Welcoming the Stranger: What Our Texts Teach Us about the "Other"

(1) The LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

(1) The LORD appeared to him [Abraham] by the terebinths of Mamre; he was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot. (2) Looking up, he saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them and, bowing to the ground, (3) he said, “My lords, if it please you, do not go on past your servant. (4) Let a little water be brought; bathe your feet and recline under the tree. (5) And let me fetch a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves; then go on—seeing that you have come your servant’s way.” They replied, “Do as you have said.”

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Hospitality toward guests is as great as rising early to go to the study hall...

Rav Yehuda said that Rav said on a related note: Hospitality toward guests is greater than receiving the Divine Presence, as when Abraham invited his guests it is written: “And he said: Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, please pass not from Your servant” (Genesis 18:3). Abraham requested that God, the Divine Presence, wait for him while he tended to his guests appropriately.

כי גרים הייתם For you were strangers - If you vex him he can vex you also by saying to you: “You also descend from strangers”. Do not reproach thy fellow-man for a fault which is also thine (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 22:20). Wherever גר occurs in Scriptures it signifies a person who has not been born in that land (where he is living) but has come from another country to sojourn there.

(15) Shammai says, "Make your Torah fixed, say little and do much, and receive every person with a pleasant face."

(1) It is a positive commandment to visit the sick, comfort the mourning, to remove the dead, to bring in the bride, to escort guests, and to occupy oneself with all the needs of burial; carrying [the coffin] on one’s shoulder, to walk in front of him, to eulogize, to dig, and to bury. As well to make the bride and groom happy, and to take care of all their needs. And these are ‘Gemillut Chasadim’ that are done with one’s body, that have no measurement. Although all these are rabbinic laws they are included under "Love Your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18), meaning that all things that you would like others to do for you, you should do for your brother.

(2) The reward for accompanying [the guest on her journey] is greater than all others and it is a statute that Abraham our ancestor established and the way of the pious which he followed, feeding the travelers, and giving them drink and accompanying them. Hospitality to guests is a greater than receiving the divine presence (Face of the Shekhinah), as it is written, "He saw and behold there were three men (Genesis 18:3)." Accompanying guests is greater than showing them hospitality. The sages say, " All who do not accompany guests, it is as if they have shed blood.

(3) We force communities to provide accompaniment in the way we force them to provide charity. The courts would appoint agents to accompany a person traveling from place to place, and if they were lazy in this matter, it was as if they spilled blood. And even the one who accompanies his fellow just four cubits has great reward. And what is the proper distance of accompaniment that a person is duty bound to travel?

When master to the student, till the end of town; a person and his friend, till the end of the Sabbath boundary (2000 cubits beyond the city limits); the student to the master, a mile; and if the master was his primary mentor, then 3 miles.

Yosef ben Yohanan, a man of Jerusalem, would say: Let your house be open to all, let the poor be members of your household, and do not talk too much with married women.
Let your house be open to all. How so? This teaches that a person’s house should be open to all sides: the south, the east, the west, and the north. This is like Job, who made four doors to his house. And why did Job make four doors to his house? So that the poor would not have to trouble themselves to go around the whole house. Someone who came in from the north would enter from that direction, and someone who came in from the south would enter from that direction, and so with every direction. That is why Job made four doors to his house.
Let the poor be members of your household. Not that they will be actual members of your household, but they will speak of what they ate and drank in your house, in the way that they speak of what they ate and drank in the house of Job. For when they would meet, one would say to another: Where are you coming from? (And the other would reply:) From the house of Job; and where are you going? (And the first one would say:) To the house of Job.
So when all the great tragedies came upon him, Job said before the Holy Blessed One: Did I not feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty? as it says (Job 31:17), “Did I ever eat my food alone, and not let orphan eat from it?” And did I not clothe the naked? as it says (Job 31:20), “He warmed himself from the shearings of my sheep.” And even so, these tragedies came upon me. The Holy Blessed One said to Job: Job, you still have not gotten to [even half] the level of Abraham. You sit and wait in your house, and guests come in to you. And if it is someone’s custom is to eat wheat bread, you feed him wheat bread. And if someone’s custom is to eat meat, you feed him meat. And if someone’s custom is to drink wine, you pour him wine. But Abraham did not do this. Rather, he sat and looked out at the world, and when he would see potential guests, he would go bring them into his house. And if someone was not accustomed to eating wheat bread, he would feed him wheat bread. And if someone was not accustomed to eating meat, he would feed him meat. And if someone was not accustomed to drinking wine, he would pour him wine. Not only that, but he built large booths out on the roads, where he would leave food and drink, and anyone who came by and entered would eat and drink and bless the heavens, and he would feel content. Anything that one could ask for was available in the house of Abraham, as it says (Genesis 21:33), “And he planted an Eshel tree in Beer Sheba.”¹Note: The Midrash reads the word Eshel as an acronym for akhila (eating), shtiya (drinking), and livui (accompanying)