The Return of Erev Shabbat Jewish Blogging

[gnomi]

This week... hachnasat orchim -- welcoming visitors, or, more broadly, hospitality.

In Massechet Shabbat (Tractate Shabbat) of the Babylonian Talmud, page 127a, it says:

These are the precepts whose fruits a person eats in this world but whose essence remains intact for the World to Come, and they are: honoring one's mother and father, acts of kindness, arriving early for morning and evening services, opening one's home to others, visiting the sick, providing for a bride, accompanying the dead, absorption in prayer, making peace between a man and his friend and the study of Torah is equal to all of them."

(translation from here; emphasis mine.)

This passage is said every morning in the daily prayers. So, every morning, we are reminded that "opening one's home" -- hachnasat orchim -- is one of the acts that garners one reward both in this world and in the world to come.

Hospitality takes many forms. For mabfan and me, especially recently, it has manifested itself in having people over for Shabbat meals. I've mentioned previously that people feel comfortable inviting themselves to our table, and that I think is, for me, part of the key to this mitzvah. It's not just being hospitable; it's making the kind of home that people feel comfortable in, one that is open and welcoming. So if our quiet Shabbat alone has expanded to include one guest, why not two? Why not five?

(I have two cooking modes: cook for one or cook for a small army. Since mabfan and I are, by definition, more than one, I typically cook for a small army, thus leaving leftovers for the rest of the week. So what's one more at the table? I've got plenty of food.)

May we all be zocheh (worthy, privileged) to perform this mitzvah when possible.

Shabbat shalom!

Comments

[xochitl42.livejournal.com]

What a lovely passage. I'm glad I got to read it. :)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I don't always stop to think about what it means, but when I do I'm struck by the power and the poetry of it.

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

What a beautiful sentiment.

This is probably odd, but I want one of my characters to quote that passage to another character, as his way of offering thanks for something. So ... thanks? It's like you read my mind. Which makes me want to quote the history (?) teacher's discussion of the former physics teacher's lottery win (from School Reunion, of course) and have you say back to me, innocently, "The world is very strange." [/BigGeek]

(Yes, I'm alternately eagerly awaiting tonight's Doctor Who and seething that SciFi is then taking a week off in the middle of a two-parter; why do you ask? :>)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that the Talmud and I could help you out.

They're taking a week off? Yikes. Stupid SciFi. Grrrrr.

[norda.livejournal.com]

I have two cooking modes: cook for one or cook for a small army.

Me, too.

I'm making soup today that would probably stretch to feeding ten people.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I have a fish chowder that I make in the winter that makes about 8 quarts of soup. We eat it all week, or I invite guests and feed it to them.

[cellio]

Amein.