Making Room for Guests

This Shabbat (3/1/2014) as we read the last Torah portion in the Book of Shmos or Exodus, there’s a complicated Haftorah (portion from the Prophets read after the Torah reading) situation.

Regularly we would read the Haftorah for Pekudei, which is this week’s regular reading. But then again, it is also the day before Rosh Chodesh (the first day of the new Hebrew month), and when Shabbat falls on the day before Rosh Chodesh (which can happen up to a couple times a year) we read the story of David and Jonathan, which took place on the day before Rosh Chodesh.

But that day-before-Rosh-Chodesh Haftorah gets pushed out too! Bceause this Shabbat is the first of 4 Special Torah Readings leading up to Passover. We read “Shekalim” about the half-shekel coin, a flat-tax given by each Jew as a census-taker and in support of the building of the Mishkan. So what we end up reading is the Haftorah for Shekalim, with a few lines added at the end from the David and Jonathan story.

Next week we are hosting the Regional Chabad on Campus Shabbaton weekend. We’ll have guests from Binghamton, New Paltz, Oswego, Oneonta, FIT and other area schools. Some of you are able to make room in your dorms, but all of us are making room in our hearts, to welcoming and friendly. Like the Haftorahs of this week, its giving up some space to make room for a guest.

Back in the old Shabbos House space was at a premium, especially on Friday Nights. Some weeks we would scramble to seat a few more people, and sometimes our family gave up their seats to make room for more students. Often Lchaim board members or key involved students would do the same. Some fellow Chabad on Campus Shluchim criticised us, cautioning that it could leave a negative impression on  our children, perhaps lifetime scars that they were dispensable, not welcomed, didn’t have a place at the Shabbos Table.

But our kids didn’t take it like that. They took pride in the growing crowd, were eager for more students to come and experience. They felt it was their success, their pride, their joy. And of course, we compensated for hectic Friday Nights, and made special family dinners during the week, and other ways of making them feel valued and loved and appreciated. Having the salads tossed in their bedroom, wasn’t an invasion but excitement. A lot of it is about attitude, their active involvement, as well as creating other special spaces for them at a different time.

Thankfully, we don’t to do this anymore in the new, bigger and better Shabbos House. There’s room for everyone, thank G-d. But in some way, we’re glad that our children (at least most of them) got to experience the old house, and have the thrill and enthusiasm for making room for guests and giving up something for that – joyfully and without hesitation or regret.