Avraham's Menu Planning

Parshat Vayera 

 by Rabbi Avi Billet 

 When the three men/angels come to visit Avraham, the Torah describes the food he offers them, bread (18:5), followed by the meal he actually gives them in 18:8. Many of the commentaries note how the Torah doesn’t mention Avraham’s giving them bread, but that does not mean that the cakes he had Sarah prepare, and the bread he promised were not delivered. If he said it, he did it. Radak similarly argues that he surely served them wine, though it isn’t mentioned. [Radak also claims the entire episode is actually a prophesy and not something that really happened.]

 Compare this story to 25:34, after Yaakov makes a deal with Eisav and seals it over the soup he agreed to share. The only food discussed is the red “nazid” (stew), but then Yaakov gives bread as well, and Eisav goes on to eat (the bread and the stew), and drink (wine, presumably). Yaakov never discussed bread or any drink. But bread and wine are standard fare at ANY meal in Biblical times.

 Why do we need the details of the food he gave them – Chem’ah (butter), Chalav (milk), and calf meat? [Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan records a number of possibilities of what Chem’ah is, including cottage cheese, curd, leben or yogurt, cream.] The midrash claims that angels don’t eat anyway! These angels were faking it!



The Talmud (Bava Metzia 86b) derives an important teaching (which Rashi echoes), that when you go somewhere, it is important to show respect through following the custom of that land. Angels don’t eat, and yet they looked as if they were eating when they were existing in the human realm. Similarly, Moshe spent 40 days (three times) in the heavens with the angels, and he neither ate nor drank while in their realm.

 But our question remains: why the detailed menu? Amongst the classical commentaries, there are essentially three schools of thought explaining why we have this detail.

 The first focuses on the fact that Avraham served both dairy and meat. First dairy, then meat (Midrash Aggadah), suggesting this is a healthy way to share food (Targum Yontan, Pesikta). The Midrash Sechel Tov says learns this order of serving food to be proper as it follows how a human fetus develops, based on Iyov 10:10: “Did You not pour me like milk and curdle me like cheese? Clothe me with skin and flesh and cover me with bones and sinews?” In other words, first comes the milk and chem’ah (bones), followed by the meat (flesh). 

Another school of thought was meant to be critical of the angels. A baby who is circumcised is more careful about observing the Torah than the angels who ate milk and meat together (Chizkuni). Related, Daat Zekenim point out that this story gave Moshe ammunition to use against the angels who did not want him to take the Torah from the heavenly realm to share with humans. All Moshe had to say was “You angels ate milk and meat at Avraham’s house. You violated the Torah! Don’t prevent us from getting God’s gift to us.” 

A third approach just teaches a general lesson about hospitality, to make a big spread (buffet) from which your guests can choose what they wish to eat (Radak). Alshikh points out that the angels needed Avraham’s hospitality at that time, which God chose to use against them when they were unhospitable to Moshe. 

Menacham Recanati looks at Isaiah 55:1 – “and without a price, wine and milk.” And learns that giving Chem’ah and Chalav hint to the character trait of Chesed (kindness). Ibn Ezra notes on that verse that the idea of “buying wine and milk without money” is an allusion to the acquisition of wisdom, which is food for the soul, parallel to food which feeds the body. Both wine and milk are compared in other places to Torah, the source of wisdom. All told, Avraham was modeling Chesed and an acquisition of wisdom, perhaps both of which are demonstrations that he is ready for the blessing of a child the angels are now going to bestow upon him.

 While Avraham did not leave us his exact recipes, the menu he served teaches us much about hospitality, health, presenting a spread of food, kindness, Torah, wisdom, as it also set the stage for his descendants to receive the Torah despite objections from the angels.

 Many even follow such a menu on Shavuot (see Shulchan Arukh 494:3, Rama), serving milk and then meat, in a time dedicated to Torah, wisdom, and celebrating life. Of all the character traits we learn from Avraham, it is noteworthy that even in hosting there is rhyme, reason and depth attached to menu planning!