FINDING TORAH AND INSPIRATION IN ADVERSITY
My wife and I, along with several other people from our community, traveled to Israel recently for a wedding. Most of the people reading this essay have heard all or parts of the story of this trip/adventure. The war with Iran broke out. Our eight-day trip became eighteen days. The wedding almost did not happen. Events surrounding the wedding had to be cancelled. In short, it could have been a complete disaster.
But it wasn’t really a disaster; it became something really special. We got to see how good people can be. We got to see how Torah- based values, brought to bear in real situations, can move and inspire good people. Sure, being awakened by air-raid sirens at two AM, or having Shabbat dinner interrupted by the sirens, can be frightening and disorienting. Yes, having one’s flight cancelled and not being sure when you can go home is worrisome and disconcerting, to say the least. I will not try to downplay the difficulties and angst this all caused, but I will try to highlight the goodness that made this trip a net positive experience, by far.
When a nearby town, Bat Yam, was hit by Iranian missiles the Hotels in Tel Aviv opened their doors to the newly created refugees. Displaced Israelis have a place to stay and food to eat. What we witnessed was an act of whole-hearted charity, true Tzedakah when it was needed. One night we found ourselves in a safe room in our hotel. In the room were my wife and I and a group of young women who worked in the hotel. There was no furniture, and we were all leaning against the walls or sitting on the hard floor. All-of-a-sudden, two of the young women disappeared into the service elevator that ran by the safe rooms and reappeared moments later with chairs for us two senior citizens, an act of pure kindness for which we are still grateful.
When it appeared that the wedding, scheduled for a large facility near Tel Aviv, would have to be postponed due both to the danger from the missiles and the ban on large gatherings we, the guests, were disappointed and I can only believe the bride and groom were devastated. However, the wedding happened, though a bit differently than planned. In an act of real hachnasat kallah, kindness to a bride, the shul community of her parents got together and made a wedding happen. They said “we have a chatan and Kallah, a shul, a chuppah and a social hall for a festive dinner. We have to have a wedding.” So, the wedding took place in Netanya, the guests took a hired van from Tel Aviv to attend the wedding (with the proviso that we had to leave in time to get back to Tel Aviv before dark). Even though the ceremony was interrupted by air-raid sirens and there was a hot sweaty forty-five minute break, and the festive meal was pizza, there was an air of so much happiness and love in the room that you could have walked on it and it was a joyous event because a community stepped up and did the right thing.
We were also fortunate and delighted to experience many examples of hachnasat or’chim, kindness to travelers. To begin with, once the shut-down of transportation began, our travel agent, and dear friend Lisa, who was part of our party, diligently stayed on top of developments and kept us well informed of opportunities to register with the US State Department and with EL AL for emergency assistance when and if it became available. She even just registered us herself a couple of times instead of leaving that task to us. We are indebted to her for her caring and diligence. She, indeed, went above and beyond in observing the dictum to be fair and diligent in earning one’s living.
Living in a hotel in Tel Aviv was becoming a strain and as that became apparent to our friend Paulette Woolf, the mother of the bride, she contacted neighbors in her building in Natanya, whom she knew were away, to ask if two couples could use their apartment. The couple readily agreed, and Paulette drove from Natanya to Tel Aviv, loaded the four of us and our luggage into her car and drove us back up. She and David gave us the code to the electronic lock on their door and told us we were family and to come and go as if their apartment was home. David and Paulette provided breakfast every morning and made sure we were invited to a Shabbat lunch/sheva brachot being hosted by friends. They even took me to the ER when a cut I sustained became infected, David stayed to be my translator, and they took me to a pharmacy to get a prescription filled. This was Bikor Cholim in spades.
I could go on, but I think I have made my points. In times of adversity good people can, and do, rise to the occasion in order to alleviate other people’s stress, anxiety, and difficulty, and, in the case of so many of the people who helped us, it was moral values, taught by faith, that helped motivate them. Faith and Torah may not be the only sources of morality, but they can be, an are, very strong influences.
There were other good things that came out of the extension of our stay in Israel. We got to spend a lot of delightful time with a cousin and his wife whom I rarely get to see. We were able to get to Jerusalem and pray at the Kotel. We were simply able to spend more quality time with dear friends. As I wrote earlier in this piece, the trip was by far a net positive experience because of the kindness of people and because of our choice to make lemonade (and a lemon-merengue pie) when we were handed a bag of lemons.
