It never ever happens that everyone for one reason or another goes away for Shabbos.

We get a call “Can I come for Shabbos?” the boy bochur asks.

We weight the situation — he’s alone new to Israel new to Yiddishkeit.

The potential children no cook no clean “free” Shabbos is like sunflower seed shells next to gold. “Sure” we answer.

I’m still a little stubborn about giving up the luxury of our almost “cook and clean free” Shabbos — so I decide I’m  minimalizing – but as the Erev Shabbos day comes closer to its end I start to have my doubts.

What if the guest has a sweet tooth maybe I’ll throw in a chocolate chip cake just to have something sweet.

As I’m about to take out the chocolate chips — the bell rings. It’s the boy bochur guest and he’s holding a chocolate brownie walnut cake.

“Wow” I say. “How did you know I was just debating whether to put in a cake?”

Interesting how a book starts or how a movie starts — usually the first moments of the scene contain all the hints of what’s to come the introduction to characters.

I remember living in New York at one point and being a guest sometimes — the minute I’d walk in the door — I kind of knew what was in store — like if the lady of the house said hello like a ton of bucks just fell on her or if she said hello like the greatest gift got sent her way a guest.

He asked if he could put his coat here and his bag there and could he sit in this chair or that one — then I said “Listen you get one me more guest question and then you’re part of the house.”

Shabbos came in a blink and we found ourselves at the Shabbos meal. The boy shares his fears and goals the deep dark emptiness he was in and how he’s a great introvert and socially skilled challenged.

My husband gives over some Torah and then asks the bochur who’s learning full time to give over a little dvar Torah.

The bochur — we’ll call him Aharon — takes down a Chumash. He slowly opens trying to find Parshas Vayigash and begins to read. Sounding out and translating and working so hard to discuss the rashi. When he speaks about Yaakov and Yosef he speaks as if he knows them and sees them and feels their suffering.

He asks “Why couldn’t Yaakov forget Yosef in all those twenty-two years?” And he gives his own chiddush. He says the last thing Yaakov teaches his son Yosef is about the mitzvah of eglah arufah — how it’s so important to escort someone on his way and not only is it important it ensures it’s a guarantee he will arrive at his destiny safely.

We discuss how in practical terms it even makes sense that when you see a person out with a full heart and escort them on their way it’s a sign you didn’t want to slam the door behind them and breathe a sigh of relief it’s a sign a support that you care — and that steadies a person’s footsteps secures him in his path.

I know personally that if I’ve been sent off with a bad feeling my steps are unsteady — your thoughts dispersed — you could cross a street without thinking or bang into a tree you’re off center.

So the boy bochur goes back to his chiddush. Maybe Yaakov could not let go of the thoughts of Yosef (after a year a person is supposed to begin to forget) because he had fulfilled the mitzvah of escorting Yosef and even taught him the mitzvah as he escorted his son. So how could it be that his son was harmed?

The bochur’s eyes are serious and thoughtful. He so much wants to know how Yaakov and his sons felt. How it all really happened.

He continues to give over the story reading pouring his soul into each syllable.

He asks “How could it be the brothers were so bad?” and then he himself answers the question with the answer his Rebbe taught him: that they weren’t they thought they were working l’Shem Shamayim that maybe they had another Eisav or Yishmael amongst them and that their father like Yitzchak couldn’t see the truth. So they set up a beis din and found him guilty.

And he continues to read how they sold him and how he became the ruler in Mitzrayim and how Yosef then played the trick on them by taking Binyamin captive in order to be metakken the past of them taking him and to see if they had true charatah (misgivings) and when he saw they truly did — Yosef turned and cried and then asked all those around to leave so he could reveal himself to his brothers.

And then Aharon reads “And Yosef revealed to his brothers ‘I am Yosef’ and his voice cracked in such a way that my heart cracked and I openly cried as he read the scene as if he himself could feel every word and I bathed in the nachas of a new soul joining the joy of Yiddishkeit and I cried because his mother couldn’t or wouldn’t know why she should be crying. And I cried because we’re so blessed to have the Torah that teaches us to take in unexpected guests.