A vort from the Rebbe on this week's פרשה, פרשת וירא. In the end of פרשת וירא, it says ויטע אשל בבאר שבע ויקרא שם בשם ה' קל עולם, that Avraham Avinu planted an eshel, which means a place for guests in Be'er Sheva, and he called out the name of Hashem, the King of the world, the God of the world. And Rashi explains that through this eshel, through this place that he had guests, the name of Hashem was known to the whole world, because he would give them to eat and drink, and afterwards he would say to them, \"Now, thank the one that you ate from.\" And he told them, \"You should know that what you ate is not mine. You ate the Eibershter's. Bimela, please thank the Eibershter.\" And they would thank the Eibershter. So through his eshel, he brought people to thank Hashem, to recognize Hashem. And the Midrash adds to this, and the Midrash says like this, if there's a case that somebody did not want to bless Hashem, so Avraham Avinu told him, \"Oh, in that case, you'll have to pay me.\" He gave him a bill of all the food that he gave him, charged him the high prices, and he told him, especially this was all given to you in the desert where it's not so available, it's even more expensive. And he said, \"You must pay this money unless you thank Hashem.\" And when they saw that they were pressured to do it, they would say, \"Okay, we thank Hashem for the food.\"

But the Rebbe asks, what was the gain? If they really didn't mean what they said, they just did it to get off the pressure of the bill, so what did we gain? Is that what we want? We want they should recognize Hashem, not just to say the words, \"We thank Hashem.\"

And the Rebbe explains it like this. When the people came and stayed by Avraham in the eshel, they stayed there and ate and drank, Avraham would constantly talk to them and explain to them the unity of Hashem. And people would understand it. And when they would leave and they would thank Hashem, not just they said the words, but they thanked Hashem, they really meant it, because they understood it after Avraham Avinu's explanation. Sometimes it would happen Avraham Avinu saw he explained and he explained and it doesn't go in. There's something there, not because a person is stupid and doesn't understand. There's some blockade that's there in the person that's blocking those ideas to go through his mind. So all he had to do is make a hole or break through that blockade, and automatically all the explanations will come in. And that's what Avraham Avinu did. When he saw that these people didn't want, he saw that what happened was that there's something that's blocking it, so he put pressure up on them. And that pressure broke that blockage that was there, and after it broke the blockage, now all the explanations he gave entered their mind. So when they eventually, in order to not have to pay the bill because of the pressure, they thanked Hashem, it's not just saying the words. Because he did this, it broke the blockade, and bimela now they were understanding, they understood the truth of Hashem, and they really meant what they said. And the lesson we take from here is that we have to do everything in our power to publicize and make people realize the truth of Hashem. And sometimes you see that it doesn't go, it's because there's some blockade. We have to do everything in our power to make that the blockade should go away and the truth of Hashem will penetrate into their sechel.