A number of years
ago I attended a family bar mitzvah in Israel. Everyone there was related to
the bar mitzvah boy. There were grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles. I
noticed two strangers sitting at one of the tables and wondered how they were
related. It turns out they weren’t. They were seminary girls who had called and
asked if they could come for Shabbos lunch, since the family was on the list of
Shabbos lunch hostesses.
“Why not,” the
hostess thought. “There is plenty of food!” The two girls sat though the whole
family simcha. I worried about them, because I thought we should be paying more
attention to them so they wouldn’t feel like outsiders. But the girls seemed
fine and unperturbed by this peculiar situation.
It seems strange
to put two perfectly normal girls from normal families in the position of poor
people who have no place to eat and need to ask strangers for a place in the
middle of a family simcha. This year my granddaughter is in seminary in Israel,
and I was interested in hearing about her experiences going to strangers for
Shabbos.
Being the Guest
“It’s all part of
the seminary experience,” Leah explained, “a chavaya, an ‘experience’! It gives the girls a change from seminary
and a chance to meet new people and see different parts of Eretz Yisrael, but I
certainly have had experiences that would not have happened if I had stayed
home in the United States!” For a girl from America, even traveling on a bus to
an unknown destination is an experience!
Last Shabbos, Leah
was planning to stay in seminary, but on Friday morning a friend asked if she
would like to come with her to a chasidishe family in Beitar. Neither
Leah nor her friend knew the family. It was pouring rain when they set out, and
after waiting at the bus stop for 30 minutes, both girls were soaked. When the
bus finally came, they couldn’t find the stop to get off. The Arab bus driver
did not understand the girls’ Hebrew, so they couldn’t communicate with him.
Luckily, Leah’s friend spoke Yiddish and was able to talk with a man on the bus,
who told them to get off at the entrance of Beitar and catch another bus.
Finally they arrived at their hosts’ house soaking wet. Even the Shabbos
clothing they brought were soaking because the knapsack wasn’t waterproof.
“The host was so
nice to us,” Leah said, “She put all our clothes in the drier right away and
was so welcoming and warm. It was a great experience to get to know this cute chasidishe
family!”
Another time, a
seminary teacher was supposed to have Leah and her friend for Friday night but
canceled because her daughter had Covid. The teacher gave them the address of
another host. When they walked to the address they were given, it turned out to
be a yeshiva – an unlikely host for a few seminary girls! They asked a couple
passing by if they knew where the address was. The man did not recognize the
address but said, “Why don’t you come to us for the meal tonight?”
Breathing a sigh
of relief, Leah and her friend agreed. Leah said, “I felt like the malachim!”
She was referring to the story about Avraham inviting the angels just because
they were passing by. I asked Leah if, like the Avraham’s angels, she promised
the couple that they would have a child the next year. She hadn’t! Still the two girls had a nice time with
their unexpected hosts.
Leah’s friend
experienced hashgacha pratis as part of her Shabbos visit experience to
Afula. She was going to an unknown host in Afula, but her phone had died so she
couldn’t call the host for last minute directions. When she got off the bus,
she looked around to borrow someone’s phone. She saw a girl in the store and
asked if she could use her phone. It turned out that the girl was the daughter
of her host and could bring her straight to their house.
Being the Host
My friend who
lives in Bnei Brak enjoys having seminary girls and yeshiva boys as
Shabbos guests. “It is nice to do the mitzvah of hachnasas orchim,” she said, “and the girls and boys
are often pleasant, enjoyable people; they also entertain my children. I know
people who made lifelong relationships with their Shabbos hosts from when they were in yeshiva.
“Sometimes it can
be a little awkward,” she continued, “especially when the guests don’t show up.
We are never sure how long we should wait before starting the meal. If we wait
too long then our whole schedule is messed up!
“Once we were
supposed to have some girls, and they never showed up. After Shabbos, I called
them and asked what happened. They were very annoyed with me! They complained, ‘We
walked very far to get to your apartment, and when we finally got there, we
couldn’t get into the building because you needed to be buzzed in. Finally,
somebody came to the door and said that your family had moved a few years ago.’
“These girls
seemed to imply that I tricked them and gave them the wrong address on purpose.
It turns out that they had walked to a street with the same name as my street
but in Ramat Gan! It truly was a very long walk.
“Another time,
boys were supposed to come and never showed up. When I called the person who
had placed them, he said he didn’t know what happened to those particular boys,
but usually if they can’t find the host they have been assigned to, they end up
eating by the people they meet on their search for their assigned host.”
At Home with “Strangers”
The whole
experience of hosting unknown guests for Shabbos or being the host of unknown
people emphasizes the point that the Jewish people are really one family. We
are all connected and care about each other.
Dovid had an
experience that proves that point. When he was a bachur in Eretz Yisrael, he was invited to a family for the second Seder. The second Seder was only for
people from chutz la’aretz, because
in Eretz Yisrael they just have one Seder. He just could not find the home of
his hosts. Finally, he walked into a hotel and found a family who were having a
Seder there, and they invited him to join. Dovid said, “It worked out well,
because I had lots of interesting divrei Torah to say that I had heard
at my first Seder.”
Having guests or
being a guest can be a chavaya – an
experience – and a chance to get to know a fellow Jew.
