The One Less Traveled By

The goal of this blog is to turn the Shabbat table into an adventure. Please print and share.

A couple years ago I wrote an amazing "true" story that allegedly happened in an airport.

This week, I learned that the version I told is not entirely accurate.

In fact, the true story is even better.

Last week, someone asked me if I had ever verified the story, and I hadn't. So I decided to do so.

I was able to track down one of the actual participants.

His name is Mordechai Koval. I reached him at his home in Cleveland. Here is his story, in his own words.

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It was mid-August, 1988, a month before Rosh Hashana. I, my brother and a business partner were traveling to New York for a trade show at the Jay Javitz Center.

Because it was going to be Rosh Chodesh, we really wanted to davven in a minyan. So my brother worked out that if we took the first plane to Laguardia at seven a.m., we would arrive early enough to make a minyan and still get to the trade show early.

I'm telling you that I never oversleep. I'm usually up before my alarm. But for some reason, that day, I am lying in bed and am awakened by a knocking on the door. I'm thinking, "Who's knocking on the door in the middle of the night?"

I go to the door and it's my brother and his partner. They're ready to go and I'm in my pajamas.

What am I going to do? I still have to get dressed and get my coffee (I don't go anywhere without first having my coffee).

My brother said, "What should we do?"

I said, "You go without me, I'll see if I can catch up. There's no point in all of us missing the plane."

You know, I've never got dressed and out the door so fast in my life. Eleven minutes, including the coffee.

I also grabbed my radar detector, because I was going to need it.

It was early the morning, maybe I didn't need the radar detector. Don't the cops have anything better to do than to stop a guy trying to catch a plane? But if I was going to catch that plane, I had no choice. At one stretch of the highway, I floored it - you couldn't even see the odometer! A couple times the radar detector lit up and I slowed down, but fortunately I didn't get pulled over.

I get to the airport and am running like mad, and I caught up to my brother and his partner on the shuttle bus, totally out of breath. You should have seen the look on their faces. They were totally amazed. I was totally amazed! I don't know how I made it, I don't know why I made it, but I made it.

The flight from Cleveland to New York should take about an hour, and when we should have been landing, I could tell something was wrong.

We were not landing. We were circling.

Sure enough, the pilot came on the PA and announced, "Ladies and Gentlemen, all New York airports are fogged in. We have to land at Washington Dulles. There will be an estimated half-hour wait until we can take off again for New York.

As I said, it was Rosh Chodesh, and we needed to davven. Now, that Shabbos, Cleveland had hosted a Rebbe. The Nikolsburger Rebbe  (also this). It was Sunday morning, and he and his entourage were going back to New York, they were on the same plane. We counted the Jewish men on the plane.

Would you believe we had exactly 10? I said to myself, "That's why I made the plane - I made the minyan! It was meant to be."

So we went through the airport and found one of those glass rooms that was empty and we davened in there.

As we finished, this guy pops his head in. He's wearing one of those black mourning ribbons that the Reform wear during Shiva. He asks us, "Can I say Kaddish?"

"Sure," we say.

So he says it, and he's crying.

Afterwards, someone says, "Hey we're going to miss our flight." We all dash out of there. Except the Chassidim. They seem to be taking their time. Their attitude is more like, "If Hashem wants me to make the flight, I'll make the flight." Don't worry, they made the flight.

Anyway, the whole day I'm just so happy that I made the minyan.

That night, my brother says, there's a Jewish event at the New York Hilton, let's go. So we go. After that, we find there's another dinner in the same hotel, for a school for special education for chassidim.

We pay a visit there and I happen to run into a friend. When he finds out that I came on the early flight from Cleveland, he says to me, "That's an amazing story of what happened this morning!"

I'm about to ask him, "How do you know?" when he continues, "This guy Robert, just an amazing story!"

I say to him, "Who's Robert?"

It turns out Robert is the name of the mourner. After we dashed to catch the plane, he told the chassidim his story. He said that he lives in Virginia far from any Jewish community. On Saturday night (the night before), his father came to him in a dream and said to him, "Please say Kaddish for me."

In the dream, he said to his father, "But Dad, I don't live in a Jewish community, there's no minyan here."

"Robert, if I get you a minyan, will you say Kaddish?"

"Sure Dad."

He wakes up and thinks, "What a strange dream!"

"Imagine," he told the chassidim, "I'm walking through the Washington-Dulles Airport. I see all these Jews davvening. I said, OK, Dad, you got me a minyan, I'll say Kaddish."

So I thought that the reason I made the plane was to make a minyan. But little did I realize there was an even bigger plan at work.

God in his kindness has been ery good to me. I see the hand of God in everything. Only the Creator of the world can put things together that way. But the average person just sees randomness.

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Question for your table — What's more important, the journey or the destination?


Shabbat Shalom (and happy travels)

PS - How many days did you say it is until Hannuka? (You may need to click here too.)


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Every Cloud Has One

The purpose of this blog is to provide a conversation-starter for your Friday night dinner table - please print and share.

Flew across the country this week. Everywhere I go, I hear the same thing: "What's with this warm weather in January?"

Look at this weather map - almost no clouds on the lower-48.

I know what you're thinking, the fair weather ain't going to last forever.

Chances are, at some point, most of us are going to experience a flight delay, an extremely inconvenient traffic jam, and so on.

Today's story, which I told five years ago in this space, is to help you get through those frustrating times.

The Cast: Rabbi Mordechai Gifter, the late great Dean of the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland, and 8 students.
The Setting: A few years ago during a snowy winter.

One of Rabbi Gifter’s students was getting married in New York and had sent nine tickets to bring his rabbi and friends to his wedding. They were leaving on an early morning flight to attend an evening ceremony. It was a very happy time for all of them.

Halfway to New York, the pilot came on the loudspeaker.

Pilots do not ordinarily interrupt you halfway to New York with good news.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the Captain. The storm in New York has become an unexpected blizzard and all airports in the region are closed. No flights are taking off or landing. We are being diverted to Washington National Airport. I am sorry for the inconvenience.”

There was obviously nothing that Rabbi Gifter and his students could do. They were going to miss the wedding. This was not a pleasing outcome, but there was nothing they could do. They were not going to share this celebration with their friend.

Facing an indefinitely long wait in the Washington airport, Rabbi Gifter told his students, “Let’s go find a quite place to say Mincha (the afternoon service).” Because of the storm, the airport was jammed full of stranded travelers. They could find neither nook nor cranny conducive to the intense meditation that yeshiva students prefer.

Finally, one of the students stopped an airport custodian. His name tag said “Joe”.

“Is there a room here we could use to pray?”

Joe dropped his mop and gaped at them like they were from Mars. He evidently didn't speak English very well, so the student tried to communicate with a combination of monosyllabic words and sign language: “ROOM – FOR PRAY - QUIET – WHERE? QUIET ROOM?” he asked, gesturing.

Joe replied slowly and quietly, almost a whisper, “I have a work room you can use. Follow me.”

Pleased, they followed Joe into a room that felt a little bit like squeezing into a closet, but it was quiet. They were grateful, and they began their service.

The entire time they conducted their service, Joe stood at the door and watched. When they had finished and were moving to leave, he asked, “Why don’t you say Kaddish?”

Needless to say, they were not expecting that question from Joe the custodian.

Nonplussed but without missing a beat, Rabbi Gifter responded, “We need ten men to say Kaddish, and you see that we’re short one.”

Very deliberately, Joe said, “I am a Jew. Let me complete your minyan.” Then without waiting for their response, he became plaintive: “Please,” he begged, “Let me say the Kaddish.”

Needless to say, Rabbi Gifter and his students agreed.

Joe put down his mop, moved to the center of the room, and took a deep breath. “Yisgadal v’yiskadash...” His voice trailed off, for he did not know the Aramaic by heart. So Rabbi Gifter coached him through every word and he and the students responded at all the appropriate times.

At the end of Kaddish, Joe cried.

He dried his eyes, then told his story.

“As you can see, I am not a completely ignorant Jew. I was brought up practicing. But as a young man I rebelled against my parents, especially my father, and stopped being observant. This caused an even bigger fight with my father and we didn’t speak for nine years until he died. I didn’t even go to his funeral last week.

“But last night I dreamed about my father. In my dream he spoke to me and said, ‘Yosaif, I know you’re angry at me! You didn’t even come to my funeral! But you must say Kaddish for me! You’re my only son!’

“In my dream I said back to him, ‘But how can I do that, I don’t know the words, and anyway you need a minyan!’

“He said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you a minyan. Tomorrow!’ And then I woke up. And then the next day, that’s today, the nine of you show up, Heaven sent!”

Yosaif cried again.

Rabbi Gifter then told him their side of the story, about the wedding and the storm. “You see,” he said to the students as much as to Joe, “that literally nothing happens by chance. Not the wedding, not the nine invitations, not the snowstorm. Someone is looking out for you!”

Joe didn’t take much persuading to find a local minyan and continue saying Kaddish for his father for the duration of the eleven months, and on the annual Yarzeit thereafter.

For your table – Have you ever felt that events in your life were being orchestrated or that you were being tested?

Shabbat Shalom.

PS – if you would like to arrange Kaddish for a parent or other loved one, almost any yeshiva that has a daily minyan will make sure that it is said on your behalf in exchange for a small donation.


PPS - If you have smart phone, and don't yet have the Amazing Jewish app, please click here to see what you're missing....