RUSHING TO AIRPORT

I was running too late to take the train to Ben-Gurion Airport so we ordered a “Gett” (Uber in Israel) taxi. This taxi driver was vocal and passionate, and angry at the Israeli government for endangering its troops to safeguard Gazan civilians, he said they all support Hamas anyways, just bomb it all from the top he said!

MEETING PEOPLE ON LINE

As is my way I tried conversing with fellow travelers on the check-in and security lines. I met a man named Tulle with an unusual traveling case who said he is the creator of the Kadabra wooden digital instrument. I met a group of friendly young Australians returning from spending their “holiday” winter vacation volunteering in Israel.

MY FLIGHT SEATMATES

I really wanted that aisle seat and chose it purposefully ahead of time. But a woman was sitting there. She asked if I could switch, so I did, which landed me the middle seat. Turns out the window seat fellow was quite an interesting guy, who flew for forty years for the Israeli Air-Force. The good news for me is that he disappeared for a few hours (which allowed me to sleep leaning into his seat!) as he was invited back into the cockpit, as the pilot of our airplane was a students of his, trained by him years earlier. My neighbor aboard this El-Al flight was a test pilot and later flight instructor (and maybe some things he wouldn’t tell me) for the Israeli Air Force for decades, and he’s still at it!

The woman didn’t say much most of the flight, but she was fidgety and anxious, maybe a tad difficult. I really tried to make as much room as I could for her. At the end of the flight she thanked me in Hebrew for switching. She said she was in accident 10 months ago, and is flying to New York to give thanks to the Rebbe (at the Ohel) for his blessings in her healing. Hard to know what people are dealing with and up against.

When we landed in JFK and got through customs, there was a long wait for the luggage to come, so there was time to meet some more people. An Israeli living in the Upper West Side who finally went back for a month visit. A GAP Year student who did a tech internship along with studying tractates Makkot and Megillah (two very different styles if I may say). A boy from Queens who studied this year in Israel. And a Yeshiva administrator from Queens who spent 3 weeks in Israel with his wife and six children.

But there was one Chassidic fellow, a red-bearded Jew with long coat and plush black hat who engaged with me both before the flight and afterwards. He was quite intrigued in my engaging random fellow travelers. especially how to see and appreciate Jewish values and ideals even in people who did not seem to be observant or overtly religious. The one that really took the cake for him was at the end, when an Israeli fellow who approached me as I pulled out with my luggage asking me if I knew “Rabbi Yossi from Knoxville”? Of course, I do, he was my Yeshiva classmate! The Chassid was amazed at this secular Israelis interest in a rabbi, and how I knew him like that!

COMING HOME

Raizy picked me up at the airport. Was so so good to see her. We drove to Rebbe’s Ohel before heading home to Albany.

So much work to come home to, but also so much to come back with.