A must read: Unexpected Guests – Pesach 5765

gryp

Fri, May 06 2005, 9:41 am

A beautiful story- hope you enjoy it as much as I did:

By Rabbi Yossi Hodakov

By the time we set the Seder table on the first night of Pesach, it is an hour after we were scheduled to begin, and some of our guests have not yet arrived. We decide to start the Seder, and figure that if and when they came, they would catch up. Kadeish, Urchatz, Karpas, Yachatz, Magid…

My younger son is reciting the Mah Nishtanah. There is a knock on the door. Our guests have arrived. From my place at the table, I hear "Leah" telling my wife that on their way to our house they met a couple of people looking for a Seder. Would it be okay if they come in too?

Our invited guests come inside, and with them are two Israeli boys in their twenties. I give them Yarmulkas. Settings are added to the table, and seating is rearranged for "Benny" and "Asaf" to sit next to me.

Asaf is from Tel Aviv, and his dyed hair has been covering his earring for many years.

Benny’s appearance belies his origins. He lived in the Rova - the Jewish Quarter in the old city of Jerusalem – for the first fifteen years of his life, just down the block from the Tzemach Tzedek Shul. There was a time when he had long, curly Peyos. He spent some time learning in a Chassidishe Yeshivah where he even picked up some Yiddish. He remembers working in a Shmurah-Matzah bakery in Meah Shearim. "Maireh! Maireh!" they would scream, when a new batch of dough was ready. But that was years ago, thousands of miles and worlds away.

Now, he lives in Florida, and in his truck. He drives up and down the East Coast, hauling cargo for an Israeli-owned moving company. When he is done unloading one job, he calls his manager to find out where to go next. It has been six years since Benny has participated in a Seder.

Every once in a while, the drivers in the moving company are paired up with new partners. That is how Benny met Asaf yesterday, for the first time. But that was yesterday, hundreds of miles away.

Today it is Pesach. I guess that six years is too long for any of the "Four Sons" to be away from a Seder table… Benny makes Kiddush with excitement and ease, the words rolling off his tongue. We give all the guests a chance to catch up to us.

Asaf is enjoying himself, taking it all in. The food, the spirit, the wine… Benny is shining, literally bursting with joy. He proudly helps his friend through the Hagadah, explaining things as we go along. He wants to share with me insights that he vaguely remembers hearing from his father so many years ago… Rochtzoh, Motzi, Matzoh, Maror, Koreich, Shulchan Oreich.

So now we could talk. I ask Benny "How did you find my house? Where did you meet Leah with her siblings?"

He had wanted to join in a Seder. Not knowing anyone in New Haven, he entered two separate bars asking for directions to the Jewish neighborhood, when someone suggested he "go to Whalley Avenue". He drove up and down Whalley avenue "making U-turns, crossing double-yellow lines, driving on the sidewalk" until he saw a few people walking in the distance. "From the way the girl was dressed, I could tell she was Jewish. I must have scared them, stopping short with my speeding truck just before jumping out wildly in front of them!" he says, laughing.

Tzofun, Beirach… Benny and Asaf join me to open the door welcoming Eliyahu Hanavi. I tell them that just as we open our doors on this night, so does G-d open the gates of heaven. Silently, I pray that He open them as wide as the hearts and souls of these two Jews, frantically searching to celebrate this Festival of our Liberation. Halel, Nirtzah…

After the fourth cup of wine, Benny and Asaf leave, happy to keep the Yarmulkas we had given them to wear, and promising to wear them more often in the future. Benny promises to call his father, whom he hasn’t spoken to in over a year, and tell him what he did on Pesach night. Make him happy. I wish them well and offer them to stop by next time they’re in the area.

A mature adolescent, Leah feels a need to justify why she invited two total strangers into my house "two of my siblings decided to go elsewhere, so I figured you’d have place for them". She doesn’t realize how happy I am, how fortunate I feel to be able to host these two precious Jews from the Holy Land and the holy city.

She apologizes again for being so late. "It was his fault," she says half in jest, pointing to her brother. He wasn’t ready on time. I explain to her that she has it all wrong. Her brother may have been taking his time, but it was, in fact, "His" fault that they were left when they did. They were not late at all. They were just in time. Just in time to bring another two wandering Jews to a Seder on the first night of Pesach.

from shmais.com