Wanna come over?

It's become a tradition in our family to have an open house on the second afternoon of Rosh Hashana. It's the way I like to entertain - casual, everyone brings something.  A few days before the holiday this year, I was speaking to some colleagues and mentioned that I thought we would have "a lot" of people.  "A lot like 20? Or a lot like 40?" my colleague asked.  I didn't know.  Because I was scared to count.

I like to invite people.  I'm not always sure why, because guests can be a pain.  They are messy.  They are loud.  They often overstay their welcome.  The Rosh Hashana open house is often chaotic and exhausting. Yet I keep inviting people.  Sometimes more than I have room for.  Sometimes people I don't even know that well. Or people whose kids drive my kids nuts. 

One explanation is DNA.  Inviting people is a tradition that I get from my parents.  One year, at synagogue, the rabbi announced, "if you need someplace to go for Passover, call Margie." My mom hadn't volunteered, and she wasn't chair of some committee whose job it was to find people places to go.  It was just that the rabbi knew she would take people in.  Another time, the doorbell rang and it was the Domino's pizza delivery guy.  Somehow, someone in my family had figured out that he had some connection to Judaism, and there he was at Seder with us.

It wasn't just holidays. There were extra people year-round at my house when I was a kid. My dad would return from his early morning ramblings with someone in tow. (A habit I have recreated with inviting my running buddies over for coffee). Several of our cousins moved in with us at one time or another - for a month, or for several years.  Our friends ran away to our house, or crashed there while in between places.  One time, both my grandmother and our good friend V were staying in the house. She was in her eighties; he in his twenties.  They used to pass in the early mornings - she on her way out, he on his way in.

Inviting guests is also in my Jewish DNA.  The holiday of the week, Sukkot, commands us to invite guests into our sukkahs.  These are both mythical guests from the bible, and real live guests.   We are commanded to invite in the needy.  Needy is traditionally thought of as those who are hungry and in need of a meal.  And there is no question that there remains too much hunger, both in our very own communities, and throughout the world.

Yet inviting also addresses my hunger - for community, for people around me.  For laughter, for company, to toast and break bread.  To have people who feel comfortable rooting around in my fridge.  So, despite the fact that every year I say we aren't going to do it again, next year I will start the inviting again. If you didn't get an invite to Rosh Hashana this year, sorry about that.  Probably just didn't run into you.  Come next year anyway.  But be prepared for a million kids running around, too many plates to fit on the table, and not enough chairs. Because it's in my genes.  And I just can't help it.