How do we respond to existential crisis? I would assume that no two people would respond exactly the same way to the same situation. And I would also assume that the same person would respond differently to different crises.

I was thinking about this question when reading the start of Vayera, this week’s Torah portion. Avraham and Sarah were promised a great nation, and there she finds herself old, menopausal, and childless. According to the Midrash at the start we see God looking after Avraham in his tent after the ordeal of his circumcision. There he is deep in pain, but when Avraham sees three strangers traveling in the desert he runs to invite them in. And I can only imagine the anguish of Sarah’s life. She thought her life was about having and caring for a child and now she is schvitching getting food ready for these strangers. As models of hospitality, Avraham and Sarah meet their every need. How did they choose to have an open tent?

Recently I learned a new vocabulary word: xenial. This mean “pertaining to hospitality.” It is from the Greek xenia “hospitality, rights of a guest, friendly relation with strangers.” We might be familiar with a similar work xenophobia, the fear of strangers. What makes someone fear or love strangers?

This reminds me of old story. As it goes an old Cherokee Indian chief was teaching his grandson about life. He said, “A fight is going on inside me,” he told the young boy, “a fight between two wolves. The Dark one is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The Light Wolf is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you grandson…and inside of every other person on the face of this earth.” The grandson ponders this for a moment and then asked, “Grandfather, which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee smiled and simply said, “The one you feed”.

As we see in the Torah Avraham and Sarah each had legitimate reasons to ignore or be closed to these strangers. But instead, they open their tent and feed these three strangers. In so doing they feed the good wolf. We too have to make a choice of being xenial or xenophobic. May we be bless to choose to feed the good wolf.