Church Attached to Hotel
Question
The other night, I stayed for one night at a hotel that I found on a booking site. I checked in late at night when I was tired and just wanted to sleep and didn’t notice anything unusual. The next morning when I entered the office to check out, I noticed lots of missionary materials in the office placed in a manner as if they were screaming to be taken. As I was leaving the grounds, I noticed there was a church attached to the hotel that was physically part of the same building. I later looked at the hotel’s website and learned that the hotel operates as a way of raising money for the existence of this church. All profits from hotel stays instead of supporting an individual’s personal income go toward the church’s operating expenses. What am I supposed to do about this when I accidentally gave money to a missionizing church? Do you think I should confront them and ask for a refund because I don’t agree with their beliefs?
Answers
I do not think that you have any legal chance to ask for your money back. They will tell you, absolutely correctly, that you booked and arrived of your own volition and all it would have taken was one look at their website to see that they are not hiding anything.
However, while there may be nothing that you can do legally, I do feel that there is a need for spiritual recourse, as you did do something wrong – albeit inadvertently. Personally, I think that the correct thing to do at this point is to donate the same amount of money that you spent on your hotel stay to a Yeshivah or Kollel. By doing that it is as if you are returning the “balance” to your spiritual identity.
Best wishes from the AskTheRabbi.org Team