Hospitality: Is It Still a Mitzvah If Your Guest Could Just Go Home?

A mitzvah in the middle of the desert

In our generation of instant communication, social media, and superficiality, a generation in which “if you didn't take a picture and share it, it didn’t happen”—in fact, particularly in such a generation—we need to zoom in on seemingly minor things done out of the limelight in order to discover what really matters.

So, let me take you on a trip back in time, around 4000 years, and across a few continents, until we reach a desert somewhere in the Middle East.

In the middle of that desert, on a scorching hot day, a man sat at the entrance to his tent, scanning the horizon.

Why? He was waiting for guests.

But no one came. In fact, that was the Divine plan. The Torah tells us that Hashem made the day extra-hot precisely to deter guests from disturbing Avraham Avinu, the patriarch Abraham, because he was in great pain as he had just had circumcised himself (at the age of 99).

Two types of guests

Now, when we think about this, it’s a little curious. Four thousand years ago, travel through the desert was a long, tiring, and often dangerous experience. It wasn’t a matter of hours but of days and perhaps even weeks. So how would the fact that one day was especially hot prevent travelers from passing by Avraham’s tent? They might have been trudging over rock and through sand for days already and if they saw a tent even from the distance, they would most certainly hurry toward it as fast as possible, eager to find shade and water.

The answer is that there are two types of guests:

• Travelers from afar who are in genuine need of hospitality.
• People who live nearby who could just stay home but decide to head to the nearest open house for “free cake and drinks!”

Avraham and the fake guests

The “fake” guests, as we might call them, would just stay home on a really hot day. And they did. When three people finally arrived they were genuine guests, travelers from afar, people Avraham had never seen before. (At first, he had no idea they were angels.)

But Avraham knew that such guests would be coming anyway, if they were anywhere in the vicinity. So why was he worried? Because he wanted the other type of guest too, the type many of us would consider nothing more than a pain in the neck and a waste of our time.

Everyone needs something different

What does this mean for us?

After all, very few of us are capable of opening our homes to anyone (though there are, even in our day and age, such special people).

But sometimes, it could be your next-door neighbor who invites herself in for a cup of coffee even though her kettle is in perfect working order. What does she really want? That’s not your business. Welcome her in and recognize that hospitality doesn’t have to be taken literally. Maybe what she needs is a listening ear, or a change of scenery... it doesn’t matter. If you can give it, give it with a smile.

Avraham wasn’t concerned about whether his guests “really” needed his hospitality, and nor should we be.

What’s more, no one’s going to be standing to one side, broadcasting these “little deeds” to the world—and that makes it even more special.