Stranger danger changer

Rabbi Dr. Jana L. De Benedetti

Lauren Winner discusses the importance of welcoming guests in two different places. First she talks about ways she felt welcome at Church, and then she discusses the importance of welcoming guests into your home. She laments that her home is too small to be able to invite guests. It is impressive that she is moving to a larger apartment, with the primary goal of finding a place that will allow her to have guests.

On a personal level, I would rather not talk about what it takes to have guests in my own home. She lives alone. I have two young adult sons at my house. My space is not my own. My mess is not my own. She is very insightful and inspiring when she describes working on your own space so that it becomes a place that is welcoming to others. Opening ones home and heart to the possibility of guests helps people to see the world with open, caring eyes.

It is not just important to welcome people in your home, it is also important to be welcoming in our congregations. I have to admit that I was surprised that she began the chapter with admitting that she feels uncomfortable when she goes to a new house of worship. One of the things that I love is getting to visit other synagogues – I know that there will be some different customs, but I cherish the fact that wherever I go in the world, the liturgy will be basically the same. The Hebrew will be the same. The order of the service will be the same. Wherever I go, I will be at “home.” Feeling comfortable with the liturgy is not the same as feeling welcome by the congregation.

My congregation prides itself on being a welcoming place. It is a house of worship, which means that anyone searching for a fulfilling spiritual experience should feel at home. I am proud when I hear from visitors – Jewish and non-Jewish – that we are accomplishing this. There are times when people feel uncomfortable at my congregation, and it is something I find hard to fix. Sometimes individuals feel that they are strangers in their own congregation. They see that others have groups to go with after services, or exclusive conversations. These are people who see themselves as strangers. That is a more difficult stranger to welcome. We obviously can tell when there is a new face in the crowd. It is easy to greet them, introduce ourselves, help them find their way around our building, congregation, and our worship. When the “stranger” is someone we see frequently, it is not as easy to know that they need help and guidance.

I hope that we are also very aware and welcoming to these “strangers.” However, I realize how very difficult it can be to help them. I believe that even God gets frustrated when it is hard to tell who is seeing the possibilities and who is seeing the negative. It reminds me of when the scouts were sent to see the Promised Land. Some came back and said that they saw themselves as small compared to the people already there. God decided that if they couldn’t see the reality, they didn’t get to go to the Promised Land at all.

I like to think that we learn from these lessons. I hope that we can learn to welcome new faces and old. We certainly remember what it was like to be strangers, and we remember what it was like not to be treated well because we were strangers. And we know what it means to be human, as we strive to be holy, that we have a responsibility to be welcoming. Perhaps we should also recognize that we have a responsibility to recognize when we are being welcomed.