Does this person think we are poor??

amother

Sun, Jul 12 2009, 10:41 am

This is kind of a weird story.
My husband is the Rav of a shul and as part of the job we live in a house owned by the shul. The house is very small and simple.

Recently, someone was hired to do some work on the house (non-Jew). He came over earlier than expected once and I was in the middle of making lunch for myself and DD. Since she is only a toddler I was just making simple pasta. As not to be rude, my DH thought that we should ask this man if he wanted to join us and he said yes. This was not a big formal meal and obviously, if I had known that we had company I would have made something more elaborate.

The next week this man dropped off a box of fruit from a farmers market for us. He told us that his daughter works at a fruit stand and had some leftovers. I was surprised when I opened the box and saw that almost all of the fruit was waaay past its prime and some was rotting. Did he give this to us because he thought he couldn't buy our own food and thought we needed whatever we could get?

I am not sure what happened here.

HindaRochel

Sun, Jul 12 2009, 10:53 am

He may have thought you might have liked the fruits. He may not have realized the condition the fruits were in and simply wanted to repay you for your kindness with the offer of food. I'd take out the good stuff and use it, and just thank him.

sim

Sun, Jul 12 2009, 12:01 pm

I have non-jewish neighbors and they are always doing stuff like that for us "just to be neighborly" (their own words. count yourself as lucky -- the guy was just being nice.