into his home. He offered them water to wash their feet and a place to rest. Rashi explains that washing their feet was meant to remove traces of idol worship before they entered his home. More precisely, Avraham thought they were Arabs who “bowed to the dust of their feet.” (The Gemara in Bava Metzia 86b actually calls them Yishmaelim, even though Yishmael was only thirteen at the time, because this practice would later be associated with his descendants.)

What kind of craziness is this “bowing to the dust of their feet”? What does it mean?

To understand this, we’ll first explain a little history. Yishmael’s roots were in Mitzrayim, as his mother, Hagar, came from there. (And according to Peirush Yehonatan ben Uziel, her father, Pharaoh, was the son of Nimrod! Such yichus!)

In Mitzrayim, they wouldn’t look up to Heaven, to Hashem, to ask for rain, as they never had or needed any. Rather, they looked down at the Nile River for sustenance. Every spring, like clockwork, it would rise, becoming their main source of parnasah. They believed they controlled its flow through their irrigation systems and that their success came from their own power.

Even though the Nile’s sources lay farther south in Africa, fed by springs and rain, they considered what they had as coming from themselves. When Avraham went down to Mitzrayim, it was only about 28 years after the dor haflagah, and Mitzrayim was already the breadbasket of the world.

By the time of Moshe Rabbeinu, when Pharaoh declared that he was a god and had created the world, did he really believe he had created himself? Didn’t he have a father and mother? No. Rather, because the Egyptians controlled the water, they considered themselves masters of their own power and destiny. This was belief in something other than Hashem, which is avodah zarah.

So now, let’s return to the Arabs and Yishmaelim.

R’ Moshe Shapiro zt”l explained that when Avraham made the visitors wash their feet because he thought they were Yishmaelim, there was much more to it than it seemed. Their “bowing to the dust of their feet” reflected the belief that they controlled the ground beneath them. As they traveled through the desert, they regarded themselves as masters of whatever happened around them, placing Hashem “beneath their feet.”

Even when they bowed to Him, they were really bowing to themselves, to their own desires. It is an example of a worker-boss relationship: “We’re doing something for You, so You owe us! You need to give to us because we’re bowing to You.”

This is why they try to take over wherever they go, because they place everything and everyone beneath them.

Each nation has a particular character trait that can be expressed in a physical way. In this interpretation, Yishmael’s challenge is connected to “seeing” — failing to see things properly. It is like the mirages one encounters in the desert. They look so real, but there is nothing there.

Yishmael played games with Yitzchak (trying to kill him) because he saw Yitzchak as his adversary, viewing himself as Yitzchak’s equal. He did not “see” that his mother, Hagar, had never been freed by Sarah and that both he and his mother were still servants to Sarah. (We don’t find that Hagar and her family were ever freed.)

Another example is when Hagar and Yishmael were expelled by Avraham, became lost in the desert, and ran out of water. The Torah says that Hashem opened Hagar’s eyes, and she saw the well. The mefarshim explain that the well had been there the entire time. She hadn’t seen it before because she was not seeing things correctly.

I have a friend who checks certain Yishmaeli chat sites to see what people there are discussing. He told me that some were still talking about the FlyDubai flight, but not about the miracles we saw. Instead, they were describing the attempted attack itself as a victory, and are calling for similar attempts! The fact that he tried and failed itself was a victory! That is a deeply troubling way of viewing the event.

When a person becomes convinced that a distorted picture is reality, even clear evidence may not change their mind. They believe that what they “see” is factual and true, even if it is all a mirage.

However, aside from these two ideas, there is another important point here.

Avraham Avinu had the closest connection one could have to Hashem. He worked on it through his emunah — belief — and bitachon — trust. Because of this, Avraham was also the daat Torah of his time, with rulings based solely on Torah. (Even though the Torah had not yet been given, Avraham had the teachings passed down from Shem, Ever, and Noach, besides what he learned himself.)

Hagar, even though she was considered most befitting to marry Avraham, failed, together with Yishmael, to accept his daat Torah.

However, we do see a change in Yishmael at the akeidah, after he did teshuvah. He allowed Yitzchak to go first and followed the instructions to remain behind as Avraham and Yitzchak ascended the mountain.

Avraham Avinu accepted Hashem’s request (not an order — that was his greatness) to bring Yitzchak to the akeidah without hesitation, even though he had many questions. Yitzchak, who was 37 years old, accepted Avraham’s instructions without question, even though he, too, had many.

Avraham had bitachon to do exactly as Hashem instructed without questioning, and Yitzchak followed his father, the da’at Torah of the time, without question. This led to their passing the great test of the akeidah.

We are living in a time of hester panim, when so much is hidden from us, and we see craziness all around. But despite all that, we remain loyal to Hashem, looking up to Him for help. We recognize that we owe Him for everything He has already given us, and that we can rely only on Him.

We need to stay away from relying solely on ourselves and not “bow to the dust of our feet,” placing Hashem beneath us as though our strength and accomplishments were entirely our own.

We need to “see” correctly, follow the Torah properly, and have bitachon in Hashem that everything is happening according to His plan, in the best way, even when we don’t understand it.

And when we follow daat Torah, we know that we have the strongest foundation to rely upon, as we are following Hashem with the closest direction we can receive toward His will in this world.

May we be zoche to greet Mashiach very soon!

---

R’ Dovi Chaitovsky lives with his family in Eretz Yisrael, where he has the zechut to learn and teach Torah. His divrei Torah often draw from the shiurim of R’ Yisrael Altusky shlit”a of Yeshiva Torah Ore, available on www.KolHalashon.com. In Connecting The Dots: Torah Thoughts For Modern Times, he uses Torah sources, stories, parables, and current events to connect timeless Torah wisdom with contemporary challenges and encourage practical growth.