DEUT470 (Continued from [[LEV170]] Leviticus 16:2 any SINAI1 56) It is also possible to translate this Hebrew dictum in our mishnah in a different sense: Let the members of your household become "poor." Suppose you suddenly find a chance to have a few unexpected guests for Sabbath, but your wife has had no time to prepare for them. Then let your guests come first. you, your wife and your children can share what is left. The same may sometimes occur in regard to bed space. Your children may have to "double up" for the sake of the needy guest. This is the range of true Torah kindness. Even if it involves sacrifice of privacy, food or convenience, "let the members of your household be made poor" -- but let your house be wide open. Indeed, it is perhaps impossible to truly understand how the hungry man feels unless you were hungry yourself at one time. For genuine empathy, the ability to put yourself in the place of the other, you must once have lived through a similar experience. "And you shall love the stranger for you yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt" [this verse]. This is perhaps the meaning of the aphorism in the Talmud: "Before a man eats he has two hearts; after he has eaten he has only one heart" (T.B. Baba Bathra 12b). As long as a man is still hungry, aware of gnawing-emptiness in his own stomach, he has a heart for himself and also has a heart for his hungry fellow man. But after he has eaten and assuaged his hunger, he has only one heart. Filled with his own sense of well-being, it is difficult for him to imagine the suffering of others. ... However, the word 'ani means not only "poor" in the strictly financial sense. A man may be wealthy and still be an 'ani. Does not King David cry out, "I am poor and suffering!" (Psalms 69:30) -and surely David possessed great wealth. Any man who is in need is, in regard to that need, poor. A man who is depressed and needs cheering; a lonely person in need of a friend; one who has a problem and needs advice: for all these who seek the warmth of friendship and sympathetic counsel, "let your house be wide open."