Welcoming Guests - Hospitality

MISHNA: On Shabbat, one may move even four or five baskets of straw and baskets of produce, due to the guests, who require that place to sit, and due to suspension of Torah study in the study hall, where space is required to seat the students. However, one may not move these items to create space in the storeroom.

A dilemma was raised before the Sages: These four or five baskets, which the tanna stated in the mishna, is he saying that one may move only four or five baskets even though he has many guests? Or perhaps, it is all according to the number of guests, and if there are more guests one may move more baskets. And if you say it is all according to the number of guests, does one man move the baskets to make room for all of them, or perhaps each and every man moves a basket to make room for himself? Come and hear a resolution to this dilemma from that which Rabba said that Rav Ḥiyya said: Once Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi went to a certain place and saw that the place was too crowded for the students. And he went to the field and found a field full of bundles of grain, and Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi cleared the bundles from the whole field in its entirety. Conclude from it that the quantity that can be moved is all according to the number of guests. And Rav Yosef said that Rav Hoshaya said: Once Rabbi Ḥiyya went to a certain place and saw that the place was too crowded for the students. And he went to the field and found a field full of bundles of grain, and Rabbi Ḥiyya cleared the bundles from the whole field in its entirety. Conclude from it that the quantity that can be moved is all according to the number of guests. The Gemara continues: And still you have a dilemma. Does one man move the baskets to make room for all of them, or perhaps each and every man moves baskets to make room for himself? Come and hear a resolution to this question. We learned: And Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi cleared the bundles. Apparently, one person moved the bundles to make room for the others. The Gemara rejects the proof: And according to your reasoning, your opinion, do you think Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, the spiritual leader of his generation, cleared the bundles himself? Rather, he ordered others to do so, and he thereby cleared the bundles. And actually, each and every one moves a bundle to make room for himself. We learned in the mishna: One may move baskets of produce due to the guests and in order to prevent the suspension of Torah study in the study hall. Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Hospitality toward guests is as great as rising early to go to the study hall, as the mishna equates them and teaches: Due to the guests and due to suspension of Torah study in the study hall. And Rav Dimi from Neharde’a says: Hospitality toward guests is greater than rising early to the study hall, as it teaches: Due to the guests, and only afterward: And due to suspension of Torah study in the study hall. Rav Yehuda said that Rav said on a related note: Hospitality toward guests is greater than receiving the Divine Presence, as when Abraham invited his guests it is written: “And he said: Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, please pass not from Your servant” (Genesis 18:3). Abraham requested that God, the Divine Presence, wait for him while he tended to his guests appropriately. Rabbi Elazar said: Come and see that the attribute of the Holy One, Blessed be He, is not like that of flesh and blood. The attribute of flesh and blood people is such that a less significant person is unable to say to a more significant person: Wait until I come to you, while with regard to the Holy One, Blessed be He, it is written: “And he said: Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, please pass not from Your servant.” Abraham requested that God wait for him due to his guests. Rav Yehuda bar Sheila said that Rabbi Asi said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: There are six matters a person enjoys the profits of in this world, and nevertheless the principal exists for him for the World-to-Come, and they are: Hospitality toward guests, and visiting the sick, and consideration during prayer, and rising early to the study hall, and one who raises his sons to engage in Torah study, and one who judges another favorably, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Yosef ben Yohanan, a man of Jerusalem, would say: Let your house be open to all, let the poor be members of your household, and do not talk too much with married women.
Let your house be open to all. How so? This teaches that a person’s house should be open to all sides: the south, the east, the west, and the north. This is like Job, who made four doors to his house. And why did Job make four doors to his house? So that the poor would not have to trouble themselves to go around the whole house. Someone who came in from the north would enter from that direction, and someone who came in from the south would enter from that direction, and so with every direction. That is why Job made four doors to his house.
Let the poor be members of your household. Not that they will be actual members of your household, but they will speak of what they ate and drank in your house, in the way that they speak of what they ate and drank in the house of Job. For when they would meet, one would say to another: Where are you coming from? (And the other would reply:) From the house of Job; and where are you going? (And the first one would say:) To the house of Job.
So when all the great tragedies came upon him, Job said before the Holy Blessed One: Did I not feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty? as it says (Job 31:17), “Did I ever eat my food alone, and not let orphan eat from it?” And did I not clothe the naked? as it says (Job 31:20), “He warmed himself from the shearings of my sheep.” And even so, these tragedies came upon me. The Holy Blessed One said to Job: Job, you still have not gotten to [even half] the level of Abraham. You sit and wait in your house, and guests come in to you. And if it is someone’s custom is to eat wheat bread, you feed him wheat bread. And if someone’s custom is to eat meat, you feed him meat. And if someone’s custom is to drink wine, you pour him wine. But Abraham did not do this. Rather, he sat and looked out at the world, and when he would see potential guests, he would go bring them into his house. And if someone was not accustomed to eating wheat bread, he would feed him wheat bread. And if someone was not accustomed to eating meat, he would feed him meat. And if someone was not accustomed to drinking wine, he would pour him wine. Not only that, but he built large booths out on the roads, where he would leave food and drink, and anyone who came by and entered would eat and drink and bless the heavens, and he would feel content. Anything that one could ask for was available in the house of Abraham, as it says (Genesis 21:33), “And he planted an Eshel tree in Beer Sheba.”¹Note: The Midrash reads the word Eshel as an acronym for akhila (eating), shtiya (drinking), and livui (accompanying)

Yose ben Yochanan (a man) of Jerusalem used to say: Let thy house be wide open, and let the poor be members of thy household. Engage not in too much conversation with women. They said this with regard to one’s own wife, how much more [does the rule apply] with regard to another man’s wife. From here the Sages said: as long as a man engages in too much conversation with women, he causes evil to himself, he neglects the study of the Torah, and in the end he will inherit gehinnom.

Ben Zoma would say: A good guest, what does he say? How much effort did the host expend on my behalf, how much meat did the host bring before me. How much wine did he bring before me. How many loaves [geluskaot] did he bring before me. All the effort that he expended, he expended only for me. However, a bad guest, what does he say? What effort did the host expend? I ate only one piece of bread, I ate only one piece of meat and I drank only one cup of wine. All the effort that the home owner expended he only expended on behalf of his wife and children. With regard to a good guest, what does he say? “Remember that you magnify his work, whereof men have sung” (Job 36:24); he praises and acknowledges those who helped him. With regard to a bad guest it is written: “Men do therefore fear him; he regards not any who are wise of heart” (Job 37:24).

§ The mishna taught that the Elders of the city would then wash their hands. The Sages taught: With regard to the verse: “And all the Elders of that city, who are nearest to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley” (Deuteronomy 21:6), one might have thought that there is no need for the verse to state: “Whose neck was broken,” because there is no heifer mentioned other than the one whose neck was broken. And what is the meaning when the verse states: “Whose neck was broken”? It serves to teach us that they wash their hands over the place where the heifer’s neck was broken. The verse further states: “And they shall say: Our hands did not spill this blood, nor did our eyes see” (Deuteronomy 21:7). The mishna explains: But did it enter our minds that the Elders of the court are spillers of blood, that they must make such a declaration? Rather, they mean to declare: The victim did not come to us and then we let him take his leave without food, and we did not see him and then leave him alone to depart without accompaniment. They therefore attest that they took care of all his needs and are not responsible for his death even indirectly. It is taught in a baraita: Rabbi Meir would say: There is coercion with regard to accompaniment, i.e., one who does not want to accompany another is nevertheless required to do so, as the reward for accompaniment is without measure. The proof of the importance of accompaniment is from a verse, as it is stated with regard to when the Jewish people laid siege to the city of Bethel: “And the watchers saw a man come out of the city, and they said to him: Show us, please, the entrance into the city, and we will deal kindly with you” (Judges 1:24), and it is written: “And he showed them the entrance to the city” (Judges 1:25). And what kindness did they perform with him? It is that they killed the entire city by the sword, but that man and his family they sent free.

Ten miracles were performed for our ancestors in the Holy Temple: [The sanctified meat never spoiled;] no woman ever miscarried after smelling the sanctified meat; [(Ten miracles were performed for our ancestors in Jerusalem:) no one was ever injured in Jerusalem;] no one stumbled and fell in Jerusalem; the fires of the altar were never extinguished in Jerusalem; no building ever collapsed in Jerusalem; no one in Jerusalem ever said: I cannot find an oven to cook the Passover offering; no one in Jerusalem ever said: I cannot find [an affordable] bed to sleep in; no one in Jerusalem ever said: This place is too cramped for me to stay in.

Another custom of Rav Huna was that when he had a new medicine, he would fill a water jug with the medicine and hang it from the doorpost of his house, saying: All who need, let him come and take from this new medicine. And there are those say: He had a remedy against the demon Shivta that he knew by tradition, that one must wash his hands for protection against this evil spirit. And to this end, he would place a water jug and hang it by the door, saying: Anyone who needs, let him come to the house and wash his hands, so that he will not be in danger. The Gemara further relates: When Rav Huna would eat bread, he would open the doors to his house, saying: Whoever needs, let him come in and eat. Rava said: I can fulfill all these customs of Rav Huna, except for this one, which I cannot do, due to the fact that there are many soldiers in the city of Meḥoza, and if I let them all eat, they will take all the food I own.

The Gemara answers: Rabbi Abbahu holds in accordance with that halakha that Rabbi Yoḥanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai: The host breaks bread and a guest recites Grace after Meals. The host breaks bread so that he will break bread generously, whereas a guest might be embarrassed to break a large piece for himself and other guests; and the guest recites Grace after Meals so that he may bless the host in the course of reciting Grace after Meals, as the Gemara proceeds to explain. What is the formula of the blessing with which the guest blesses his host?
May it be Your will that the master of the house shall not suffer shame in this world, nor humiliation in the World-to-Come. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi added to it elements pertaining to material success:
And may he be very successful with all his possessions,
and may his possessions and our possessions be successful and near the city,
and may Satan control neither his deeds nor our deeds,
and may no thought of sin, iniquity, or transgression stand before him or before us
from now and for evermore.