Communal
Searching for a way to mark a special moment in your community's life? Here you will find articles about rituals, teachings, and blessings to help you enhance these significant moments.
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Blessing One's Hosts
There is a debate concerning the visitors that came to Abraham and Sarah’s tent that day. Were they men or angels? Messengers or prophets? We don’t know for sure. But the story tells us that Sarah Baked them bread and Abraham served a hearty meal. They were good hosts. So the visitors blessed the couple by saying that their dream (that a child will come from them) will be fulfilled.
Ritual:
This blessing is found as part of the blessing after meals in a nusach sefard edition –
Yehi Ratzon…
May it be Your will that our hosts are never shamed or humiliated in this world or the world to come, and that they are successful in all that they do.
May they be accomplished in their work and never have to go too far from home. Stop anger and greed, from entering into their acts of creation and may no destructive or impulsive act attach itself to them from this time and forever.
Blessing:
(It is customary for guests to say grace so they can bless the hosts at the end of the meal:)
Harachaman hu yivarekh et ba’al habayit hazeh, v’et ba’alat habayit hazeh, otam v’et beitam v’et kol asher lahem k’mo she’nitbarchu avoteinu v’imoteinu bakol mikol kol, ken y’varech otanu kulanu yachad b’vracha shleima v’nomar Amen.
May God bless our hosts and all that is precious to them just as You blessed our ancestors in every way. Bless us all with a perfect blessing. Amen!
Teaching:
Our Rabbis taught, "The host breaks bread and the guest says grace. The host breaks bread in order to do so generously, and the guest says the blessing after the meal in order to bless the host. How does the guest bless the host? ‘May it be God’s will that our host should never be ashamed in this world nor disgraced in the next world’."
(BT Berakhot 46b)
Harachaman hu yivarekh et ba’al habayit hazeh, v’et ba’alat habayit hazeh.
May God bless our hosts. or Brukhim ha-nimza’im. Blessed are the ones who receive (who welcome) us.
(CLAL Faculty)
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