2026 Yom Kippur Evening: Xenia

We have a text that is thousands of years old. It is comprised of a number of books that make up the whole. Its text mixes together narrative, history, and philosophy, and reflects on humanity’s relationship with the divine. It is at once inspiring, challenging, beguiling, a bit confusing at times, beautiful, and relevant.

I’m talking, of course, about the Odyssey.

If you haven’t seen Christopher Nolan’s film yet, I strongly recommend doing so after the High Holidays. When I saw the Odyssey the first time, I was surprised to see many characters talking about the power and importance of what they call, Zeus’s law. No spoilers, but it plays a BIG part of the movie.

I saw it for a second time and thought to myself, I saw the movie. Now it was time to read the book.

It didn’t take a long time to realize that Nolan did not invent this so-called Zeus’s law. He just used a different term. In the Odyssey, it’s called xenia.

Xenia is often translated as hospitality, but that doesn’t quite capture it. Think of what happens to the word mitzvah when we turn it into good deed. A mitzvah is a commandment. It is an obligation, whether or not we woke up feeling like doing it. Xenia is that kind of word. In the Odyssey, xenia is what allows for civilization and order. In book 6, Homer puts it plainly: All strangers and beggars are from Zeus.

Over and over again in the movie and Homer’s epic, a stranger arrives at someone’s home, and the host takes them in, washes them, and feeds them before ever asking their name or where they came from.

Here are some examples from the Odyssey, some of which are in the movie:

In the very first book, a stranger appears at Telemachus’s door, and the boy is mortified that a guest has been left standing there alone. He seats her and feeds her. Only when the meal is finished does he ask who she is. She turns out to be the goddess, Athena.

One of the poorest characters in the entire epic is a swineherd named Eumaeus. He takes in an old beggar, kills one of his own pigs to feed him, and then hands the beggar his own cloak for the night. That beggar turns out to be Odysseus.

The Odyssey also shows the concept of xenia being broken. In the book, Odysseus and his men wander into the cave of the Cyclops, and Odysseus asks for the gift that is owed to a guest, reminding the Cyclops that Zeus protects strangers. The Cyclops laughs at him. We Cyclopes, he says, care nothing for Zeus. And then he offers his guest-gift: he will eat Odysseus last.

Polyphemus isn’t a monster because he’s a 20 foot tall, one-eyed cyclops. It is his behavior that makes him monstrous.

Nolan changes plenty, particularly with regard to the Cyclops. Like in any adaptation, he combined characters, left out some details and invented others.

But the thematic backbone of the movie is the same as the book. When Zeus’s law (xenia) is broken, there are severe consequences.

I know it’s all Greek to you (pause), but bear with me for one more minute.

In Greek, the word for a stranger comes from the same root as xenia. It is xenos.

But xenos also means friend.

This word is not a homonym, namely one word with two distinct meanings. Stranger and friend are intertwined as one concept, because in Greek, a stranger and a friend convey the same relationship but in different contexts. The act of xenia moves from one to the other.

Now, let’s talk about another text. It’s the one you may have thought I was talking about earlier:

Abraham is sitting at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day when 3 strangers appear. He is 99 years old. He is just 3 days out from circumcising himself.

So what does Abraham do when he sees these three strangers on an incredibly hot day and when he’s likely in incredible pain? First, he says Sirs, if I have found favor in your eyes, do not go on past your servant. Then, he doesn’t just welcome or receive them. The Torah says he saw these visitors, and he RAN. Did I mention he circumcised himself 3 days prior?

He runs to tell his wife Sarah to take 3 measures of her finest flour and make cakes. In a gesture of humility, he tells the strangers that he will provide a morsel of bread but does a lot more. He runs again to the herd and picks a calf that is tender and fit. He brings curds and he brings milk. As the Talmud says, the righteous say little and do much.

Judaism does not treat this story as a nice story about a generous man providing hospitality. It’s much more important … In fact, it’s our version of xenia.

I want to go back to the first thing he says to the visitors: Sirs, if I have found favor in your eyes, do not go on past your servant. It seems simple enough. Abraham asks the strangers to spend time with him and accept his generosity. Rashi provides a different interpretation. You see, the word for sirs or for master, is Adoni, which is a different pronunciation of Adonai. Rashi’s teaching suggests that Abraham was talking with none other than God when the strangers showed up, and Abraham said, God, do not go on past your servant. Wait for me. I have visitors. In other words, Abraham saw strangers coming, and he told GOD to wait. The visitors were more important.

The Talmud relies on Rashi’s interpretation when teaching this maxim: Welcoming guests is greater than receiving the Divine Presence.

The Talmud continues to tell us that there are six mitzvot whose reward we draw on in this world while the principal is held for us in the next. In other words, the reward for the performance of these six mitzvot is immeasurable. One of those six is hachnasat orchim, the welcoming of guests … Xenia

It’s easy to get up and run for an actual stranger. A stranger is full of mystery and possibility. We want to know who they are and what brought them to us. We have not run out of questions for them yet. There is an excitement when someone new comes into our congregation, our work family, our Mah-Jongg group, our neighborhood, and so on.

But welcoming the stranger is not only about hospitality to actual strangers.

Just as xenia equally applies to a stranger and a friend, welcoming the stranger should be about acknowledging the newness of the people that we’ve known for years.

The hard test of welcoming and hospitality is not running to greet strangers. It’s the spouse, the colleague, the congregant, the family member, the friend. We’ve known them for years and we are no longer curious. We have them figured out and no longer run to meet them. Heck, we may not even get up!

It may sound counter-intuitive, but the work of this night is to let the people we know best become a little bit of a stranger once again.

This is incredibly important on this night of Kol Nidrei.

T’shuvah is about apologizing and change. You can fast, beat your chest, go to every person you have hurt, and even change your behavior. But if they have already decided who you are, the relationship will not necessarily change and improve.

Each of us is asking to be seen as someone new today. We pray for our crimson sins to be washed away, so that our souls are white and pure. But that’s only a part of T’shuvah. The other part is to see that others have changed as well.

On this night of Kol Nidrei, think of one person you’ve known for a long time with whom your relationship has either been stagnant or stale, or perhaps even difficult. You’ve promised to change. So have they. The relationship can be both familiar and known, and strange and new.

The gates are open. Get up. Go out to meet them. RUN.