The mitzvah of hosting guests is also fulfilled when hosting wealthy guests. And although they do not need the host’s favor, nevertheless, the fact that he greets them with a smile and endeavors to serve and honor them is a mitzvah. All the more so, if the guests are poor, the host fulfills a double-mitzvah: the mitzvah of tzedakah and the mitzvah of hosting guests. When one feeds a poor person at his table it is considered as thought he brought an offering upon the Altar. This is especially true if one hosts a Torah scholar, for then his reward is very great, as our Sages said: “If a man hosts a scholar in his house, gives him food and drink, and lets him enjoy his possessions, Scripture considers it for him as if he had sacrificed the daily burnt-offering” (Berachos 10b).
