Hospitality

By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER

My father grew up as the youngest of eight children in a pious, Yiddish-speaking home which, he proudly recalled, was known throughout the local Jewish community as “Avraham Avinu’s House.” This flattering appellation was earned through his parents’ storied hospitality… and the resulting tendency of itinerant charity solicitors to arrive at the Prouser home just before dinner time.

Hospitality (in Hebrew, Hachnasat Orchim) is an esteemed and fundamental Jewish value, traced to Abraham, who, it is said, cut short an audience with God Himself to join Sarah in welcoming three angelic guests into their home (see Genesis 18).

So, too, before each and every meal, Rabbi Huna would proclaim from his open door: “Let all who are in need come and eat” (Ta’anit 20B).  Today, we repeat this formula at our Passover Seders.

In Talmudic selections often included in the Prayerbook for review as a daily study text, Hachnasat Orchim is included among those Mitzvot for which “there is no fixed measure” and “the fruit of which practitioners enjoy in this world, while the principal accrues to them in the World-to-Come” (Shabbat 127A; see also Peah 1:1).

The profound significance of Hachnasat Orchim is summarized by the Rabbinic statement (Shabbat, ibid.) that “Hospitality to guests and wayfarers is greater than welcoming the Shechinah (Divine Presence).”

Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser is the rabbi of Temple Emanuel of North Jersey and the editor of “Masorti: The New Journal of Conservative Judaism.”