Our welcoming nature prevails

He lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground … Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; and after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. — Genesis 18: 2-5

He invited him in and made him a cup of tea.

Of all the remarkable elements of last week’s hostage crisis in a Texas synagogue — the live broadcast of the incident during an online Sabbath service, the 11 hours of negotiations, the cool reserve of those imprisoned in what is ironically called a “sanctuary,” the rush to the door for an escape provided by the mayhem following the hurling of a chair — this is the most astonishing:

The hostage crisis began when Rabbi Charlie Cytronwalker invited the gunman into Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville in the Fort Worth suburbs.

He thought Malik Faisal Akram wanted shelter and could do with a cup of hot tea.

Thirty-two years ago, another rabbi faced a similar situation. Rabbi Ken Kanter of Mizpah Congregation in Chattanooga, Tennessee, let a teenager into his synagogue; Joseph Harper had been in the day before, seeking some water, so he was a familiar figure, clearly in search of succor. The visitor handcuffed the rabbi, blindfolded him, stole his wallet and keys, put him in the trunk of Kanter’s 1987 Volvo, drove around for an hour and finally released him.

“People come to the door all the time, asking for food or water or money,” said Rabbi Kanter.

But this is what will stun you: It turns out that Rabbi Kanter, who was director of the rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, taught Rabbi Cytron-walker in his senior seminar on practical rabbinics.

What is more important than the most improbable of all coincidences is that both rabbis — the one held hostage in his own sanctuary, the one kidnapped and thrust into his own automobile trunk — acted out of the kindness that is central not just to Judaism but to all religions.

“It relates to a sense of the clergy of all faiths, trying to serve the community, whether because of poverty or hunger,” Rabbi Kanter told me.

It is clear that Rabbi Cytronwalker — a controversial figure in his own congregation, where a search committee for his replacement was scheduled to meet two days before the hostage situation unfolded — was a good student, to his detriment for that harrowing Sabbath, but perhaps providing some teaching for us all.

Not that you should let a gunman into your house, or house of worship. Instead, it’s that open doors to the stranger, and — here’s the lesson for our politicians, and for us — to those whose backgrounds, appearance, outlooks and views differ from ours, can be dangerous. But also that open doors are essential for us to retain, and enhance, our humanity.

And so Rabbi Kanter was not at all surprised to discover history repeating itself with the young man he once sat across from in a seminar room in the Cincinnati seminary.

“That was completely characteristic of him,” said Rabbi Kanter, who, Zelig-like, was an officiant at my daughter’s wedding. “That is the kind of career he had as a student and it has