Didn't give mishloach manot to...

amother

Tue, Mar 18 2014, 8:22 pm

I don't normally give out scores of MM . I give MM to people who I'm closest to, but focus mostly on giving MM to neighbors who aren't religeous(one neighbor looked at me and the MM with the strangest expression, never heard of Purim). Why am I posting? Someone from my shul gave me a beautiful MM and I didn't give any in return. I was so embarassed. It's 2 days later and I'm still feeling bad. I'm afraid that I hurt her feelings. I for sure will give her IH, BN next year, but right now I don't know what to do or say, if anything. I'm not so close to her, but obviously she felt otherwise. I feel so bad!

Simple1

Tue, Mar 18 2014, 8:25 pm

You can still give her. I'm not sure if you have to, maybe others will chime in. But at least you should call her up and thank her for it. If you want, you can also apologize that you didn't get around to giving her.

amother

Tue, Mar 18 2014, 8:33 pm

To Simple1:
Thanks for answering my post so quickly. I actually wanted to give her MM for Shushan Purim but my dh said that we can't give any after Purim, that it doesn't count as being MM. I would like to call her up, but what do I say?

morah

Tue, Mar 18 2014, 8:57 pm

amother wrote:

Of course it doesn't count for the mitzvah, but you already fulfilled the mitzvah by giving to other people the day of. What's wrong with sending her a package just to reciprocate? The shul MM where you pay to have your name on the list doesn't count either, yet we all do it. Send her the bag, and thank her for for the one she gave you.

zaq

Wed, Mar 19 2014, 4:33 pm

amother wrote:

People send MM not solely to best buddies but also to eople they want to get to know better or forge more of a bond with. That's really the idea, to foster Ahavat Yisrael. Under these circs, they're not expecting anything in return because they know you weren't expecting anything from them. (But unexpected MM is the perfect example of why people regift.)

Call her to thank her, and if you're interested in pursuing the realtionship, extend some sort of invitation--to coffee and cake if you're SAHMs or to Friday night dinner or the like. Although truthfully, if you sent her a shul MM and she didn't send you a shul MM, I'd consider you more or less even as far as social obligation goes. We all know that 90% of MM activity these days has little to do with kiyum mitzvah, which you're yotze with very little, and everything to do with social obligation.

TeachersNotebook

Wed, Mar 19 2014, 7:58 pm

I gave someone a MM this year who wasn't expecting it, and therefore, I knew not to expect one back from her. She felt bad that she didn't have anything for me, but I completely didn't expect her to or need one from her! I had only given one to her to kind of extend my hand in friendship.

So don't go assuming that you're being rude to this person. She probably doesn't care that you didn't give anything back Smile

In the end, the person I gave to dropped one off for me on Sunday night. Very sweet, but unnecessary. I actually felt a little bad that I made her feel so obligated...