 By Hannah LeeThis on-going series will explore some of the ways that Jews have created a sense of kehillah (community), both traditional and modern. Part 1 focused on a contemporary approach, the list-serve; in this article, I will explore the traditional method of hospitality; future articles will focus on Chabad, a group of Jews with phenomenal outreach as well as integral cohesion, and how one religious institution, Lower Merion Synagogue, has managed to send so many of its youth to make aliyah (immigration to Israel), and even to serve in Tzahal (the Israeli Army). Recently, my daughter's new apartment was burglarized, so I found myself making travel arrangements on short notice. I couldn't find hotel space close to her Lakeview neighborhood in Chicago, so I reserved the bedroom and bathroom offered by a young couple on the Airbnb website. My daughter stayed with me there for two nights and it was perfect for our needs. Later this month, I will return for another visit, this time with my teen daughter. The very day I landed in Chicago, the New York Times ran a feature on Airbnb and its placement service in its Business section. |
| As comfy as were my accommodations-- far better than couch surfing!-- the placement service does not yet compare to the generous hospitality that I know in the Jewish community in my role as Hospitality Coordinator for my shul, Lower Merion Synagogue. Orthodox Jews have such a strong sense of connection with other Shabbat-observant Jews that we can travel the world over and ask for (free) Shabbat and Yom Tov (holy day) hospitality from local Jews. Usually, it's because of work or non-Orthodox family celebrations that we find ourselves far from an Orthodox synagogue. (We also get the occasional appeal from a shul member overwhelmed by the number of out-of-town guests for a simcha (religious celebration)). But it is also when we travel for pleasure that we can ask for help finding kosher food and accommodations.
However, we Jews have been thinking a lot about trust and safety recently after the little boy, Leiby Kletzky, was murdered in Brooklyn, after he asked for directions from a man who looked legit, like someone who held the same values. Similarly, Airbnb had to revise its policy after several hosts complained of paying guests who trashed their homes and stole personal property. A few days after my return home, I received a letter from Brian Chesky, the founder of Airbnb, stating their commitment to supporting their hosts with a newly instituted guarantee coverage for up to $50,000 in damages from paying guests. So, how do we deal with the issue in my community?
Some people would say we're crazy for opening up our homes to strangers. I have even placed guests in local homes while the owners were away. In one incidence, the guests were coming from London for a bar mitzvah, they later connected with their hosts, and the shul family's daughter was able to stay with them while she was doing her semester abroad. In a dramatic example of the Biblical quote from Kohelet (Ecclesiastes)that can be translated as "Cast your bread on the waters, for you shall find it after many days", this same host family found themselves in need of hachnasat orchim (welcoming guests) this summer when they made a wedding for one of their daughters and their machatanim (parents of the other member of the wedding couple, in this case, the groom) asked for an empty house, because the groom's father is wheelchair-bound and he has to use a hospital bed. To my amazement, with my very first phone call, I was able to make the shidduch (match). Another example came four summers ago, when I got a frantic call on a Friday afternoon. A woman was stranded at the airport because her plane had been delayed and she needed a place to stay for Shabbat. I made the shidduch, then because her luggage had been routed to Boston (where the rest of her family was headed), she wore her host family's daughter's power suit to shul the next day. The only marvel to me was that she, a mature woman in her late 50s, was the same size as her host family's 19-year-old daughter.
After the boy's murder, my Rabbi gave a drasha (sermon) on Shabbat about reaching out to the loners in our midst. He also reassured me that we were doing just fine with our hospitality placements. I later consulted with my co-coordinator about changes we might have to make, as we are not in a position to offer any monetary guarantees against damages. We decided to continue with our modus operandus, by inquiring about the community that a prospective guest hails from and how did they find us, as a community referral is best.
We are not unique in our commitment to hachnasat orchim. The website Shabbat.com was created by a web designer in Monsey, NY in 2010 and, after the webmaster of LMShuls posted a notice about it on our list-serve, about 20 local families signed up as hosts that week. We cannot make the bad headline news go away, but we can focus on building community in the way we know, one mitzvah at a time.
This series will continue in September. |
