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Jewish World Review Oct. 5, 2001 / 18 Tishrei, 5762
WE all have favorite mitzvos: slowing down the pace on the Sabbath,
building a sukkah, frolicking at Purim, studying Jewish texts, praying
to G-d. With the start of the new Year, my resolution is to
share the amazing experience we call hachnasas orchim. It means
opening one's home to visitors, sometimes even to utter strangers. It
frequently is marked by inviting friends and guests for Shabbes meals.
During the early years of my marriage, we hosted friends for Sabbath
meals in our itsy-bitsy 11th-floor apartment on Manhattan's Upper
West Side, and we were similarly hosted. Many of the friends slept
over, and we slept at their homes, too.
In later years, with several children growing up in our suburban Los Angeles home, we
extended invitations to families with children. Invitations would be
reciprocated, and over the course of many hours and many such
meals, we made friends, learned more about ourselves, and shared an
expanded world of different viewpoints and experiences with our
children. As the adults' conversations would linger through the
afternoon, the kids would slink away from the table, pull out toys and
games, and play with their guests.
When we moved to the East Valley in September 1995, we were
newcomers. With certain notable and special exceptions, Shabbes
meal invitations were not forthcoming. Although we were six mouths
to feed, something seemed wrong with the community into which we
had moved. So we just took the initiative, started inviting strangers
to our home, people we did not know, to break the ice. The
invitations were reciprocated, multiplied, and we had found a niche.
In October 1999, I went through the personal tragedy of a divorce. I
felt personally lost, very much alone. A lady in my congregational
community, Lilly Kahn-Rose, approached me one Shabbes soon after,
offering to help me in some way. I responded: "Please invite me and
my children for some Shabbes meals, and please help me get some
Shabbes meal invitations from others in the community. I can buy cold
cuts, side dishes, and challah, can recite kiddush and lead z'miros
melodies, but it is going to be so lonely and feel so minimalist in our
apartment. Please help me get me some Shabbes invitations."
A week later, Lilly called me and asked me for my fax number. The fax
arrived soon after - with a list of confirmed Shabbes invitations for
my children and me for every Friday night dinner and Shabbes lunch
for the next seven months.
Throughout those next seven months, I met a community of
wonderful, warm, loving people who are rearing their own families,
burdened by their own struggles and concerns, yet who rushed to
open their homes to my children and me. During those seven months,
I never once felt like a beggar from Jerusalem. Instead, we talked
throughout the meals, about mitzvos and ideas, about Israel, about
the movies, about the busway, about broccoli in Guatemala, about
the stuff that goes on in families.
It made a potentially devastating period in my life not only bearable
but extraordinary. I learned much Torah, even though I have some
learning. I continued evolving as a person. In fact, Linda Charlin, the
hostess in one family that hosted us most frequently, along with the
Kahn-Roses, asked me after one Shabbes lunch whether I would be
interested in meeting a friend of hers. Ellen and I married a year later,
but not before three other hosts initiated suggestions to set me up
with acquaintances.
So, at the beginning of this year, I bare a personal side of myself because,
in sharing, I believe it can do some good. There are single people in
your community, and Shabbes can be very lonely for singles. There
are divorced and widowed people and orphans and strangers in your
community. There are neighbors, some sitting next to you at temple,
some dwelling down the block. Many have their own Shabbes table.
Invite them anyway. Many others do not even observe the Shabbes
- invite them for the Friday night dinner and ritual.
During my 10 years as an active congregational rabbi, and through 30
years as a grown-up, I cannot think of a more satisfying and
meaningful way in which I have shared Judaism with others, and in
which others have shared Judaism with me, than through hachnasas
orchim and Shabbes meals.
And to this day I still can remember those exquisite moments when I
was invited as an utter stranger to share Shabbes with a family while
I was on the road. Like when I got stuck in Cleveland at a Jones Day
law firm conference, and an associate there invited me, an utter
stranger, to share Shabbes with his wife and kids. That invitation led
to a friendship that, eight years later, saw him fly in from Boston to
attend my remarriage and that now has me shopping for a bar
mitzvah gift for his son.
Now that I am remarried, it is time to open my doors to others once
again, something Ellen never has stopped doing. I hope you will share,
too, in our "favorite
A mitzvah resolution
Detail from "Shabbat with The Tesslers"
By Rabbi Dov Fischer
JWR contributor Rabbi Dov Fischer is a Los Angeles-based lawyer. Send your comments Rabbi Dov Fischerby clicking here.
