We have been reading in the last few Torah portions about the limits of who can enter the Tabernacle. For instance, those who are impure due to childbirth or the disease of tzara’at, or a Kohen who is drunk, are not allowed to enter. The Tabernacle was not entirely welcoming and accessible.  

Synagogues have some relationship to the Tabernacle in that they are places of worship and are, in some sources, known as a “small Tabernacle.” But the name we use for a synagogue is a Beit Knesset, a house of gathering—or literally, a house of knissah, of entering, a house of welcome. I believe this is instructive; it is a house, and a house is a place of feeling at home, of protection and of acceptance. But it is also a knesset, a gathering place, where people come together in community.   

These two elements form a powerful synergy: a place for a community to come together—a knesset which has few barriers to entry—but also a house, a place of family and inclusion, which by definition has boundaries. It seems a shul, though a bit paradoxical, should be both a knesset, a place that is wide open, and a bayit, a place where you feel like a member of a family. I believe that the true test of a community’s ability to welcome is whether it can welcome those who do not easily fit in, who do not feel automatically at home—even though that takes real effort. We do it by learning about people and getting to know them.  

This week, I spent a day on Capitol Hill with 300 rabbis and Christian pastors advocating for Israel. I will admit that I harbored suspicions about the potential ulterior motives of strongly Zionist Christian leaders. I have often assumed that it is not their pure love of the Holy Land or of the Jewish people which motivates their ardor, but rather a belief that the Jewish people must have sovereignty in the land in order for the Christian Messiah to come; subsequently, the Jewish people would be pushed aside or worse. But as I got to know them, I began to see their love of Israel in a more generous light, as happens with most preconceptions and prejudices. Opening a door to others, along with a welcoming attitude, is often the doorway to appreciating them. And so it is in community, in nations and in so many other fora.    

In our Torah portion, it is written: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as your citizens; you shall love each one as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” Rashi points out that the word used here for “your God” is in the plural and comments: “I am your God and his God.”

Muslims, Christians and Jews may be very different and often warring religions, but as Rashi says, we all have the same God. We cannot love everyone in the world, but we can see our countries and our communities as places that are wide open, accepting and yet able to provide those who may feel like foreigners with love, support and family—as both knesset and bayit.