Dear Friends,
If you haven’t seen Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey, I highly recommend it. Though I haven’t seen it in IMAX, it was still quite a spectacle, one that even my teenage son enjoyed. One of the themes that stayed with me was hospitality, which runs throughout the story in complicated and often troubling ways.
At several points, we hear about Zeus’s laws of hospitality, reflecting the ancient Greek concept of xenia, the sacred relationship between host and guest. The principles are simple: welcome the stranger, offer food and shelter, do not harm your guests, and respect your hosts. Yet throughout The Odyssey, these principles are repeatedly broken. Penelope’s suitors abuse the hospitality of her household, Circe transforms her guests into animals, and Polyphemus, the Cyclops, devours the strangers who enter his home seeking shelter. Hospitality becomes about much more than being a gracious host. It represents the boundary between civilization and disorder. How we treat the stranger says something fundamental about the kind of society we have created.
That idea feels familiar in our own Jewish tradition. Hachnasat orchim, the mitzvah of welcoming guests, occupies an important place in Jewish life. Abraham rushes to welcome three strangers to his tent, and the Shunammite woman prepares a room for Elisha so that he will always have a place to stay. The Talmud takes this obligation even further. In Shabbat 127a, Rabbi Yehudah says in the name of Rav that receiving guests is greater than greeting the Divine Presence. Based on the story of Abraham, the rabbis arrive at an extraordinary conclusion: welcoming another human being can take precedence even over remaining in the presence of God.
All of this comes to mind as we enter Sukkot, when hospitality takes on a particularly meaningful role. Our sukkah is a place where we invite family, friends, neighbors, and members of our community to sit beneath its fragile roof. Jewish tradition also speaks of Ushpizin, the symbolic guests we welcome into the sukkah. Traditionally, these are biblical figures whose presence reminds us of the generations and values that have shaped our people. Perhaps there is something especially meaningful about practicing hospitality in a sukkah. The sukkah is deliberately temporary and vulnerable. Its walls are not quite walls, and its roof does not fully protect us from the elements. We leave the security of our homes and enter a space that reminds us how fragile shelter can be. And then, in that vulnerable space, we make room for someone else.
Perhaps that is one of the deepest lessons of hospitality: civilization, community, and even holiness can begin with something remarkably simple, making room for another person.
If you’ve seen the film, or if you’d like to talk more about Sukkot, I’d love to hear from you. Please feel free to stop by and chat with me about the movie, the holiday, or both.
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sukkot Sameach,
Rabbi Moriah Simon Hazani
Recent Comments