Hosting guests in one’s home for a Shabbat meal is a critical way to build community and make others feel welcome. Visitors feel valued and meet new people if they are invited to a meal, and minyan regulars appreciate invitations, which strengthen their sense of community and increase the chances they will host others in the future. Meal invitations provide the opportunity for both the guest and host to meet more people and thus feel more comfortable within the community.
Ideally, people would organically take time during Kiddush to invite both new and familiar people to their homes, and minyan leadership would not need to be involved in the process. Unfortunately, the large size of some minyanim and the lack of a meal-hosting culture can prevent the process from happening naturally.
As a result, minyanim have tried many tactics to help provide people with meals and foster meal invitations during Kiddush. Some methods have proven more successful than others:
Community hosted meals: Participants sign up in advance to either host or be a guest. Hosts specify the number of guests they can accommodate, and guests are matched in advance based on location, diet and other factors. Hosts then invite their guests in advance and request contributions to the meal.
* Pros:
o This allows people to plan in advance for guests, and sends a message that the entire community values hosting others at meals.
o Guests do not have to identify themselves last minute, which can be embarrassing (ie why didn’t you already have plans for lunch today?)
* Cons:
o To generate enough signups, this event can only occur occasionally, so it does not satisfy the need for providing more regular meal invitations. (However, it can be done in conjunction with other options, thereby solving this problem.)
o Communities must decide in advance on Kashrut standards, and must have enough hosts whose kitchens meet those standards.
o This has the danger of sending the message the hosting others is limited to these settings, and may inhibit a more spontaneous “meal invitation” culture
During the pre-Kiddush announcements, a gabbai asks that people meet in a certain spot if they are looking for a meal, or if they are making a meal and can accommodate guests.
* Pros:
o In theory, people who would otherwise dine alone for a certain meal are instead welcomed.
o Both parties meet new people, and this practice sends the message that all are welcome.
* Cons:
o This leads to the possibility that there will be more people who want a meal than who offered to host. While it is hard to imagine someone could identify themselves as needing a meal, and then have no one offer to host them, this has happened.
o In this system, visitors and strangers to the community are most likely to request places for meals. While it is important to provide for them, many people active in the community may not have a meal invitation but may be embarrassed to ask for one.
o Sometimes the same few people request a meal every week, which can turn hosts off to volunteering.
o This system forces the meal-seeker to identify him/herself, which can be emabarrasing or lonely. One feels pitied, not welcomed organically.
This was a compromise solution that leaders of Hadar invented, and it is done on a weekly basis in conjunction with occasional Community Hosted Meals: Every week at Hadar, one or two involved community members who are hosting a lunch are asked to leave a couple spots at their table. They then take time during Kiddush to invite people to lunch. Gabbai’im and other people involved in the process can also be on the lookout for people who may not have plans, and alert the hosts to invite them. This process is not widely publicized, in an attempt to change the culture without calling attention to it. The hope is that people will see others inviting people to meals organically, and understand that this is simply “what happens” at this minyan.
* Pros:
o With guest/host announcements, one-time visitors were benefiting most from meal hosts’ attempts. Underground hosts can involve inviting more regular minyan attendees who may be reluctant to request a meal.
o Hosts can meet new people during Kiddush as they look for guests. They can also invite people they already know, strengthening the sense of community.
o This practice encourages the culture of inviting people for meals. It is hoped that once someone is invited to a meal during Kiddush, they will begin to invite others when they host.
o On the rare cases where someone emails the minyan in advance specifically requesting a meal, lunch hosts can accommodate them as well.
* Cons:
o Hosts sometimes feel uncomfortable or have difficulty inviting people during Kiddush. Discomfort can arise from people’s surprise at receiving a spontaneous invitation from a stranger. (Hadar will attempt to resolve this problem by adding an announcement: “If you have an extra place at your Shabbat lunch table, we encourage you to consider extending an invitation to someone you meet or talk with at Kiddush.”)
o People who are less social during Kiddush may miss invitations.
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