Four walls, tasteful furniture, great appliances, a great family room, lots of storage space and beautiful landscaping do not a home make. It may describe the house of one’s dreams but such does not make a home. A home has character and reflects the values of those who live there. When we speak of a broken home we are not referring to a leaky roof but a family divided.
Because a home is a sanctuary one whose home is broken into will feel personally violated. When homes are destroyed by the force of nature – hurricanes, tornadoes and the like – the damage done cannot be measured in financial terms alone. The unique nature of a home, as opposed to a house, may even offer a philosophical explanation as to why (with rare exceptions) the laws of ona’ah, price fraud, do not apply when purchasing a home. The fair market value of home is what someone is willing to pay for it. While the price of a home may be determined by location, location, location the value of a home is determined by those who live there.
It is Avraham and Sarah who modelled what a Jewish home is meant to be. A haven not only for those who live there but also for those who are in need of a welcoming embrace. Hachnasat orchim, welcoming the needy into one’s home, is, our Sages teach, of greater importance that “receiving the divine presence” (Shabbat 127a). It is nice to ‘welcome G-d’ into our home, but it is more important to welcome people[1].
“And the river shall bring forth frogs in swarms, and these will go up and come into thy house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servant (Shemot 7:28)
“I will send swarms of gnats upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of Egypt shall be full of swarms of gnats” (Shemot 8:17)
“And they [locusts] shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of all Egypt; which neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers’ fathers have seen, since the day that they were upon the earth to this day” (Shemot 10:6).
The Egyptian home was a place where people were enslaved, even denied the right to live with their spouses. It was a place where strangers were not welcome. The Egyptian home had to be destroyed.
The plague of darkness was of such power that “they saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days” (Shemot 10:23). Sadly, the first nine plagues had little impact on Egypt. Only when “there was not a house where there was no one dead” (Shemot 10:30) did Egypt relent.
The Jewish home was to be different. The preparations for the Exodus began with the command for the people to take a lamb into their homes. The word bayit, home, appears no less than seven times in these opening instructions. And only by putting blood on the doorposts of one's home, of publicly marking the fact that here lives a Jewish family, would that family be spared the fate that befell the Egyptians.
Moshe Rabbeinu, in preparing the people to enter the land warns over and over again about the potential danger of building a house that is not a Jewish home.
“When the Lord your G-d brings you into the land that He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to assign to you—great and flourishing cities that you did not build, houses full of all good things that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and you eat your fill, take heed that you do not forget the Lord who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage” (Devarim 6:10-12).
“Be careful lest you forget the Lord your G-d and fail to keep His commandments, His rules, and His laws, which I enjoin upon you today. When you have eaten your fill, and have built fine houses to live in, and your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold have increased, and everything you own has prospered, beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the Lord your G-d—who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage (Devarim 8:11-14).
And if we don’t listen? “When you come into the land of Cana’an, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the plague of tżara῾at in a house of the land of your possession” (Vayikra 14:34). If the tżara῾at (let's assume it is some type of mold) did not go away within seven days the house was to be fully replastered. And if that did help that house was to be destroyed.
The notion of tzara'at of a house confounded our Sages. So much so that Rabbi Elazar is of the view that “There has never been a house afflicted with tza’arat and there will never be one” (Sanhedirn 71a). While we may not recognize its physical manifestations a home can tragically cease to be a Jewish home. Such a home must be destroyed.
We bless a newly married couple that they should merit to build a bayit ne'eman b’yisrael, a faithful Jewish home. May we all, young and old, merit to build such a home.
[1] While inviting friends for a shabbat meal is very beautiful and meaningful, it is difficult to claim that this is what our Sages had in mind in extolling the mitzva of hachnasat orchim. Let us recall Avraham and Sarah welcomed strangers, strangers whom they thought were idol worshipers.