It’s not just proper protocol and good manners, but it’s actually an ancient custom mentioned in the Gemara. When someone invites you to their home, it’s proper to give them a gift. The Gemara (Megillah 26a) states, “Abayei said: we learn from here that it is proper etiquette for a person to leave his flask of wine and the hide (of the animal he slaughtered) at the inn where he is staying.”
On one occasion a few years ago, our son Shalom invited a classmate for Shabbos. Most of the time when he has a friend for Shabbos, the friend brings a bottle of wine or a candy platter. But this boy didn’t. We didn’t think much about it, and, in fact, we wouldn’t have even noticed that he didn’t bring anything. But then on Sunday night we discovered many candy wrappers on the floor and an empty platter on the floor in Shalom’s room. It turns out that his mother indeed sent him with a very nice candy platter, which he enjoyed immensely upstairs throughout Shabbos.
When I was the social worker in Yeshiva Bais HaChinuch, the yeshiva was once graced with a visit by Rav Yitzchok Sheiner, zt”l, the Kaminetzer Rosh Yeshiva from Yerushalayim. Rav Sheiner addressed the students with characteristic warmth and love. I typed it up afterwards and disseminated it to the students, so they would remember it.
The following are the opening words of that speech:
“I’m very thrilled to be in this holy makom Torah. I’ve been living in Yerushalayim for 60 years, and 70 years ago I went to school here in Spring Valley. So, we are classmates. I’m just a bit older, and I’m happy to meet my classmates. This is where I began learning Torah in Monsey and Spring Valley, so I want to see how my new classmates are getting along. That’s why I came here.
“I want to give you all a bracha that you should all become big talmidei chachomim and tzaddikim and you should all be good.
“Do you know what good means? Good means somebody who makes someone else happy all the time.
“I want to quote for you two lines from one of the most important seforim every printed – Nefesh HaChaim. It was published by Rav Chaim Volozhiner. In the introduction to the Nefesh HaChaim, his son, whose name was Yitzchok, and was also very great, writes: ‘I want you to remember these two very important lines which are one of the most important lines to know:
‘This is what he (my father) always taught me – every day he told it to me again so I shouldn’t forget it, because he considered it the most important lesson he can teach me: a person was not born only to take care of himself; but to help the people around him, to make them happy and to make them feel good.’”
I have heard this quote on various occasions, but whenever I do I picture Rav Sheiner with his eyes closed and finger wagging as he emotionally conveyed it that morning to the young students of Yeshiva Bais HaChinuch.
We aren’t in this world for our own selfish needs and wants. Of course we must take care of ourselves, but that cannot be our main objective. We are here for the betterment of others, to help make other people’s lives better in any way we can.
The internal candy platters we are endowed with – our talents and capabilities – were not given to us merely for own selfish needs and pleasure. They were given to us to help enhance the lives of those around us. Those ‘candy platters’ weren’t granted to us so we can consume them ourselves upstairs where no one else benefits from them.
I had a good friend in camp who would walk around with an open package of licorice, offering some to everyone he passed while asking, “Can I make your day a little sweeter?”
Imagine if the world lived by that creed. Imagine if our society wasn’t so selfish and focused on its own immediate gratification and development of its superficial image?
What a different world it could be!
