The Lord appeared to [Abraham] by the terebinths of Mamre; he was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot. Looking up, he saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them and bowing to the ground, he said, "My lords, if it please you do not go on past your servant. Let a little water be brought, bathe your feet and recline under the tree. And let me fetch you a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves; then, go on - seeing you have come your servant's way." [Genesis 18:1-5]

Rabbi Yehuda said in the name of Rav: Welcoming guests is greater than receiving the face of the Divine presence as it is written, "My lords, if it please you do not go on past your servant. Let a little water be brought..." [Shabbat 127a]

Rising early to study Torah is the way we honor Torah, but when you welcome a guest it is tantamount to honoring God. For when one brings a guest into their home and honors him because he was created in the image of God, then it is as if they are honoring the Divine presence, which is greater than honoring the Torah. [Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague, Pathways of the World, chapter 4 (1525-1609)]

"Drink, my lord," she said, and she quickly lowered her jar upon her hand and let him drink. When she had let him drink his fill, she said, "I will also draw for your camels, until they finish drinking." [Genesis 24:18-19]

Rabbi Nathan Finkel lived towards the end of the 19th century and headed a yeshiva in Slobodka, a small town in Lithuania. On cold, dark winter mornings, it is said, the rabbi used to get up early, cross over the bridge and go into town. He would stop off in all the shtibelech, all the little prayer houses and places of study, one after another. And in each small, dark room, he would light a fire in the oven and stoke the flames before continuing on his rounds. ‘Why did he do it?' his closest friends would ask. And he would say: If all the prayer houses and places of study are warm early in the morning, then coachmen, porters and all kinds of poor people will come in to get warm - and then they will find themselves in a sacred place. [Norman Lamm, The Good Society: Jewish Ethics in Action, p.31]

There are six things which, while providing some reward in this world, reach their real value in the World to Come: Hospitality to strangers, visiting the sick, meditation in prayer, rising early to attend the study hall, raising one's children in the study of Torah, and judging of one's neighbors charitably. [Sabbath 127a]