Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz

You know, many of us work hard all week, we look forward to Shabbos, and Shabbos is just a time to unwind and just be with the family and just relax.

and having to put on a whole show and to entertain people is very difficult for a lot of people.

And that's why it's such a great mitzvah.

It should be pointed out, though, the mitzvah is not a mitzvah to hang out with your friends.

I mean, you invite, you know, four couples for a Shabbos meal, four families for a Shabbos meal, and they're your best friends in the whole world.

That is not a chunasor chadramaraitz.

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If you have a person who lives in the neighborhood, they have what to eat, they have where to stay, and you just want to hang out with them, so you invite them, that is not a sudas mitzvah, it's just a sudas rishus.

Mishael Brewer points out, though, that if you have actual orachim, and then you invite more people in order to be mechabeh dioreach, then that is hachmasos orachim, that is part of the mitzvah.

as we alluded to before Avraham Avinu was talking to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and what looked like guests appeared in his home and he said to HaKadosh Baruch Hu excuse me I need to go take care of these guests and the Gemara derives from there that I've quoted many times recently the great Vart from Rabbi Hauer who said that why is it or how did Avraham Avinu realize that HaKadosh Baruch Hu was greater than Kabbalah's Pnei Shekhinah

Quite, quite simply, that Avraham Avinu realized that when you take care of somebody else, you are serving as Hashem's shliach to answer their tefillahs.

Meaning someone else davens, you think about it, tefillah b'tzibur.

People are davening in a shul, and this one's davening for a shidduch, and you happen to know somebody that you could be mishadich them with.

So you are the answer to their tefillah.

When a traveler doesn't know where he's going to be, where he's going to eat, and you're able to provide for him, you are the answer to his tefillah.

You are an extension of Hashem.

And the way Rabbi Hauer said it, Avraham Avinu was faced with a choice.

He can either talk to Hashem, or he can act as an extension of Hashem.

And when put in those terms, the choice is obvious.

Chazal talked a lot about the value of achnasorchim.