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Dear Miriam,
My roommate and I are having a minor disagreement about Shabbat hosting, and we’re looking for some outside perspective. When is the right time to extend invitations to Shabbat guests? Is it closer to the Shabbat that’s just ended, or closer to the one we’re inviting for? That is, does it have to be Saturday night/Sunday morning, or can it be later in the week?
Signed,
Itching to Invite
Dear Invite,
I’m going to guess you’re in your early to mid-20s, perhaps recently out of college and newly living on your own. It sounds like you have a robust Shabbat hosting circle, which means there are multiple meals in your community on any given Shabbat and lots of possible permutations of guests. In that context, rushing to send out invitations makes sense to increase your odds of yielding your desired guests.
Even in that context, though, Saturday night or Sunday morning sounds rushed to me. You’ve barely stopped seeing the glow from the havdalah candle before you’re starting to plan again! Maybe you enjoy that, and maybe it helps you get through the week, but maybe you could also benefit from taking a breath for even longer before issuing your next round of invites.
I think there’s a real generational divide here, too, in that, from some very unofficial polling, I gather that people a couple of decades older than you (like me) wait much longer to plan meals. If I send invites by Tuesday night, I feel truly ahead of the game. Wednesday evening is more likely, and Thursday is not unheard of. I could speculate about the impact of age and having kids, about what kind of community you live in, and about a variety of other social factors.
But what’s significant in my sharing when I send out invites is that most of the time, people say yes when I invite them. It’s easy to assume that everyone has plans and everyone is busy and occupied with the same things that you are, but actually, for every person I invite to a meal on a Tuesday, there are probably a dozen more who would be grateful to receive an invitation on a Thursday because they don’t have any plans. All of this is to say, don’t feel the need to rush to send out invitations to secure a small set of coveted guests. Rather, at least some of the time, take a breather at the beginning of the week and think about people you don’t know as well, people who you don’t invite as frequently, or people who may be newer to the community and consider adding them to your rotation. Not sending out early invites also increases the possibility that someone might invite you without you already being committed to hosting.
There are other times when I would encourage you to plan even further ahead! If you have a birthday, or an out-of-town guest, or a themed meal you really want to make for a specific parashah, you should definitely plan for that in advance. Two to three weeks is totally reasonable in those circumstances. If there’s someone you really want to host but have had a hard time getting schedules to match up, picking a date in the future also makes sense. And, with Passover coming up, it’s worth noting that 3-5 weeks is a totally reasonable amount of lead time for seder invitations.
So who’s right? There are different times and different circumstances that might lead you to send out invitations in different ways. At various points in your own life and your guests’ lives, you may make adjustments. If you miss a particular window for a certain guest, reach beyond your usuals and see who else you can welcome into your home. And at the end of the day (or the week!), what matters is getting together with people in community, no matter when the invitations go out.
Be well,
Miriam
