Monday, December 01, 2008
The Guest That Shouldn’t Leave
"Obey any words that the host does say - unless he tells you to go away”
This counter intuitive piece of etiquette appears in the Talmud (Pesachim 86b) as well as in the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law, OC 170:5).
My wise friend, Dr. Behrooz Dayanim explained to me that if your friend is telling you to leave, something is clearly wrong. Our sages are telling us that rather than just leave we should endeavor to stick around and find a solution to our host’s problem.
Dr. Dayanim’s father was the Dayan in Shiraz, Iran. He was responsible for all of the divorces in Shiraz and her neighboring towns. Over his fifty year career many couples came to him - but not one couple actually divorced. Mola Meir Moshe Dayanim would help them work through their issues and send them away in peace.
In contrast, I once had a friend who disappeared. I tried to stay in touch by calling his cellphone every Friday to say good shabbos. One week he actually picked up the phone. He told me that he had left town because he had some personal issues in his life. He didn’t feel right living in our community any more because none of the frum people seemed to have any issues at all. (It’s true: Frum people do have more fun!) I assured him that we have our issues as well - including the very issue that he was dealing with. Sadly, we never spoke again and his cell phone number was eventually disconnected.
My friend assumed that his problems were an invitation to leave the community. Our sages tell us that there is no such thing. We need to find solutions, or in this particular case - find problems. If he had taken the time to realize that he was not as unique as he thought he was, he could have avoided disappearing and actually found some help.
Rabbi Alexander Moshe Lapidos (who eerily shows up third in the Google Search for Meir Moshe Dayanim) writes in his Divrei Emes that the host referred to in the Talmud is G-d. We need to listen to G-d, but if we hear G-d telling us to give up and leave we can be assured that we heard Him wrong. Like Mario, we need to live with the knowledge that if we come up to a brick wall we have to either break through the wall or go back and try again. The game is never over.
Finally, when we leave the house we take something with us that cannot be replaced. Yaacov had to go to Charan, but Be’er Sheva suffered. Many years later his great-great-grandson Nochum Ish Gamzu kept his shaky house standing just by being inside ("As long as I am in the house - the house will not fall” - Taanis 21a).
Don’t leave the building; you might bring down the house.
