Are you supposed to respond to a shabbos invite?

amother

Sat, Nov 06 2021, 11:41 pm

Having a debate with my husband. My husband invited a family for shabbos and they never responded. Is this considered rude or not or am I being sensitive?

Blessing1

Sat, Nov 06 2021, 11:43 pm

Yes, it is rude to not respond. The hosts need to know whether to expect them or not.

BrisketBoss

Sat, Nov 06 2021, 11:43 pm

Of course you are supposed to respond. Don't leave the host/hostess guessing and having to check again.

kineret

Sat, Nov 06 2021, 11:43 pm

How else would you know if they can or can’t come if they don’t respond?

mommy3b2c

Sat, Nov 06 2021, 11:43 pm

Very rude. They can either say yes or no. It’s not that hard .

amother

Pear

Sun, Nov 07 2021, 12:04 am

Was it a formal invite-as in- We would love to have have you as our guests this shabbos? Or a “ any time you want” invite?

amother

Sun, Nov 07 2021, 12:05 am

amother [ Pear ] wrote:

Was it a formal invite-as in- We would love to have have you as our guests this shabbos? Or a “ any time you want” invite?

It was for a specific shabbos

seeker

Sun, Nov 07 2021, 1:12 am

Yes, they should respond. But let's assume they had a hectic week, got busy, had some kind of work emergency that wiped out their brain, and completely forgot to respond. Or maybe they were going to text a response but it went into drafts instead of sending.

So nu, when you're ready to prepare for Shabbos and need to know if they're coming, follow up and ask what their response is.

naomi2

Sun, Nov 07 2021, 6:46 am

You should follow up with a phone call. It's possible they saw the text and meant to discuss with their spouse and then totally skipped their mind. Or their child read their messages and this one wasn't flagged as new anymore so they never saw it.

amother

Sun, Nov 07 2021, 7:13 am

naomi2 wrote:

The invite was by phone.

amother

Bellflower

Sun, Nov 07 2021, 7:14 am

Well then was it a voicemail? Or did you speak with someone?
No matter what the subject we always say “please call back” not leaving the info on the machine because then you never know who if anyone heard it.

imasinger

Sun, Nov 07 2021, 7:18 am

It would be nice to be dl"z and assume they forgot, or something came up.

Nothing wrong with the prospevtive host reaching out a second time. If the question wasn't met with, "oh, my, I'm so sorry, I never got back to you", then I might call them rude. But not before that.

amother

Sun, Nov 07 2021, 7:26 am

amother [ Bellflower ] wrote:

It was person to person invite on the phone the old fashioned way.

amother

Bellflower

Sun, Nov 07 2021, 7:35 am

ok so then I would be dklz and assume something came up -- depending upon the relationship I would either call again and follow up and if still no answer then would say "ok so another time then" as in most situations we would prefer to know, or send a text to same effect: "sorry this shabbos didn't work out hopefully another time" or something like that.
obviously people would have to answer unless its like an open house situation or something specifically stated not expecting rsvp and invitation is specifically for drop in ok no response necessary.

Alexandra1

Sun, Nov 07 2021, 7:39 am

call again . maybe he did not ask his spouse. People need to reply in a timely fashion and be considerate of their host.

amother

Stone

Sun, Nov 07 2021, 8:22 am

Of course it's rude. What are you supposed to do, prepare food and set place settings just in case they deign to show up? make a follow-up call. Maybe they never wrote anything down and forgot you invited them. If this sort of thing happened three times in a row, I'd stop inviting them, but that's just me.