Avraham recipe: Health, hospitality, kindness

When the three men/angels come to visit Avraham, the Torah describes the food that Avraham offers — bread (18:5) followed by a meal (18:8). Many 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 Avraham surely served them wine, though it isn’t mentioned. (Radak also claims that the entire episode is 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 both 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 — chem’ah (butter), chalav (milk) and calf meat — since the midrash claims that angels don’t eat anyway!

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 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 this order of serving food is 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, followed by the meat.