Passover is the holiday when Jews traditionally open their doors to those less fortunate, the hungry and the poor and the various huddled masses.
On Santa Monica Boulevard at Century Park East, there is a huddled mass. Always concealed behind three golf umbrellas to ward off the hot Los Angeles sun, this person seems nothing more than a pair of legs dangling from a lawn chair. I don't know if ze is a man or a woman. I don't know hir race or age. All I know is that this Passover, I can't actually open my door to this person. I can open my door, and I can invite in a neighbor who happens to be outside looking in curiously, or a guest who's arriving late. I can't let in the person who desperately clutches at hir umbrellas. There is a limit to the traditional gesture of compassion, and the limit is the safety and comfort of me, my family, and my friends.
Whoever you are, behind those elegant Titleist logos, I'm thinking of you tonight.
It sounds like this limit is a hard and set rule. You don't know this person, and they might be dangerous or unstable or simply uncomfortable to be around for you or any of your guests. Therefore you try to limit the people who come over for passover on that basis.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if this needs to be a hard and fast rule, but I'm also unfamiliar with how Passover is open to the poor and hungry. Is it a mitzvah to bring the poor and hungry in? Is comfort in the description of the Passover tradition? (Or safety?)
You've just put an interesting thought out there, and I'm trying to consider what's happening in this situation. Generally, when I'm working very public environments (i.e. my free tax site), it's not always very comfortable. The comfort question can get very complicated. (Why are we uncomfortable? And where is the intersection of our comfort and our treatment of this person?)
At the same time, that's work. What if it were my own home, and I opened it up to the same people?