Rabbi Janet Marder

January 21, 2005

Shabbat at Home

            I remember the first apartment that Shelly and I ever lived in, back in the late 1970s.  We were students at HUC, and we had a place in Woodhaven, a neighborhood in Queens, on a street that looked just like the one where Archie Bunker lived, in “All in the Family.” We had two small rooms: a combination kitchen/dining/living room and a bedroom. Our furniture was sparse, to say the least. We had some shelves in the kitchen, where we kept our food; we had a small table, where we ate our meals; we had two shabby and comfortable oversized chairs, where we’d sit in the evening and talk or read the papers or watch old movies on tv. Once, for a while, we had a mouse who resided with us, in a hole somewhere in the kitchen. When we lay in bed at night we could hear him munching and crunching and scampering around the house.

            It was not an elegant place, that first apartment. It was two flights up, and they felt like a lot of stairs when we were carrying up our bags of groceries from the store down on Jamaica Avenue. Our downstairs neighbor liked to play the Rolling Stones so loud on his stereo that our floors would vibrate. The skylight in the bathroom leaked, and sometimes the snow would drift in; once we found a pile of it on the bathroom floor.

            We lived in our Woodhaven apartment for two years. We were happy there. We thought the leaky skylight and the noisy neighbor and the flights of stairs were minor inconveniences, and we would laugh about our resident mouse. The next place we lived together -- a one-bedroom apartment in Reseda, California, just down the street from a pawnshop, which we rented for $300 a month -- felt like a huge step up, because it had wall-to-wall carpeting. And we loved our third home, a drafty little two-bedroom house we rented in Santa Monica, even though it had no insulation and was so cold in the winter that we had to pile nine or ten blankets on our babies when we put them to bed.

            We’ve lived in three places since then – a condominium, an apartment, and now our house in Palo Alto -- and we’ve been happy in all of them. Home, for us, has never been about the square footage or the furniture or the neighborhood. Home is the place where our family comes together; it is our refuge from the world, where we feel safe and comfortable and understood and loved.

             What makes a home beautiful? Each of us will probably have a different answer, for we all have our own aesthetic preferences and personal style. What makes a home Jewish? Here, too, the answers will vary, but one is absolute.

            “In every neighborhood,” writes Anita Diamant,  “there is one house where children know they are always welcome to play. These are households where it seems that the couch is forever being made up for an out-of-town visitor. And these are homes where it just isn't Friday night without guests at the table. Children who grow up in these homes learn the challenging pleasures of serving and sharing, and the joys of offering hospitality. For Jews, hospitality is not simply a matter of good manners; it is a moral institution. Judaism defines hospitality as a sacred obligation; it is the mitzvah called hachnasat orchim, literally, ‘the bringing in of guests’.”

            A Jewish home is a home that welcomes guests. Showing hospitality, in fact, is one of the primary ways we practice Judaism – as much a part of our religious observance as prayer, study and giving tzedaka. Remarkably, the Talmud defines the mitzvah of hospitality as even more important than Torah study [Shabbat 127a]; and in another striking statement, we’re told that welcoming guests is even more important than receiving the Shechina, the presence of God [T.Shavuot 35b].

             Why is such importance attached to this haimish, down to earth behavior? One way to understand Judaism is that it’s a system that helps us to grow – intellectually, morally, emotionally and spiritually. Every mitzvah teaches us in some way to expand our capabilities, to enhance our awareness, to develop our character. But the great purpose of all the mitzvot, I believe, is to help us to overcome our instinctive narcissism and our focus on the self. Hachnasat Orchim, a simple act that we can practice every day, gradually expands our circle of concern and brings others into our consciousness. As such, it helps train us in the habits of sensitivity, compassion and care that are at the very heart of the Jewish way of life.

            What does it mean, in practical terms, to follow the mitzvah of Jewish hospitality? Hachnasat Orchim is an active concept: to “bring in guests” doesn’t simply mean that you make people welcome when they come to your home, but that you actively look for people who need to be welcomed. My grandfather used to joke that my grandma would go out and stand on the corner where they lived, in Irvington, New Jersey, and would bring in any strangers she happened to find in the street.

            He wasn’t far from the truth. For every holiday she had a full table – not just family and good friends, but always some others who needed a place to go: her recently widowed pediatrician, a family that was new in the neighborhood, a college student who was the daughter of a friend of a friend. A good part of the mitzvah of hospitality is simply paying attention to the people around you who may be in need of some kindness and warmth.

            There is a right way and a wrong way, of course, to do this. One woman I know told me that she’d once been invited to Thanksgiving dinner by someone who told her, “I’m gathering in some strays this year.” Hachnasat Orchim is not about taking pity or putting another person in the humiliating position of feeling like an inferior. There are extensive Jewish commentaries on how to invite people to your home with sensitivity and tact, and how to treat them once they’re there, so that they feel as comfortable and relaxed as possible. For example – it’s always best to invite someone for Shabbat dinner by Wednesday, so that they don’t feel they’re a last-minute afterthought, or that your first choice of guest turned you down.

            Hospitality has always been viewed as the duty of Jewish communities, as well as individuals. Throughout the Middle Ages, Jews maintained hostels to welcome travelers and offer them food and shelter; up through modern times it was considered an honor for families to host a yeshiva student for one or more meals a week. And hospitality is still considered a central mitzvah for traditional Jewish communities today. Visitors who show up at services are usually invited to a members’ home for Friday night dinner or Shabbat lunch. I looked at the website of Temple Beth Shalom, for instance, a congregation in Seattle, and I found this announcement:

            “The Hospitality Committee is committed to fulfilling the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim (welcoming guests) by providing meals and/or lodging to Beth Shalom visitors. We can most easily accommodate your needs if you call or email to make arrangements with us in advance. We also make every effort to welcome guests to our shul during Shabbat services and invite them for Shabbat dinner. Hospitality Committee volunteers will be at the ‘Visitor's Table’ during the Kiddush after services to coordinate hospitality. If they don’t find you, please ask an usher, or a congregant for an introduction! If you are planning to visit Beth Shalom, please email us at hospitality@bethshalomseattle.org.   If you are a member of Beth Shalom and would like to commit the gomel hesed (act of lovingkindess) of hachnasat orchim, please visit the Hospitality Committee page.”

             What would it mean to be a community that takes this mitzvah seriously? Tonight our congregation is trying something new: an experiment called “Shabbat at Home,” in which many of our members have opened their homes to invite others for Shabbat dinner. I want to thank and honor Ron and Marilyn Schilling, for conceiving of this program and for coordinating it in this first year. It’s one step in creating a culture of hospitality and graciousness, a culture that helps make it easier to connect with others and build friendships within our congregation.

            Shabbat, you see, is all about welcome. We teach ourselves to “greet” Shabbat – to open ourselves to a different kind of mood, to invite warmth and peace and joy into our consciousness, to focus on creating a special atmosphere in our homes. Good food and wine on the table, good company and laughter around the table, maybe even a little singing, are part of the celebration of this day.

            What makes Shabbat hospitality so hard for us? We all know the reasons. We’re busy. We’re tired. At the end of the week we may want, above all else, to relax by ourselves or to be together with our immediate family. Maybe we’re shy, and entertaining makes us nervous. And maybe, most of all, we’re afraid of being judged by others. What will they think about our cooking, our home, the behavior of our kids, the way we observe Shabbat?

             All of these help explain why the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim is not a simple matter, especially when we haven’t grown up with the habit of getting together for Shabbat. Here are a few suggestions: First, a Sabbath meal doesn’t have to be fancy. Some of the nicest times I’ve ever had involved foods that came out of cans and plastic containers, or a simple potluck get-together. The goal is to relax and enjoy yourself, not to exhaust yourself with elaborate preparations.

            Second, Shabbat hospitality doesn't have to involve a lot of people, and it doesn’t even need to be a full meal. You can start by inviting one person for tea on a Shabbat afternoon and gradually work up to more if you enjoy it. If you’re a single person, you might want to team up with a friend and host your Shabbat gathering together.

            Third, try inviting people with whom you feel comfortable, and force yourself to let go of worries about whether they’re judging you. The culture in which we live makes us intensely self-conscious about what others think of us, and we’re used to being evaluated by what kind of appearance we make. Judaism aims to cultivate a different way of being together, where the focus is on enjoying one another and the beauty of Shabbat. And if you’re a little uncertain about the Shabbat home rituals, just be in touch with anyone on the Beth Am staff – we would love to help get you started.

            Finally, if you’re not yet ready to invite guests into your home for Shabbat, there’s one way we can all practice hachnasat orchim together here at Beth Am. We can make this a community in which no one stands alone or neglected on the sidelines. It means training ourselves to act in a different way – as if we were hosts rather than guests when we come here for services and programs. It means extending ourselves, looking beyond the people we know, watching to see who looks like they might need someone to sit with. It means learning to smile and say Shabbat Shalom, even if we’re shy, and maybe introducing ourselves with a friendly word or two. At first it may feel like an extra effort, but eventually, little by little, it becomes part of your character – and before you know it, you’ve become a hospitable person. Small actions – but they can warm up the temperature dramatically, and they can create a synagogue that truly feels like a home.

            If you wonder if the effort is worth it, remember a time when somebody reached out to you and made you feel welcome. Our tradition says that’s not a little thing. It’s one of the greatest mitzvahs we can do.

            What makes a home beautiful? It’s not the furniture or the decorating scheme or the architectural style – it’s the acts that take place inside that home.